The HBO-COERCE Halo PC server is BACK! The new IP address has been added to the top of this page, for status checks. It’s hard to tell, yet, but I’m guessing there’s a new mapcycle, as well. Go play!

The HUDless screenfest goes on. zarrel40 put up a few (one with a pretty cool transposition of the Threshold hologram), and MereCatfish continues his own posting spree. Nice stuff!

The next Halo-related round of the Gamespy Title Fight starts today at noon, PST; Halo goes up against Quake in The Abandoned Base bracket. (The winner faces TIE Fighter, Super Metroid, or GoldenEye 007 – that last a game beaten soundly by Halo in round 1, but back with an extra life.) Don’t forget to vote!

MC117- has posted a note in our forum about a 2D game he’s working on. There’s a screenshot up at Halomods, if you’re interested in providing feedback.

Sector 7 has posted a couple of items they wanted us to mention: there’s an article on the expansion of the Halo universe (via books and fan creations), and there’s a ‘comic parody‘ section, in which popular Halo comics are spoofed. Take a look!

Halo Universe is giving away a new Xbox crystal edition (PAL format), 2 controllers, and a copy of Halo. You need to answer three questions, and mail them to the address listed in this contest webpage. Because the content is an image, and so is not translatable by web translation resources without a lot of transcription work, we’ll post the English translation of the questions here (sent to us by Halo Universe):

1. Who is responsible for the soundtrack of Halo and Halo 2?
2. Who writes the german version of “Halo – The Fall of Reach”?
3. What age is No. 117 when he was conscripted into the SPARTAN II project?

Go visit the link, answer the question, and who knows – you might win! Closing date is April 4.

Mrs. Doublefire has posted new screens of his Halo 2 Battle Rifle, reproduced for Halo PC. Very, very nice. Thanks to Devin for the heads-up.

Sedgr has posted a small app that can more easily build init.txt files for Halo PC dedicated servers. It requires .Net to run. A link is here, in our forum; some screenshots were put up on Gearbox’s forum. I had some problems actually SAVING the file (apparently, my .Net configuration disabled that particular function in this app)… but it SEEMS useful. Take a look! Update: turns out my problem was due to the fact that I wasn’t running it on a local drive. If you have a .NET-related problem, try ensuring that the application is running locally. Works very nicely!

That Weasel Television is running a new poll – who’s your favorite Red vs Blue character? Stop by and vote!

Calvin and Halo looks at Christmas disappointments, and why Bungie will rule the world one day.

Red vs Blue has put up a promo for the SXSW Film Festival, which they attended on Sunday night. It’s pretty funny… and it’s Sponsors-only. If you gave ’em some cash, go check it out! (Thanks goes to Ross Mills, who pointed it out on our forum.)

It’s music day as far as Halo is concerned! Rampancy Net posted a 12-page transcription of Enough Dead Heroes (from the Halo Soundtrack), put together by Spencer “Poop Scoop” Anunsen, and we received a guitar tab of the Opening theme of Halo, created by XvShadow. Grab ’em both, and get to playing!

SESpider has sent along Page 18 of his Miniature Halo comic… and things are looking dire for the Chief. Will he make it out alive?

Please – to the dozens of people sending us links to the hi-res scan of the latest OXM issue (with the new ‘Snowblind’ screenshot): our policy is exactly the same as it always was. We do NOT post images from, or links to, scans from magazine issues that are still on the newsstands. In this case, they’re not even on the newsstands yet; the issue doesn’t officially come out for a few days. Folks putting up scans are subscribers, who get the magazine early. Please don’t take money out of the pockets of magazine creators; do it enough, and there won’t BE any more magazines to scan. Bungie will be releasing a hi-res version of that picture on their website as soon as the latest issue of OXM is on the shelves… please, please be patient.

The HUDless Screen Parade goes on. MereCatfish has submitted his own collection (along with a short movie of a teamkilling Gold Elite, who eventually commits suicide in remorse) to our forum, here.

XLNC continues his mad HUDless screenshot posting rampage, this time focusing on multiplayer action. There are some GORGEOUS shots in here. Browse away.

synide is starting up a new venture: haloTV. He intends to stream Halo videos 24/7 via winamp, eventually including big Halo matches shown live. For now, he’s looking for suggestions for movies to include in the rotation. Add your thoughts to this thread.

One One Se7en looks at the potential hazards of wielding more than one gun at a time.

Halo: Resolution gets stranger and stranger… who knew what 343GS got up to in his spare time?

Bizarre find by Richard Watkins – in a speech Steve Ballmer made last fall at the Gartner Fall Symposium 2003 (it was the Microsoft Office System 2003 Launch), he said

We’re working on the next version — I hate to tell you this confidentially but I’ll have to swear you to secrecy now — we’re working on the next version of Xbox right now and we’re working on Halo 2 and Halo 3, the two newest versions of the game.

Now – remember, this is Microsoft’s CEO; he probably doesn’t spend a lot of time keeping track of projects that are several years out. And Bungie themselves have said that it’s not certain that there will even BE a Halo 3 yet. And even if they WERE planning on a Halo 3, the chances that they were already into development on it last October (when the vast majority of the office was working on Halo 2, and the few remaining people were dealing with the very recent release of Halo PC and the problems it had at launch) are pretty slim. Given all this, the usual ‘if it doesn’t come from Bungie, don’t believe it’ caveats apply here… but it is interesting that Ballmer would make a statement like that at all.