Over at Wideloadgames.org, the second half of the Glenda Adams interview has been posted. (We mentioned part 1 last week.) Lots of good technical info on why some of the choices that got made went the way they did; I find it amusing that PC retailers are STILL unwilling to go with a DVD-only SKU, even when the game itself requires a top-end, brand-new video card and other hefty hardware requirements. (How many of you have bought a high-end PC in the last year or so that DIDN’T have a DVD drive in it?) A good read – if you’ve got the hardware, this game looks to be pretty slick on a PC or Mac! And for those unhappy with what ISN’T shipping in the PC versions, take heart in this comment:

We have a lot of things (including co-op) we’d like to put into updates after we ship, so Stubbs PC/Mac will definitely not be a game that is released and forgotten.

Thanks to the Battle Cat for the heads-up.

Stuntmutt continues to obsess about Spartan 458 in today’s One One Se7en. I wanted to high-five Cortana at the end of this one.

Wow. I looked on Wednesday, and there were only 3 stories in the Fan Fiction queue. This morning… there were 17. Busy Thursday, I guess! Go read.

The official film selections for the 2005 Machinima Film Festival were posted yesterday – and nominations for the awards themselves went up on Wednesday. There are a LOT of familiar names in there… on both lists. Go check ’em out! The Awards Ceremony will be held in Astoria, NY on November 12 – good luck to all! Thanks to Z for the heads-up.

Halo Babies has put up a Halloween-themed strip today… I’m LOVING it. Go read!

A couple of bits of site news… the forum thread started yesterday, discussing the merits of keeping the original voice actors for many of the Halo roles, has garnered quite a bit of attention (including some from a couple of the voice actors themselves); the thread is almost 200 posts long, and a large percentage are on-topic. Most respondents (though not all) seem to want Master Chief’s helmet to stay on… and most respondents (though, again, not all) want the original voice actors to reenact their roles in the movie. Have you made YOUR opinion known? And the Blow Me Away auction, now just 19 hours old, has already collected more than 60,000 pageviews and more than $5500 in bids. You guys ROCK!

Halo Podcast Morning, I guess – Halo Nation has posted their newest ‘cast, called ‘HALO-ween Special’. Go listen!

Podtacular Ep 19 went live yesterday – it covers Waterworks. Apologies to Foo Mo Jive, who sent mail early, but got buried in the auction work. Go listen!

Mat Noguchi gave a studio tour to Scobelizer, of Channel 9 – it’s pretty heavy on the geek side of Mat’s job (and Halo development in general), but for those who like that stuff, it’s pretty interesting. Vid is tiny, but quite watchable. Thanks to Mat, who was FIRST!!, and to Odyon, who noticed it on Scobelizer’s blog. Format is streaming WMP9 (ugh).

It’s been in the planning stages for a long time – but it’s finally here! “Blow Me Away“, the charity auction to benefit hurricane victims, supplied by Bungie (and a couple of generous fans) and administered by us, is finally on! The first item is already available at eBay. Subsequent items will be added every few minutes (this will give people time to move from one to the next at the OTHER end, as auctions are closing), so be sure to keep checking back on our auction page. There’s some truly droolworthy stuff in there for hardcore Bungie fans… dig deep!

Theo Prins has sent along another piece of art. He calls it ‘Marine’. He says it’s not DIRECTLY from Halo… I’m loving the light, though.

3Suns points out a new batch of Video on Demand footage available at MLGPro.com – 1v1 footage from MLG LA. There’s also a note explaining that Tekken 5 tournaments will be discontinued… and that the money remaining in the Tekken 5 pool (nearly $20,000) will be redistributed to Halo and Super Smash Brothers tourneys. Nice! (If you haven’t been by in a while, give the MLG Atlanta (Halo 50k4) info page a read… it’s coming at the end of November.

5 months ago, the Halo movie was confirmed to be a reality, and since then, there’s been a little information, a lot of speculation, and even some silliness – but one thing that we really know nothing about yet is who will be acting. Halo stands in a unique position with respect to a crossover between game acting and movie acting… how will it be remembered? I’ve posted some thoughts on our forum… give ’em a read, and chime in with your own!

Tempus Fugit pointed out an article at TeamXbox – Tecmo and Bungie formally announced the inclusion of Spartan 458 in Dead or Alive 4. (Yeah, we’ve all seen screenshots… but, well… Frankie put it best in this post.)

A couple of weeks ago, PraetoriaGuard posted their fourth comedy montage – this morning, it was submitted to the Movie Peer Review Rating System. They don’t need hosting… but all that’s available on their site is a high-res WMP9 that weighs in at 121 mb, and a lower-res version that weighs in at 36 mb (but is SERIOUSLY over-compressed, with an odd aspect ratio). We’re offering you a hi-res QuickTime, as well (640×480, 122 mb), and both a medium-res WMP9 (480×360, 52.9 mb) and a medium-res QuickTime (480×360, 55.4 mb). If you haven’t seen this yet, grab a copy now; it’s chock-full of funny skits, nicely filmed.

2old2play has put up 2old2type episode 11, their latest podcast. Discussion of their tournament software, lan info, speculation about Halo 1 on the Xbox360, and more. Just under an hour long, 25 mb, mp3 format. Go grab a copy! Thanks, DSmooth.

Stuntmutt continues his adulation of Spartan 458 in today’s One One Se7en. Poor 458…

Broken Console has released episode 8 of The Squadron, in both WMP9 (21 mb) and QuickTime (19 mb) formats. Turf’s in some serious trouble… go watch! As usual, high-quality cinematography, audio, the works.

On our forum, Skie pointed out a post on Shacknews – musician Henning Pauly is also a videogame fan, and two of the songs on his most recent album are videogame-related (including one called “Halo”). He was asked for a snippet for the Shacknews crowd – and Pauly obliged with a 7 minute piece that contains some of ‘Halo’, almost all of ‘I Like My Video Games’, and intros for Shackers. Go listen!

Over on Bungie.net, you’ll find a writeup of the most recent Halo Humpday Challenge… the Bungie guys took on the Halo 2 Test Team. Ooh… what a mistake. They got pummeled. Frankie’s writeup is funny… when you’re not crying for how badly they got spanked. Thanks to Stuntmutt for the heads-up.