Omniscient takes a break from writing Fan Fiction to send in a new desktop image for our Wallpaper collection. Nice artwork, and nice sentiment!

JoKeR has finished up the basic outline of his Halo Marine model – he’s still tweaking, but it’s mostly done. It’s based on the old-style Marine, not the new… but it’s pretty slick in any case.) Check it out in our Miscellaneous Art section.

Thanks to Ruzhyo, who pointed out a new poll at IGN Xbox – What game are you most excited about? (Based on recent information, of course…) Halo is currently well in the lead… if you haven’t voted, go make sure it stays there!

Acidburn sends word that we’ve been lax about mentioning Bungie.de, a German Bungie fansite (the Halo section is the only part online at the moment). There was a news mention a few months ago (they’d mirrored a Halo movie in July), but we apologize for not paying more attention to the rest of the site. Go take a look!

Marty to win that new Game Music Grammy? Matt says it could happen and it couldn’t happen to a nicer old fella. Matt also says there are several new pieces of Halo Swag in development for the revitalized Bungie Store. Go, Go, Go!

TeamXbox.com to ride again! Thanks to the support of EBgames.com TeamXbox is due to make a comeback. Check their site for more info. Thanks to tarehart for the heads up.

Bob don’t drive! According to an Xbox IGN article on the driving aspects of Halo the NPCs don’t drive. Here’s the beef:

But if you decide that you’re NPC gunner isn’t getting the job done and you’re in a place where you can afford to be stationary, you, as the Mark V Master Chief, can hop out of the driver’s seat, hit the X button to kindly ask your Marine buddy to move and take over the turret yourself. Same thing if you decide to take over the passenger seat yourself and ride shotgun. The catch is, the NPCs don’t drive, and really as talented as they are, you wouldn’t want them to. So they simply stand next to the Jeep and watch you get busy.

I don’t think I’ll be the only person disappointed by this if true. Thanks to Harry “Could drive but isn’t allowed to” Al-Shakarchi for the heads up earlier this morning.

Kudos to Blizzard for spotting eight new Halo movies over at IGN. Check his forum post for the details. UPDATE Charles D. Clifford noted these movies first on our forum. Sorry Charles.

The monastery is calling, and I must leave you… but before I go, I’d like to point out one other post on our forum – this one from Chris Butcher, who programmed a lot of the AI in Halo. He explains a bit about how the other soldiers will respond with respect to you, and how you can use their programming to the best advantage. Worth a read! Pax. Updated: Sorry this post was in error for so long; everyone else seems to have flown the coop. The post in question is here. -CZ

While I’m here… Matt Soell cleared up the mystery of the bizarre box art:

That was Microsoft’s first stab at box art, before Lorraine stepped in and did some stabbing of her own.

Ahh… THAT makes more sense. Thanks, Matt! Pax.

Just a quick note to let our readers know – Louis is out of town for the next day or so. There MAY be updates from the rest of us… but I wouldn’t count on it. (Most of us are pretty lazy these days – blame Louis for that.) If there’s absolutely critical Halo news, post it in the forum; hopefully most of our viewers will see it there. Pax.

TeamXbox dies! Yes folks. Sad news indeed. But unlike bungie.org which is back by millionaire Louis Wu TeamXbox enjoyed no such luxury. Kudos to Gary Coleman for the heads up on this sad day!

Huh? Take a look at this page, see if anything strikes you as… odd. If not (either because they’ve changed it, or because… well, because, check this local page.) Thanks to Harry “I live for ChibiToys” Al-Shakarchi for the heads-up!

Justin Brimm sends in an updated version of his rust-colored Halo logo – recolored and larger. You’ll find it in our Logos section.

Joseph Staten stopped in to rag on Marty’s anility, and to second Marty’s suggestion that you ignore (if you can) the Gamespot movies, to keep from becoming jaded. He also, almost as an aside, passed along the tidbit that the Certification that Microsoft is putting Halo through at the moment is a two-week process… so that Gold Master isn’t as close as we thought. Hmm… two weeks… started on the 16th, or so… that means assuming no problems, they’ve got just over two weeks for manufacturing and distribution of at least 350,000 DVDs. Wow. (That number, btw, came from Ed Fries’ estimation that 70% of Xbox preorders include Halo, coupled with a WAG of 500,000 units available at launch.)

The Ancient One Speaketh: Marty O’Donnell stopped in this evening to discover the Gamespot movies for the first time… and his words to Halo fans: RUN AND DON’T LOOK BACK. Don’t watch these movies, sez Marty… and Marty has a decent argument. Go read it.

Thanks to Korrupt, who has made the two largest Gamespot movies available on a personal server – these are numbers 1 and 5, and weigh in at 40 and 24 megs respectively. If you’re having trouble with Gamespot’s servers, give this a try!

Thanks to Harry Al-Shakarchi – seems Microsoft has started a bunch of new Usenet news groups, including microsoft.public.xbox.halo. Doesn’t show up yet on my server… but I’ll keep looking! Update: Thanks again to Harry “I’m planning to infiltrate every news post today” Al-Shakarchi, who noted that you can use Microsoft’s news server to see this group. Not a lot there yet…

For those on slower connections, we’ve thrown up a page of screen captures from the movies. They’re predominantly taken from the intro movie and the cutscene, since the PoA level was already shown quite nicely in the Staten/O’Donnell discussion video a few weeks ago. They’re dark because… well, the movies are dark. 🙂 Enjoy!

B-Sharp noticed that the captain of the Pillar of Autumn has a Marathon symbol on his chest. Matches the one outside the ship nicely… While we’re here, does anyone else think that the captain and Joe Staten could have made it into Spy Magazine’s Separated at Birth column?



Just curious… Update: TomeOne did a little enlarging and clarifying, and ended up with this.