Whoa. The Battlefield 1942 mod ‘Homefront’ (mentioned a few times in our news) is almost ready for release… and it’s looking pretty good! There’s a 36 mb movie (encoded with XVid) available for download, and some hi-res screenshots, all over at the Homefront site. (Thanks to Ross Mills for pointing it out on our forum.)

Press release is right here… but the bottom line is, the Macintosh version of Halo went into duplication late Friday night, December 5th. It’ll be hitting store shelves soon! Mac owners… it’s time to see if you can keep up with your PC brethren.

Massive Halo Story update last night – apologies for overlooking it before now. Some serious information in this one – there’s more tying-together of disparate posts happening these days. Thanks, Finn!

Thanks to PC, who pointed out that gfunk, of Red vs Blue, has put up a note on the main page that he’ll be interviewed on a Santa Cruz radio station this morning at 10 am PST. (That’s 1 pm Eastern, or 6 pm UTC – 2.5 hours from now.) There’s a link to an online stream for anyone who wants to hear this.

SeeMePlayMe is hosting another online Halo tournament tonight; 2v2 team play, with a SMPM Gold Account in store for the winners. Be in the Halo lobby by 7 pm Central to join in!

sir_zyn posted a note on our forum this weekend about a 2d Halo project he and some friends have started. A screenshot is linked at the bottom of the post. Take a look, leave them input!

Rams, from Battleground: Halo, writes to say that they’ll be adding two new feature articles each week, on Mondays and Thursdays. They start off with Two Betrayals, dealing with the team-killing problem in Halo PC. They’ve also organized the existing collection of articles already on the site. Finally, they’re accepting guest articles if anyone would like to share their views on Halo, the Halo community, or any fan creations.

Yes, we released over 30 new One One Se7en strips to the Archive today… but that doesn’t mean the standard collections stand still. Stuntmutt created a new Sunday Strip and even introduced a new character – maybe we need to rename this website?

Light weekend reading – just 13 stories today in the Fan Fiction section:

• Manors Maketh Man: Part 1, by S7N
• MSOG: Chapter 5: Surprises and Plans, by Sprtn117John
• The Trials of a Displaced Master Chief Chapter 1: Ritchie, by stan
• Appocalypse-Sector6, by FF Echo
• The Eve of Genesis, by Mainevent
• Earth’s Destruction Chapter 3: Glassed, by Sentinel
• The Covenant’s Double Entende, by BrutalArt
• Fight for New Tatley (Chapter 6: Airfield Arrival), by CoLd BlooDed
• Closing with the Enemy Chapter 6 Night Fighters, by monitor101
• Good vs. Evil: Prelude to a story, by rogue_spartan
• Ever Since They Came, by CoLd BlooDed
• Fall of Fate: Special Edition(Parts 1-2), by ‘Nosolee
• Warriors of Valor: Part 6: Is that a light at the end of the tunnel, or a train, by Ghost Sniper

Get to it – I’ve got to go shovel.

As promised, the One One Se7en Archive gets updated today… and a pretty massive update it is. 31 strips. Some came from the Guest queue voluntarily, some were moved there by the management, some are strips posted to our forum, and some have simply been submitted to the Archive. Six are from Stuntmutt himself. If you want to see just the 31 new ones, this link should do the trick – otherwise, browse the archive, and see if you can find inspiration for a Plinth of Art submission yourself!

Last year, Bungie.org ran the Pillar of Art contest, where we solicited traditional-media artwork from Bungie fanatics. With $500 in cash, plus oodles of schwag (and some pretty cool stuff straight from Bungie), we were assured of fierce competition. We brought out the best in people… but for some, the best wasn’t good enough. Never let it be said that bungie.org neglects the little guy. Introducing… The Plinth Of Art – the contest for the rest of us. All you have to do is come up with an art-themed One One Se7en strip, and you could be a winner! Full details, including rules, prizes, and deadlines, can be found on the Plinth page. Remember – it’s not how good you are, it’s how many people you can claw your way over.

Gamespy’s 2003 Gamers Choice poll is up and running, and Halo PC is a contender for PC Action Game of the Year and Overall PC Game of the Year. Go vote! (Thanks to Dinky for the heads-up.)

Today’s Guest One One Se7en comes from Jillybean, and once again makes fun of long waiting times for guest submissions. This seems to have been significantly reduced by the advent of the Archive, since Jilly didn’t expect this strip to show before the new year… still funny, though.

Yesterday, by request, I created a new pair of versions of the Inside Halo 2 video – they’re for Windows Media Player, and there’s a large version (640×480, 86.7 mb) and a small version (320×240, 26.4 mb). At the moment, they’re only available via Two Degrees peer-to-peer sharing. I just tested the small one out… and it was downloading at pretty much 100% capacity of my pipe. (Well, okay, to be accurate, it averaged out at 94% of my pipe’s full capacity over the length of the download… but let’s not nitpick, okay?) If you haven’t downloaded this file yet (maybe because QuickTime movies don’t work well for you), this is a great chance to try out this new protocol. Grab the client (it’s tiny, and linked above the movies), and get to downloading!

A post was put up on our forum this afternoon – it calls for fan feedback. There’s a documentary in production about Bungie and the making of Halo 2. It’s going to contain, among other things, profiles of Halo fans with something interesting to share. Folks who win Halo tournaments, folks who create cool artwork inspired by Halo, folks whose lives are changed by some aspect of the game. If this is you (or someone you know), check out the forum post, read the details, follow the instructions. Who knows – a few million people might end up watching your story!

Homelan Fed interviewed Burnie Burns of Red vs Blue yesterday. JCal mailed us about it, but I totally spaced on putting it up until Toby Dillman mentioned it on our forum. (oops…) It’s a great read, and I’m really, really sad I’m going to be in Florida when Season 2 debuts at the Lincoln Center in New York in January.

Marty O’Donnell offered a few words on our forum to express his feelings towards a recent awards ceremony he attended. I can’t tell for sure, but I think he was unhappy with the overall experience.

There’s a new episode of EchoFourNineteen over at 343gs.com (check the downloads section); I think all of us have felt the way the MC feels in this one, at one time or another… Thanks to IXIGhandiIXI for the heads-up.

It’s snowing hard here at HBO HQ, with four inches already on the ground and 24 hours of this storm to go… a fine time to curl up with a warm mug of cider and the Halo Story page. Make it a big mug… Finn put up a pretty big update.

rendar noticed that the Bungie Store seems to be selling the new, improved Special Edition Halo Soundtrack with the Halo 2 DVD. The link on Sumthing Else’s page STILL points to the original soundtrack at Amazon… so if you want this version, visit the store!