Finally, after dozens of man-years in development, the long-secret title from Bungie has been revealed!

Behold, the Quest for the Crown!

Yes, this is a spoof!

For those looking for a decent price on Halo PC, Best Buy currently has it on sale for $39.99; about $10 off its regular price. (Thanks, Opie.)

Battleground: Halo has posted an interview with PTM, of Halo Online. And stuff.

Lots and lots of links:

• UGS is expanding – vote for Halo
• Generals Halo Mod – C&C mod
• RF Halo Mod – Red Faction mod
• analytical delusionist – Halo 2 info
• PtO – Xbox Halo clan (LOUD)
• Halo 2-Hub – Halo 2 info

Whew – I’m sure I forgot a few, but that’s the bulk of recent ones.

new1nab113 stopped by our forum to mention a comic he’s created called Parasite. I keep remembering some advice my mother gave me…

A couple of movies folks asked us to tell you about: First, a movie that MereCatfish wanted us to announce a couple of weeks ago; we managed to miss the email. It’s called ‘Fun, Yet Useless’, and it’s a Halo PC glitch/stunt film – title pretty much covers it. It’s hosted by nukedude in WMP9 format (26.1 mb). (Apparently, there’s also a DivX version at www.blam-halo.co.uk… but the link passed on to me doesn’t work, and navigating the site directly turns up nothing.) A second movie comes from SpaceGhost2k, and is hosted by a buddy of his from the TeamXbox forums. it’s called ‘Halo Music Video‘, and weighs in at 50.6 mb in WMP9 format; it’s stock footage from the two Halo 2 movies (almost uncut), set to Queen’s ‘Another One Bites the Dust’. Um… okay.

Today’s Calvin and Halo strip was mentioned on our forum, sort of, last week. Having young children myself, I hardly find this funny. In fact, I may have to sue Warbow for the return of this twitch in my eye…

Ten Fan Fiction pieces today:

• Tel Amir, by Steve
• Forced Betrayal (Chapter 4: Vulnerable but Vital), by CoLd BlooDed
• On A Pale Horse: Frozen Typhoon, by Silent Hunter
• Air Force Wing: Part 2, The Assault, by teemus
• The Flood: A Force to be reckoned with (Part 6), by crashedwarthog
• In Chaos and Despair: Bellerophon 3, by Maraxus6
• Long Time Gone Part 10, by grylsy
• A Series of Weird Events – Sequel, Part Two[COLD BLOODED], by Hunter_Killer
• A Series of Wierd Events, Part Seven[H_K], by Hunter_Killer
• Athenienses-II: Chapter 5 : Secrets Within, by ZackDark

The load’s getting manageable…

Oops – forgot to post yesterday’s Halo: Resolution. Too much to do! Wait… maybe I’m just lagging…

Wow. Rapture posted a screen from a Halo PC game last Friday… this was about 5 hours in. That’s a LOT of kills.

There’s an interesting article on software piracy (and how it relates to Mac gaming) over on Yahoo news today. Peter Tamte participated in a round-table discussion on piracy, and reiterated that in the month since Mac Halo’s release, more people have stolen it than bought it. “From what we’ve been able to extrapolate, the lost sales are already in the millions.” This is pretty bad news for gamers in general; if a software company can’t make any money selling its product, it’s not going to MAKE any products… and there won’t be any games to pirate. (This argument has been scoffed at in the past – but in those days, pirated copies were a relatively small fraction of the total copies out there, not more than half the total.) Buried deep in the discussion is a nugget that might make some Mac gamers happy:

“Now that Halo is finished and has been updated to version 1.03, Tamte said that MacSoft is focused on bringing forth a demo version of Halo.”

This is good news for gamers who’ve been wanting to TRY Halo, but haven’t wanted to plunk down $50 to do so. Thanks to Sep7imus for noticing both the article, and the demo mention.

Yesterday, we mentioned that Circuit City is selling Halo for $19.99. kapowaz pointed out that Tesco, in Great Britain, has made it available for £19.99, as well; still more than the US price, but a significant markdown from its normal rate in GB. Never been a better time to buy Halo – on EITHER side of the Atlantic!

We’ve added last Friday’s Bungie Update (originally at Subnova) to our Frankie’s Bungie Updates database. There’s a small note over at Subnova explaining the problems this weekend; it was a hardware problem, not a network or software one. Here’s hoping it doesn’t happen again!

Rampancy.net has put up the second part of its ‘High Ping Bastard’s Guide to Halo‘ – this one focuses on Weapons. Again, there is information in here of value even to those on fast connections; lag in Halo PC is an unfortunate fact of life, and while it’s worse for dialup (or faraway) visitors, it’s present for ALL of us. Thanks to Narcogen for the heads-up (and for writing the article).

So the buildup to One One Se7en number 117 has been pretty big; last week’s (Stuntmutt-drawn) strips have all been teasers for it. Several people on our forum speculated that it would be tied, somehow, to the Plinth of Art announcement we made yesterday… but it was noted that main strips don’t come out on Sundays. (I was amused that the Sunday strip that DID comment on the Plinth of Art, and that preceded the 117th strip, was number 17… you just can’t get away from that stuff.) Anyway, the fact of the matter is, Stuntmutt DID go all out for this one. It’s a special 4-page comic; I’m pretty sure he takes the prize in ‘Halo on Legendary at Lightning Speed’. Go check it for yourself…

SESpider has sent along Page 13 of his Miniature Halo comic. Way cool the way weather in the comic tracks weather in the US in the present day…

Wow. XLNC continues to make hudless screens – and this time, they’re from a pretty amazing vantagepoint. Check ’em out on our forum!

In December, Halo’s price dropped to $29.99 – and a lot got sold. Konrad9 mentions that Circuit City is now selling them for $20 – might be a good time to buy! (It’s unknown how long this price will last.)