Gamespy has posted the results of its 2003 Game of the Year Awards… and Halo took 6th in the top 10 PC Games. Not too shabby! (Thanks to Pico for pointing it out.)

Stuntmutt looks back on 100 strips of One One Se7en in strip 101 today…

Warbow’s back in the saddle, with the third Calvin and Halo in as many days. (Okay, okay, yesterday was a Guest strip…)

Guess who’s back in Halo: Resolution? Hehe – I’m not tellin’…

21 Fan Fiction pieces for you today:

• Jake A Model IV: Chapter One SSDD, by Slipping Knot (Who the Hell Tied This Thing?)
• One Last Bullet, by Walker
• An Even War: Part 1: Betrayal, by D4rgant
• The Doctor’s In, by Mainevent
• Tides of Destruction (part 2, Invasion), by teemus
• Battle for Tectron: Chapter 3, by Helljumper
• Small Price to Pay, by CoLd BlooDed
• Halo Cataclysm: Prelude , by Snake Solid 117
• IONCLAD: Second Prelude, by Capo Rip
• IONCLAD: Second Prelude (section 2), by Capo Rip
• IONCLAD: Second Prelude (section 3), by Capo Rip
• IONCLAD: Second Prelude (last section), by Capo Rip
• Marooned Chapter 8, by Steve Ollett
• Halo: Hunted-Part One, by Overwhelming Force
• An Even War: Part 2: Last Hope, by D4rgant
• Precious Soldiers, by Sergeant B
• Ship to Ship, by Steve
• They Have Come, by Sentinel
• Shadow Ops II: Chapter Five, by Agent Shade
• No Way Out: Part 3, by Arthur Wellesly
• In the Shadows of Darkness, by Mainevent

Lots of poems in this batch.

Apparently, Linkin Park visited Bungie last week… and someone was around to take pictures, because it got posted on Xbox.com. According to Evil Otto, a couple of them were at the Fanfest in Santa Monica last year, too. Thanks to cubanB for the heads-up.

Geek Patrol has put up a Halo Performance Review, with actual numbers, from a pair of macs (that pretty well bracket the quality range). Good info. Thanks to Plastic Chicken for the heads-up.

A couple of people have translated the German review – Wraith posted his translation on our forum, and I added a second sent in via email from The Dark One to the thread. Check ’em both out!

A new Halo 2 shirt is available from the Bungie store – pretty simple, pretty nice! Thanks to Sledgefare for the heads-up.

Halo Universe has posted a preview of Halo 2 – in German. If you read German… go visit!

Yesterday, Warbow resurrected the Calvin and Halo strip to take a shot at Stuntmutt. (Stuntmutt returned fire, by the way.) Today, we have the first and last Calvin and Halo guest strip for you – Warbow’s decided to let this one through, but it ain’t gonna happen again. Enjoy it!

Gutupio has posted a NEW puzzle on our forum; it’s self-enclosed. (That is, the puzzle is the post itself.) Prize is a Grunt Plushy (if enough people have signed the petition to convince Microsoft to market them – currently, there are 1752 signatures, can we break 2000?), or street cred if they don’t get made. Warning – it’s non-trivial.

Today’s Guest One One Se7en comes from Mr. Chubigans, and looks at a side of the Master Chief we haven’t seen much of. (Thank Goodness.)

A Halo review on Game Chronicles today… 8.8/10, with downgrades for the ‘staggering system requirements’. Not a bad read. Thanks, Blue’s News (via Ash).

We got word from mrsmiley that Halo Babies is offline until the 22nd; they went through too much bandwidth, too fast. He did want to assure everyone that they’ll be moving soon, and the bandwidth problems will go away!

Okay, so this one’s WEIRD. Late last week, we got mail from Billy Oliva, talking about a bizarre glitch in Truth and Reconciliation (the third campaign level). Right after entering the ship, he came across a stack (literally) of covenant, piled up against a door, waiting to attack. he sent screenshots… but they were small, and not great, quality-wise. I held off, because I wanted to see if I could reproduce this. 24 hours later, we received ANOTHER mail, this time from AfroRyan, claiming to have found the same thing, in the same place. I was really suspicious, because not only did he send similar pictures, but they were the same (non-standard) size, and with the same filenames as those sent by Billy. (Afro, I apologize for not believing you. 🙂 ) Then, 24 hours later, Ben Roth posted pictures he found on the Gearbox forums, showing THE SAME THING. Both Billy and AfroRyan sent in saved games… but it took me until today to find time to reinstall 1.03 (1.031 hosed saved games, so I couldn’t use them). I made films from both saves – but the one you’ll see came from AfroRyan’s save, because he had TWO piles of baddies, not just one. I took much more footage than can be seen in this film… but most of it is useless; if you get too close to the piles, framerates drop into the low single digits, you can’t tell you’ve thrown grenades until they explode (usually ON you), and there’s no way to manouver. The save I was given was on Easy – you’ll see why that’s a GOOD thing after you watch the movie. Here’s the movie; 45 seconds worth, enough to show you some out-there piles o’ baddies. It’s QuickTime format, 640×480 (so you have a good view), and weighs in at just over 10 mb. You can also grab AfroRyan’s profile (with the savepoint inside) – 2.1 mb – if you want to play with it yourself. (You MUST work with HPC 1.03, not 1.031, to use this. Drop the unzipped folder into your savegames folder, and you’re set to go.) Thanks to both these guys – Billy was first with the notice, but again, his bucket-o-covies was smaller, so I didn’t use it. I’m guessing something was accidentally changed during the 1.03 patch development process… because I saw no reports of ANYTHING like this before now.

XLNC once again rocks the Casbah with some spectacular screenshots; he got somewhat creative with the hacking, and the end results are simply stunning. Check ’em out. (Who needs dev tools, anyway?)

I missed this last week… but Narcogen, over at Rampancy.net, has written the first of a multipart series about the Halo community. Coming as it does from a longtime Bungie fan and community leader, it’s an interesting read; newer fans might find it interesting to see where the ‘old guard’ is coming from. I’m looking foward to the next part!

Sippan (who posts as Vid Boi on our forum) wrote to tell us of a review of Mac Halo (in Swedish) at the Swedish news site MacNytt.se. 9/10, for those who don’t read Swedish.

rapture created a series of Christmas ornaments using One One Se7en characters a couple of weeks ago. It took a little while to get around to ’em… but then, my Christmas lights and tree aren’t up at my home, either. You’ll find them prominently linked in the the One One Se7en section until Christmas; pick the ones you want and print ’em out, hang ’em on your own tree!