synide is organizing a team of HBO regulars for the next SeeMePlayMe tournament (to be held online this coming Monday). He and jayWHY (who killed me a LOT of times yesterday, btw) need two more people for the 4v4 team. You can contact him on SeeMePlayMe, or our forum, I’d guess.

Grenadiac writes to point out that SparkEdit 1.1 (an Xbox Halo map editor/viewer) has been released. You can edit cache files to move player spawns, scenery, weapons, flags, hill placement, and more. There’s a movie demonstrating some object placement here, and the app itself can be found here, on HaloMods.

Today’s Guest One One Se7en comes from Limax – who takes a closer look at those hunters.

A whole bunch of clan/news sites in our mailbox recently…

• Grunts with a Vengeance (Halo PC clan)
• Clan 93rd V.S.D. (Halo 2 clan)
• Alpha Base (7th Column chapter, Halo PC squad)
• Bravo vs Delta (Comedy series, trailer available)
• Got Halo (General site, not finished yet)

I’m sure there are more on the way – that’s what’s piled up in the last day or two. One of these days, when time permits, we really have to update our Links page.

Been a long time in the queue – but there are 30 new snippets in the Dialogue Databank, all from Captain Spark. Some real classics this time around! (There are still several dozen queued snippets – at this point, all Elites. Coming soon, I hope.)

Seven new screens over at Bungie.net – they were all taken by beta testers, and the filenames include the submitter. Most should be familiar to you, if you’ve been around here for any length of time. These are the top 7 screens of a much larger pool submitted to Bungie during the beta test, and are all worth checking out!

HardOCP’s alter-ego site Hypothermia is giving away 10 copies of Halo PC; three are autographed by the entire Gearbox team. All 10 will be given away, 1 per day. There’s a pretty funny story that goes with the acquisition of the ten copies on the site… check it out. Thanks to Carlo Zottman for the heads-up on this one.

The Academy of Machinima Arts and Sciences announced the nominees for the 2003 Machinima Awards in New York today. Winners will be announced on October 25, at the American Museum of the Moving Image. Red vs Blue was nominated for an astounding number of categories, including

• Best Picture
• Best Direction
• Best Virtual Performance
• Best Writing
• Best Editing
• Best Independent Film

In addition, Halo 2 was nominated for the best Commercial/Game Machinima. (This last is odd, since it won’t be out in 2003…) Check both the Academy’s website, and the Museum’s, for more details. Nice going, RvB!

Wow. It looks like folks have pretty much given up on the Great Halo Scavenger Hunt… and that makes me sad. There’s a post on our forum that MIGHT summarize what the problem is – but I know that the puzzle is solveable, since several people have solved it already. So here’s the deal: we’re gonna give you one of the trinkets. This was the first one found, and it was posted on our forum at least twice, so I don’t feel too bad giving it away. If you visit Battleground: Halo, and stop by their FAQ, a text search on the page will turn up a question that isn’t linked at the top. It’s down in the last section, and it asks ‘What is the fifth trinket?’ and the answer is ‘East’. They’re not all in plain sight like that – but (with a couple of exceptions) they all mention ‘trinket’, which should make things a bit simpler. Remember – you’re looking for 10 of these, and you’re looking on Halo-related websites for them. In the process of finding them, you should ALSO find clues about what to do with them. (At the start, don’t worry about what to do with them – just keep track of them. It really will become clearer.) Only 3 of the 28 prizes have been claimed at this point… there is still a LOT of schwag to grab!

Stuntmutt looks at the human side of the Master Chief in today’s One One Se7en.

Today’s Halo: Resolution shows the agressive side of Cortana. Ouch.

20 stories for you in the Fan Fiction section today:

• The 7th Column: Revelations, by Mainevent
• Charge of the Grunt Brigade – Part Three: Second, by Walker
• Calling(1), by Frensa Geran
• Marooned – Chapter 2, by Steve Ollett
• The final war: Chapter one: The forming of an alliance, by Awacar
• Jaffa Part 2, by Neal Stack
• A John Before Halo: Defense (Part 12), by J-117
• Marine Rifles, CHAPTER 2, by Marine Black Ops
• Branded for Life Part 1, by PaYnE
• Countdown Earth: Hour Nine, by Mainevent
• Battle for the Norah: Part Seven, by Sterfrye36
• The Mutation (A sequel to the Virus) Prologue, by monitor101
• Attack on ERISTOCK Part 10: Hunters, by xitWOUND117
• Angels war, by Javier fernandez-vina
• 3rd Squadron, by Alpha Lance
• Plasma Burns and Bullet shells-chapter 1, by Myth
• Survival, Chapter Eleven(Finale), by Agent Shade
• A Spartan Named James- Part 2, by ZePHyR wRaiTH
• Destiny is Calling, by Alpha Lance
• The Rebel: Can We Get Some WD-40 Down Here?, by Elfster

A lot of writers are still having trouble with the whole ‘series’ concept… if anyone can suggest a way to make it clearer in the docs, I’m all ears.

Marty O’Donnell recently chatted with Music 4 Games about the recording sessions produced so far for Halo 2 – it’s an interesting read. There’s a pretty intriguing bit at the end, too…

“All this music has been mixed in Surround Sound and will be released as part of a bonus DVD that will come free with the re-release of the Halo Soundtrack this fall.”

Another reason to buy the Halo Soundtrack!

Bloodgulch.com is hosting the Halo Fall Brawl, on Sunday, November 2, at 11:30. It takes place in Riverside, Rhode Island (just east of Providence), and costs $80/team to get in. Prizes aren’t listed yet, but they’ll include cash and schwag from Alienware, NVIDIA, Bawls, Dominos, Dunkin’ Donuts… check it out.

Coming in November, from Joyride – 3″ action figures, in 2-piece sets (jackal and MC, or red/blue MCs) and 5-piece sets (5 different-colored MCs, or MC, pair of marines, pair of jackals). It’s almost time for battles! Thanks to krapshmeer for the heads-up.

New Halo site out there: Halo City. info comes from programerz, a source of lots and lots of good info at the Gearbox forums… site gets thumbs-up from forum regular gwdpto. Clans who sign up today get access to a free Teamspeak server (for voice chat over IP).

Boxer is apparently looking for ways to rationalize his awful rocket-launching skills in online Halo PC play. To this end, he’s even created a comic over at Subnova, going so far as to blame his uber-n00bishness as ‘lag’. Pfft. (Okay, okay… it really IS a problem sometimes. But geez… did he leave himself wide open, or what?)

Whoa – very cool. 1UP put up a new feature called ‘50 to Watch‘, a group of people they believe ‘will help define gaming the most in the next 12 months’. They’re (mostly) in alphabetical order, so the list isn’t ranked, per se… but one of the 50 (Number 17, in fact) is Jaime Griesemer, lead designer for Halo 2. Thanks to Pallor, over at Subnova, for pointing it out.

Got a note from the folks at SeeMePlayMe, a gaming/chat solution which now covers Halo (along with other games). Pretty cool stuff; The software is free (though there are advantages to subscribing), and one of the new features with respect to Halo is that you can set up your own dedicated server for free. You and your friends meet in a ‘room’, where you can chat, view each others’ webcams, whatever… when you’re ready, you can set up a private Halo server, with your own parameters (map, options, number of players, etc.) and get to playing. A screenshot of the interface is here. As the service becomes more popular, the number of days that non-paying members can create servers every week may decrease… but you’ll ALWAYS be able to JOIN a game. (You also have access to the standard servers out there; SeeMeePlayMe can act as an alternative to the Gamespy server browser built into Halo, an alternative with a built-in chat option, for the ‘we need a lobby’ folks.) If your clan needs a place to meet, but doesn’t want to deal with the hassle of collecting money from all members to pay for a dedicated server, this is an option you should definitely check out! Update: This page at SeeMePlayMe should explain what they’re about, and what they offer.