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.

The Gamesome Mac, a Mac-centric internet radio site, will be interviewing Peter Tamte, head of Destineer, and Marty O’Donnell, audio director for Bungie, about Mac Halo (among other things) this Monday, at 6pm Pacific time (9pm Eastern, 2 am Tuesday UTC). It’ll be a two hour show… stop by for streaming quicktime!

MDH has posted a mod for the Halo PC demo, over at Halo Center. It replaces the Banshee with a Scorpion tank, and makes a lot of the guns stronger. It’s a 5.4 mb download.

It seems that IGN is reposting all the wallpapers you can find on Bungie’s Tru7h and Reconciliation site. Not sure why you wouldn’t just go to the source… but enough people are pointing it out to us that I thought I’d point it out to others.

Stuntmutt’s Sunday One One Se7en strip today shows why it’s a good thing he’s not competing in the Plinth of Art contest… he’d sweep it. Or we’d hang him. I can’t figure out which.

MR-T pointed out an interesting thread over at HaloMods – some fun MC renders, suitable for Wallpaper. Check ’em out!

Wow. Yesterday was spent at a Halo lanfest in New York, hosted by the gracious Miguel Chavez at the Selkirk Gallery in Manhattan. I’m sure there’ll be some writeups soon, and nukedude got some pretty good video… but there’s a game I want to point out: it was team oddball, rockets, on Hang em High, with one ball and 15 minutes needed to win. The kill numbers were ASTOUNDING. Here was the screen I was playing on (40k) – and I’m adding this one because Jynx, the high kills guy, didn’t have enough balltime to make the first one. I’ll be slowly working my way through piled-up mail and forum stuff over the course of the day, in between Christmas preparations and dealing with the new snow… but I wanted to say that even though I didn’t get home until after 3:30… it was a blast. An absolute blast.

Captain Spark sent along what might be considered a sequel to a rather… interesting piece we posted last year. 975K, mp3 format. We take no responsibility for any side effects, including blindness.

Today’s Guest One One Se7en comes from 343GS, and might be considered to contain spoilers for the book Halo: First Strike. Of course, those considering that are… well, a bit overzealous. No novels were spoiled in the creation of this strip.

Just a quick update – about 500 people signed the Grunt Plushy petition since we posted a note yesterday… that’s good, but not good enough. If you haven’t signed, please do. Takes a few seconds, that’s all. If you’re worried about adding your email address because of fear of spam, their privacy policy clearly states that email addresses will not be used for solicitation purposes or sold to third parties. Let’s get this dream to be a reality!

13 pieces for you today in the Fan Fiction section:

• The Fallen: Halo 2- Chapter 6 Section 3: Claiming Territory, by Hikaru-119
• Task Force 168: The Silent Justice-Chapter One, by Blue Jaguar
• Closing with the Enemy Chapter 7 The Convoy, by monitor101
• A Conclusive History of the United Nations Space Command: Chapter One: Beginnings, by witelancer
• A Conclusive History of the United Nations Space Command: Chapter Two: The Colonial Period, by witelancer
• The Final War: Battle for Installation 02 [4:3], by Awacar
• Afternoon’s Twilight, by Mainevent
• Earth’s Destruction Chapter 6: Flying Solo Part One: Midair Melee, by Sentinel
• legion of Honor – part 1: Holding Si Bhet, by Brocktree
• I Feel Tired -MC Rap-, by AmokTheClown
• His Last Mission(Add on to Appocalypse), by FF Echo
• Shadow Ops II: Chapter Two, by Agent Shade
• The Fallen: Finding MJOLNIR, by The_Feared

Remember, folks – this is Halo Fan Fiction. Please don’t post other stuff – no matter HOW good your intentions. Thanks.

In violation of all normal release policies (yes, they think this is important), Gearbox has released a patch at 9 pm (their time) on a Friday night – which means they’re gonna be working through the weekend to be sure this is okay. This patch is an attempt to fix the crashes many users have experienced since upgrading from 1.02. It’s roughly 4 mb, and is available via auto-update right now. Warning: This update will kill all your saved checkpoints. Players can still jump to the levels they’ve opened but any in-level saves are going to be lost.

The Cananimators are at it again. Just goes to show you… there’s no class requirement for employment at Bungie. They’ll let ANYONE in, provided they have useful skills.

Very cool. SketchFactor has posted scans of a couple of Holiday cards Bungie’s sent out in their Gallery. (The one labeled 2001 actually went out in BOTH 2000 and 2001, but who’s counting?) These are great fun… take a look.