Quick update on the large movie we mentioned yesterday; looks like the ISP pulled it. The link we gave yields a 404 (file not found) error at the moment. Sorry…

Okay, I want to apologize. The Wallpaper backlog was getting ridiculous. In fact, it’s so big (in terms of number of images) that I can’t post them all at once. Every time I started to put together an update, I’d check the uploads folders and my email, and find another handful… and suddenly, I’d find something else to do. Well, it’s not going to get smaller unless I actually POST some of them, so I’m going to put up the first batch of 20. Submission dates range from November 20 through December 1. Some are awesome. There’ll be more tomorrow. Again, apologies.

Tobias Ivarsson has created a 25 minute long ode to Halo; the majority consists of Warthog Jumps and the like, but there are some interesting nuggets hidden away amongst the commonplace. It’s huge – a 156 mb MPEG, downloadable directly from Tobias’ server in Sweden… grab it if it sounds fun!

Last week, MacGamer gave away 5 copies of Halo in a Photoshop contest (Master Chief on vacation). Apparently, it was successful enough that they’re doing it again – this time, though, you need to put the Master Chief in a major Hollywood movie. Details (and last week’s winners) can be found on the Giveaway page. Congrats to all of them, espcially Patroclus (the second winner), because he pointed this new one out to us.

Major League Gaming has announced its next tournament; it’ll be held in Philadelphia, PA, on February 21-22, 2004. Halo is one of several titles that will be played, and there’ll be a minimum of $10,000 on the table for winners. Entry fee is $40 until December 27, $50 after that. Make it if you can!

The HBO Xmas Puzzle Carnage quiz has come to a close! c0ld vengeance posted the winners, and links to each quiz (for those who didn’t get far enough to see them all) in this forum post, though he’s not releasing solutions yet (because people are still playing).

Gamepro has reviewed the second wave of Halo action figures (to go with their review of the first wave); if you want to read about these puppies before you buy ’em, this is a good place. Thanks again to KP. Update: GAH! I feel terrible; we got word from Gamepro yesterday about this article, and I completely missed it. One bit of info that I overlooked was that they’re giving away an entire case of these figures – look for the contest link at the bottom of the article. I’ve really got to learn to read my email better.

The Grunt Plushy petition we mentioned a few days ago is now up to 1500 signatures. I think it’s clear that there’s some serious demand for this item… but just in case, if you haven’t signed it yet, GO DO SO! A grunt plushy, to have and to cuddle, to kick and and to pummel…

Today’s Guest One One Se7en is one I was pretty sure we’d added to the Archive during the last major update… but apparently not. c0ld vengeance looks at how long the Guest Queue really is…

One of the relevant snippets learned last night was that Westlake recently got hold of the 1.03 patch code for Halo, from Gearbox, and are busily at work creating the Mac patch. As soon as it’s finished, it’ll be available for download, allowing Mac users to connect to 1.03 servers. (Mac players can play online on any 1.02 servers right now, but can’t see 1.03 servers yet.) Tamte said that they haven’t decided whether they’re releasing a Mac server version yet… but that he didn’t see a huge use for one, given that there were so many PC servers out there.

As we mentioned a couple of days ago, Peter Tamte and Marty O’Donnell were interviewed by The Gamesome Mac last night. If you missed it, though, don’t fret – the streaming webcast will be up all week (and even after that, it’ll be available in their archives). They were good talks, with lots of information; Tamte, as head of a Mac software publisher, was obviously pretty focused on Mac-specific stuff… but Marty was more general. There were a pair of giveaways during the broadcast; I managed to win the first one (a copy of Mac Halo) by being fastest to reply with the number of days since Halo was originally announced (1609, now). I’ve already got a copy coming from Destineer for betatesting, so this one, we’ll give away in one of the contests coming up in January. When we have more details, we’ll let you know. In the meantime, go listen to these interviews!

You might recognize the name Justin Durban. In the past year or so, he’s put together some pretty impressive Halo music… and now there’s more. Just posted this morning on his website is a piece called ‘Halo – Master and Chief’, and here’s what Justin has to say about it:

Ahhh.. the sweet radar of the familar opening choral chant to HALO sparked my inspiration to do this track. Full of energy, no room to breath and hopefully glorifies the magnificance of this wonderful game. Thanks to my brother who helped me come up with the name. He was staring at this plaster cruise ship hanging above our fireplace at the time and reminded him of a Naval Sea battle based around Master and Commander. So.. ya. what a better name.. The main character to HALO is a soldier simply titled, “Master Chief”. I can’t wait for HALO 2! Original score by Marty O’Donnell.

You can now download this piece here (with Justin’s blessing), as well as from Edgen Animations – it’s a 3 mb mp3, and it’s beautiful. Thanks to Gre’Thor117 for the heads-up.

Gah – missed stuff. We got word this morning from Rams, over at Battleground: Halo, that there were two more articles posted today; the first was a review of First Strike (FULL of spoilers), and the other is a rambling look at Xbox vs PS2 gamers. I blame the lateness on KP.

Little bit o’ Fanfic this Monday – 19 in all, actually:

• Out of Phase 2, by BlackValkyire
• A Spartan’s Path-chapter 6, by Myth
• MAROONED Chapter 7, by Steve Ollett
• A Marine’s Life part 1, by Shadowfox
• Eldar Counsels Log Part 4 Ode to Joy: the Heavens are singing, by Blue Angel
• Halo 2: The Forgotten-Part Two, by draGUN_man03
• Tides of Destruction(Part 1, Incoming), by teemus
• Neverland: Answers for the Unasked Questions, by SOS.Odin
• The fall Of Cote d’Azur: Part 1, by thisdopeknows
• Shadow Ops II: Chapter Three, by Agent Shade
• Long Time Gone Part 7, by grylsy
• It’s My Time -MC Rap-, by AmokTheClown
• A Fighting Chance, by Howard the Duck
• A Conclusive History of the United Nations Space Command: Chapter Three, by witelancer
• Inferior and Proud, by CoLd BlooDed
• A Spartan’s Path – chapter 7, by Myth
• A Spartan’s Path – chapter 8, by Myth
• A Spartan’s Path – chapter 9, by Myth
• Battle for Tectron: Chapter 1- A Helljumpers story part 1, by Helljumper

Read, Read, Read! Stop makin’ love! (Wait…)

c0ld vengeance posted an update on the HBO Xmas Puzzle Carnage quiz today; there’ve been 2 winners, but there are still three prizes to be won. Will one of them be yours? (It’s been fun watching heads explode all weekend…)

There were no numbers, but we just received a press release from MacSoft that read, in part,

December 15, 2003

FIRST-DAY HALO SALES ARE MACSOFT’S HIGHEST IN FOUR YEARS

MINNEAPOLIS, MN — Destineer’s Macintosh unit MacSoft announces today that pre-orders and first-day sales of Bungie Studios’ Halo: Combat Evolved for Macintosh are higher than any other game MacSoft has published in over four years.

“Even though many resellers have stocked their shelves with far more units of Halo than any other recent Mac game, we’re still frequently hearing from stores who’ve said they’ve sold out of Halo in just a couple of hours,” according to MacSoft president Peter Tamte.

Looks like there might have been some pent-up demand there…

Break Point has put up a new movie called ‘0ddb@lls 0wn!1!!’ at BP Halo. It’s 2 minutes long, in WMP9 format, and available in two resolutions (which weigh in at 7 and 2.1 mb, respectively). It involves some bizarre model swapping. Read his forum post for details (and to leave feedback).

In preparation for Tuesday’s opening of the CPL Winter Event, MFA Video Productions has released a new 47 mb video showing the basics of Halo (weapons, vehicles, basic strategy). It’s aimed at folks who’ve never played before. It’s 47 mb, in WMP9 format, with a screensize of 512×384. You can find it on CPL’s home page at the moment.

Spelling quirks aside, today’s One One Se7en, in Dickens fashion, shows the MC a shadow of things that may be, only. There is still time to change.

I always knew those guys couldn’t be trusted… check out Halo: Resolution today.