Sparkedit 2.0 has been released – and it now works with Halo PC. Just tested it out – and I must say, it’s pretty slick. Check it out! (Thanks to Grenadiac for the heads-up.)

Once again, we’ve let the user-submitted artwork sections fall by the wayside because of the madness surrounding Halo PC (and now Mac Halo). Apologies to creators and viewers alike. We’ve got 5 Miscellaneous Art pieces for you today, including a modified screenshot, two comics, and a pair of awesome drawings. (ZZoMBiE13 continues to blow me away.) Go look!

Multi Player Zone is offering free bookable Halo servers; you need to register (free) to read that, or to visit the ‘book a server‘ page, but if you’ve got a clan that needs a server to practice on, and you’re broke… check ’em out. (They’re in the UK, btw.) I found this link at Halocity.

funky wrote to point out a new Halo PC browser app – it’s called HaloSpy, and it lets you query specific servers for detailed info (before joining the game). You can read about it (and see screenshots) in this thread at Halocity. It’s not available for download yet.

Website roundup: these are links sent to us in the past few days. Apologies for any delays in posting.

• Black vs Red – a new series of movies (there’s a trailer up – but it’s totally black)
• Avatar Storm (follow the Halo Page link) – not much there yet
• ClanBase added another pair of Halo ladders – Team Slayer and Assault
• Halo Humpers – a Halo clan
• HaloRevolution.tk gets a new look and a bunch of Halo PC info

I’m sure there were more, but I can’t find ’em. 🙁

Ooh… I’ve been waiting for this One One Se7en guest strip to make it out of the queue for a LONG time. BOLL, in typical BOLL fashion, takes One One Se7en to the next level. (I went and looked into the memory card slots of my controller, just to be sure.)

18 stories for you this time around in Fan Fiction:

• The High Tide Chapter 1+2 together, by Relentless_hate
• Halo 2: The New Front (Chapter 3), by System Failure
• The Resurrection of the Chief Chapter 1, by CovieKilla
• A Pilot’s Life: Chapter 4- Desperate Battles, by Captain Rasc
• Devestation- Chapter 8- Destruction and Devestation, by Michael
• Halo: A Troubled Galaxy Ch. 4 (Final), by Ghost
• Dreams of Master Chief, by Max Ellis
• Attack on ERISTOCK Part 12: The Uncovering of Illyadar, by xitWOUND117
• The Adventures of Alpha Squad, Part Two, by Hunter_Killer
• Blue Squadron Chronicles, Part Three, by Hunter_Killer
• Homeworlds XXII, by Mainevent
• A Soul of Steel: Part 4, by The Scribe
• A Marine Named Peters: BOOM, by GLADIATRRR3000
• AN ANCHOR IN THE STARS: Chapter 1, by Sketcher
• Sons of Sparta V, by SOS.Odin
• The Rebel: If you want something done right…, by Elfster
• The Last Chance Chapter for everything 1: The first move, by brian murphy
• Shadow Ops II: Nowhere to Run, Prologue, by Nemesis

Go get ’em – there’s sure to be more tomorrow.

Okay, this never got posted on the front page because it was sort of a cool bonus for folks with Halo PC to find on their own… but it’s starting to clutter our forum, so I’m putting it here. On the Halo PC CD is a Goodies folder. (Most people never see it, because the disc is set to Autorun; there’s no reason to open it.) Inside the Goodies folder is a file called ‘Preview.pdf’ – it contains previews of all three Halo novels, including 8 pages devoted to ‘Halo: First Strike’, due out in early December. It’s chock-full of spoilers, so if you want to read the story without preconceptions, pass on this… but if you are curious, there it is. (And before anyone writes to us screaming about how they found this first, and should get credit for it… we knew it was there in mid-September, a couple of weeks before the game was actually out. If you told us about it BEFORE that, we’re happy to listen to your claim. If you mentioned it after… congratulations for finding it on your own, but there ain’t no public credit for ya. 🙂 )

CarnageReport.com, just opened a couple of days ago, is already running a contest! They’re looking for the clan with the best website. Rules are posted, and you’ve got until November 15 to get an entry in. Prizes are Bungie schwag – goodly chunks of it. Take a look!

mnemesis, loathe to let a month go by without an update, posted a collection of postulations on the Halo Story page – just 29 days since the last one! Worth a read, for sure!

Thanks to mrsmiley – there’s a new comic up at Halobabies.net. I’ve had exactly that feeling!

The Machinima Film Festival to take place in New York tomorrow got a writeup on MSNBC. Red vs Blue (nominated for lots of awards) is mentioned prominently, and even Randy Glass’ Warthog Jump site gets a link. Check it out! (Thanks, Kev117.)

Hehe – Konrad9 points out a pair of print articles mentioning Halo; one is in Ladies’ Home Journal, and discusses the damage games do to kids, and the other is in Popular Science (or Mechanics – he’s not sure), and looks at LCD screens for consoles (so that you can ‘take Halo on the road’). It’s all in your perspective…

Four new reviews today, listed once again by Blue’s News. We’ve got The Armchair Empire, PC Gameworld, Gamehelper, and VideoGamesLife. Grades ranged from a low of 7/10 (Gamehelper) to a high of 94 (VideoGamesLife). Check ’em out.

Well, the last round of clues about the Great Halo Scavenger Hunt helped another person across the finish line… but there are still 2 dozen prizes to be won. Let’s look at Trinkets again – I pointed one out that was purely text-based, but some are buried in images. (No, you don’t have to break down every image on every website; the trinkets themselves are plain to see, once you’re looking at the right image.) How to find them? Well, narrow down your search to websites that are heavily involved in the Halo community, to begin with. And on sites that allow searching, search for ‘trinket’ – or other terms associated with this competition. (Who’s behind it all, for example?) We’ve got goodies – but we can’t give ’em to you unless you follow the breadcrumbs! Maybe just sit down with a nice mug of coffee and do some clicking.

You may have noticed the link to the Halo PC Dedicated Server at the top of our index page. Over the past month, this has proven to be a very popular server (the biggest complaint is that it’s almost always full). Partly, this is due to the fact that it’s fast, with minimal lag – features attributable to its host, GameDaemons. And they’re now offering dedicated Halo PC servers to the masses! Visit the signup page for details on pricing and location. They’re not the cheapest game in town… but that’s because they’re providing high-quality servers on unbeatable network pipes, and you get what you pay for. I’m thrilled with the service we’ve gotten, and can wholeheartedly recommend them. (Thanks to KnightWolfJK, for the heads-up.) Followup: gwdpto is interested in sharing admin privs with a few like-minded people on one of these servers for a 3 month period. Read his forum post for details.

One One Se7en hits the venerable age of 77 strips today – but it’s pretty clear the MC hasn’t learned much in that time. (I guess he DID make it where he was trying to go – but then, he does that every day, these days, so…)

Today’s Halo: Resolution takes potshots at an American landmark… seems to me, though, that the jab would be better applied about 375 miles south. Hmm…

Okay, so a week or so ago, Ash posted a quick note about getting two hogs out the back of the Maw. What did he mean? Well, he meant taking a pair of hogs past the Longsword that normally finishes the level… and pulling a double Thelma and Louise out the back entrance. Well, he sent along a tape, and some music, and I slapped ’em together as he asked… and it’s a heck of a run. I mean, jeez. Even though I KNEW he was gonna make it, I wasn’t sure. Movie is 3 and a half minutes long, Quicktime format, 14.5 mb large. Check it out. (There are spoilers, for anyone who hasn’t finished the game…)

So you wanna know what it’s like being an animator for Bungie? You wanna find out how to break into the industry? You wanna know how to build a gingerbread house using canadian bacon instead of gingerbread? Read Nathan ‘bentllama’ Walpole’s interview over at DPerry.com. It’s awesome. (Okay, so it won’t tell you anything about homebuilding with canadian bacon… but the rest is all good.)