Programerz points out that HaloSpy has been released; it’s a server browser/server monitor, and it shows you FULL STATS on the gametype. Very cool. Check out Halocity for details.

Thanks to Hamid Djangi, who pointed out a couple of review sites with lots of links we haven’t reported yet – all of the following came from GameRankings and Metacritic.

• New Zealand Herald (September 25)
• Maxim Online (September 25)
• ActiveGaming (October 1)
• Lawrence.com (October 2)
• IcronticGames (October 6)
• USA Today (October 8)
• Gaming Target (October 10)
• Gaming Nation (October 11)
• The Next Level (October 13)
• Cincinatti Inquirer (October 14)
• The Globe and Mail (October 14)
• Thunderbolt Games Online (October 14)
• GameOver (October 17)
• Gaming Age (October 21)
• The Discworld (October 22)
• PGNx Media (October 25)
• Computer Gaming World (October 27)
• Gaming Media (October 28)

Whew! That’s a lot.

Gonna be near Portland, Oregon in mid-January? Check out PDXLAN 2004 – both Xbox and PC Halo tourneys. Lots of prizes. Cost to get in is free-$2.00 depending on when you register. Thanks to Demented for the heads-up.

Hehe – goatrope figured out how to make the MC melee with no weapons. Okay, it’s just for show, but it’s still pretty cool looking. Check out this forum thread (more pics farther down, as well).

Stuntmutt is playing with fire in this week’s Sunday One One Se7en; the MC learned this the hard way.

Wonga. Took WAY too long (the last update was over a month ago), but the desktop backlog is FINALLY cleared. 19 new images (many with multiple sizes, many in BIZARRE sizes) can be found in the Wallpaper section. Enjoy!

Only 13 stories for you today in the Fan Fiction section…

• Are You Afraid? (rap), by Alpha Lance
• Spartans Of Darkness Part 2, by SpartanOmega
• A Marine Named Peters: Did you Hear Something?, by GLADIATRRR3000
• Plasma Burns and Bullet Shells-chapter 7, by Myth
• Retreat is…, by Mainevent
• Sons of Sparta VI, by SOS.Odin
• And now all hell will break loose Part 7, by metallicafan
• New Lunar HQ: Chapter 5/ Part 1, by Fleet Admiral
• A Spartan Named James- Part 4, by ZePHyR wRaiTH
• Red Fraction – A Halo Comedy, by Dispraiser
• Temporal Rift PART III: LOST IN SPACE, by Alexander_Valient
• Halo 2 Rise of a Hero, by CovieKilla
• Shadow Ops II: Nowhere to Run, Chapter Two, by Nemesis

Enjoy. News will be sparse for the rest of the day; I’m out.

Electronic Gaming Monthly has posted an interview with Ed Fries, about the past, present, and future of the Xbox. As could be expected, Halo (and Halo 2) figure prominently. Found this on Shacknews (thanks, Ash).

Halo reviews on Active Reviews (loved the soundtrack, disliked no music in gameplay, 4/5) and Futurelooks (8.5/10, unhappy with the AI and voice acting, thinks Halo might become an interesting alternative to Unreal “if the community gets big”). Hoo-kay. Thanks, Blue’s News.

One of my favorite Miscellaneous Art submitters is ZZoMBiE13 – he makes some incredible stuff. Well, he’s now submitted a Guest One One Se7en strip… and brought is inimitable style to that arena. (He gets away a bit from the normal visual style of the comic… but he’s spot on with content.) If you’re confused, it’s to do with the X03 screenshot released a few weeks ago – you can see it here.

Gamesradar.uk has put up a pretty massive article called ‘The Making of… Halo‘. It’s a fascinating look behind the scenes – what made it in, what didn’t, and in some cases, why. This is a web version of the Edge Magazine feature ‘The Making of…’ – maybe the January 2004 issue (out in the UK in about 3 weeks). Jaime Griesemer talks quite a bit about how some decisions were made, and even Marty O’Donnell gives away a secret or two:

“And that melee attack sound on the back of a Hunter – gabonk? Think watermelon wrapped in tin foil, and a baseball bat.”

Fantastic writing, and a great recap of what makes Halo the addictive masterpiece it is. Thanks to Xzzy for the heads-up!

Halo links sent to us in the past few days:

• Cracked Visor – Xbox Halo clan
• Master-Chief.net – Halo forum
• Icegames – Movies, pics (I enjoyed Faint)
• Black Death Squad – Halo PC clan
• Vector Squad – Halo PC clan
• Factor VIII Contingency – Multigame clan (including Halo)

Couple of notes: Black Death Squad has a news item, dated last week, that says that they’re using us to host their movies. News to me. Also, the mail about Factor VIII Contingency came in a couple of weeks ago – somehow I missed it completely (it turned up as I was closing windows). And lastly – for all the people who write and ask us why we don’t actually ADD these links to the Links page – we’re way behind. There are (literally) dozens mentioned in the news that haven’t been posted; nobody’s taken the time to go through and catalog them. Simple as that.

Gamers Europe reviewed Halo (8/10). They were pretty unhappy with it (“in terms of a port, this is pretty poor”), but the last sentence left me scratching my head:

It’s hard to recommend if you’ve not played it before, but if you haven’t then in the name of God jump on the bandwagon while you can.

Um… what? Snagged off Blue’s News (thanks, Ash). Update: Mark Murphy writes to say that that wording was a mistake; it’s been adjusted to be coherent. (It’s now consistent with the rest of the review, as well.)

Proving once again that corn monopoly is NOT to be muscled in on, Stuntmutt serves up a Halloween-related One One Se7en for you. (Personally, I was waiting for the ‘ouch’.)

Seems Halo: Resolution is trying to muscle in on Stuntmutt’s corn monopoly. Hmmm…

A couple of weeks ago, nukedude was playing around with a mod BOLL had created, one that allowed super speeds. (BOLL had made his own Xbox vid a couple of months ago, on Blood Gulch, with no sound… but after HPC came out, folks discovered that Death Island provided some unique jumping opportunities.) nukedude’s vid is called ‘SuperSpeed’ – ever see a tank do a wheelie? (Would you call it a treadie?) It’s 5:14 long, 30.2 mb, and recorded in DivX format. You can find it on Nukedude’s site – and we’ve put a mirror up at Mythica. Take a look!

To kick off Halloween with a bang, we’ve got Jillybean’s ‘An HBO Halloween‘ in our Fan Fiction section. Check it out… it’s full of forum regulars. I will say, in my own defense, that I have never, ever, worn a tutu. Except that once.

15 stories for you today in the Fan Fiction section:

• Spartans Of Darkness Part 1 Reclaimer, by SpartanOmega
• The Hall of Echoes; Chapter 1, by John
• The Hall of Echoes; Chapter 2, by John
• A Pilots Life: Chapter 5-The Jailbreak, by Captain Rasc
• A Pilots Life:Chapter 6-Making a Stand, by Captain Rasc
• The Cell, by Frensa Geran
• Blue Squadron Chronicles, Part Four, by Hunter_Killer
• Attack on ERISTOCK Part 13: Perimeter Defenders, by xitWOUND117
• A Glass Heart, by Jillybean
• Devestation- Chapter 9- Good To Be Home, by Michael
• Episode Six- Hope?…More or less, by Spartan117
• Spartan117 Survay!, by Spartan117
• The Beginning, by Duckfoot
• Halo 2: The Fallen Chp 5 Sect3- Innocent Flame, by Hikaru-119
• Battle of Croton #6: Take your orders and shove em’!!!, by Trevor White aka Boxer[subnova]

Submitters: please be careful; apparently the script will allow you to submit stories over 64k in size, which will bring down the server when I try and approve them. I’ll be on the lookout for this in the future, but it would be easier if you simply broke your stories up when they’re that big. Thanks!

Some time ago, Deimos Fawkes, over at Subnova, set up a small private monitoring service to notify a few people when Bungie.net posted new content. (Vengeance, a Subnova server, simply watched Bungie.net, and sent out mail – basically a list of headlines – whenever it detected a change.) Yesterday, Ross Mills asked whether this list could be widened – so we’ve set up a simple mailing list that anyone can subscribe to to get this information. Again – if you subscribe, you’ll be notified within 5 minutes of a change in status at Bungie.net. (This means you’ll also get mail when Bungie.net goes down.) This does NOT tell you if there’s new HBO news, or what the weather is, or ANYTHING else, other than that B.net has been updated. If this interests you, send mail to autoshare@bungie.org with a body that reads ‘subscribe bnetalerts’ (the link should already do that for you). And if you run into trouble – please let us know. (And if you see Deimos around, thank him!)

Got a grunty thirst for a trinket? Try buying a clue.