A few new reviews for you: Gamezilla says ‘buy it’, even though they were unhappy with the repetitive level design and steep system requirements, Jolt.co.uk gave it a 93% for fun factor, and Gamer’s Pulse gave it an Editor’s Choice Award although they were unhappy with performance issues. Thanks to Blue’s News and Shacknews, via ash.

Today’s Guest One One Se7en is from b.org’s own CYBRFRK, who looks at the newest weapon in the Halo arsenal. Yup… nasty toy.

Coolness! HA|aD Monkey submitted a slick little app to the Junkyard which, once installed, allows you to connect to Halo servers via a halo://your.address.here link. Handy! (Requires Windows XP/2000)

Another ladder site for Halo PC, again in Europe: ClanBase has added a pair of CTF ladders (CTF Europe and CTF 2on2 Europe). They’ll add a Slayer ladder as soon as at least 10 clans ask for it. ClanBase supports more than 2 dozen games, so their comments about Halo instant popularity being rare carry some weight!

Game On Entertainment is hosting a 4v4 tournament with a $100/team entry fee and a $2000 purse; it’s taking place in Chicago, on November 8. Check the website for full details. Thanks to Battleground: Halo for the heads-up.

There’s an article on the BBC News website called ‘PC bugs undermine Halo shooter‘ which laments the problems in Halo PC. Most of the complaints have been heard before (high requirements, weaker weapons), but a couple are new – including one rather surprising one:

But the most serious problem comes with the multi-player option. The computer is prone to crash during gameplay when you change maps, even on a machine using Windows XP. In one case, the crash led to the so-called “blue screen of death”, something that simply does not happen with XP.

I’d love to see corroboration of this – I was under the impression that that screen no longer even existed under XP. (For the record, I’ve never seen Halo crash while changing maps, either.) Thanks to Beats for the heads-up on this one. Update: looks like I haven’t been doing my homework. Plenty of folks wrote in to tell me about BSODs in XP (I’m not a huge PC user, so I don’t feel so bad about this), but others wrote to tell me that the phenomenon is NOT limited to a small group; there are many messages about BSOD crashes over on the Gearbox Technical forum. Before Halo PC was released, I was completely up-to-date on this forum… but in the last couple of weeks, I’ve been falling behind. After doing some searches, it seems that the majority of (though by no means ALL) the problems are with people who have ATI 8500/9000/9200 cards; many were able to make them go away by installing the latest Catalyst drivers (and ensuring that OLDER drivers were cleared out), but some were not. (Many problems seem to be tied to the ati3d2ag.dll file – specifically, multiple instances of it.) I haven’t run across an official Gearbox response to the problem, but I’d guess they’re working hard on it.

One One Se7en speculates about weapons that ALMOST made it. ALMOST.

So what happens when a warthog meets a civilian car? Halo: Resolution checks it out. Ouch!

In all the hubbub about Halo PC (its release, the setup of online servers for it, my wasting of several hours a day playing it) and the Great Halo Scavenger Hunt, a few user submission sections have been neglected for a bit. We’ve got 9 items in the Miscellaneous Art section, ranging from comics (4 of ’em, actually) to pixel art to a KILLER MC render. Check it all out!

24 Fan Fiction pieces for you today – busy weekend for the writers.

• The legend of the gold master chief, by Jmotoblaze
• Battleground Earth, Part One, by Hunter_Killer
• Chapter Seven: Rise of the Phoenix, by Blue Jaguar
• The Fall of Fate: Invasion, Part Three(13), by ‘Nosolee
• Homeworlds XVIII, by Mainevent
• Battle for the Norah: Part Six, by Sterfrye36
• From The Front Lines, by PaYnE
• A Spartan Named James, by ZePHyR WRaiTh
• MJOLNIR, Chapter One, by Nemesis
• Invasion of X41 (Chptr 1: Invaded), by CoLd BlooDed
• Another day in the life of Master Chief…, by that guy over there who smiles just a biiit too wide….
• Marine Rifles, CHAPTER 1, by Marine Black Ops
• part1:Fragments of Halo, by Fenrisc
• A Final Oration, by ‘Nosolee
• Devestation- Chapter 5- Friendly Fire?, by Michael
• Devestation- Chapter 6- Char Man’ame, by Michael
• Derailed Part 8, by Dispraiser
• Survival, Chapter Ten, by Agent Shade
• Halo: The MCconto Chronicles PART 13, by JCDenton
• The Men that Make the Marines, by Walker
• Cry for the Dead, by Walker
• Jaffa Part 1, by Neal Stack
• Deliberation, by Dispraiser
• The Rebel: Window of Opportunity, by Elfster

Whew – good thing today is a holiday in the US!

As usual, BOLL rocks. HHHT, the Helpful Halo Hacking Tool, provides an easy way to apply ppf files to modify maps (and lets you backup your originals, in case you forget!). Screenshot here, to show you the interface. Hacking was never easier.

Hmm. Shadow Claw sends word that his 7th Column chapter, Born to Frag, is hosting a contest; send in a funny, eight-lined Halo and Halloween-related poem by October 31, and you could win some schwag. First prize is a pair of speakers, second prize is The Sims Livin’ Large, 3rd is $20, and fourth is a secret prize. Sounds easy enough…

Wraith has discovered that the flamethrower IS available on a couple of Campaign levels in Halo PC; he’s taken a few screenshots on the Library, and created ppfs for both the Library and Keyes, the two levels he found it on. You can see the screens in this forum post, or download a zip file containing all 6 screens, the two ppfs, and a readme from THIS post. Try it out on the covenant!

Chelsea’s beginning to make grunting noises…

Today’s Guest One One Se7en comes from Spooky Donkey, and looks at potential jobs for the MC. And while we’re discussing One One Se7en, congratulations to IXIGhandiIXI, who found the One One Se7en easter egg which has been hidden in the section (in plain sight) for over a month now. The rest of you are slacking…

Enemy Down, a UK-based ladder site for Counter-Strike and Day of Defeat, has added Halo to their list of supported games. There are new CTF and Slayer ladders. If you’re a UK Halo player, stop by and sign up, and climb the multiplayer ranks!

BGT writes to point out the Home Front mod for Battlefield 1942. (We’ve mentioned it a couple of times in the past few months.) Front and center on their website is a new map of the city of Côte d’Azur on Sigma Octanus IV. (It features prominently in the Fall of Reach book.) Nice looking city, with plenty of places for fighting! Check it out.

disturbedroach, from Halo Center, wrote to say that they’ve set up their site to allow user-uploaded maps to be added to the database; if you have a modded map that you want available to the community, visit Halo Center and upload it!

Couple of new Halo reviews for you; Tom’s Hardware (thanks, Mondo-77 and JP) and Eurogamer (thanks, Blues News, via ash) both looked at the game. Tom’s LOVED It. “I would mention major drawbacks of this game, but there’s one problem: I haven’t been able to find any.” It’s an interesting review, because it focuses on many points I haven’t seen brought up before (or thought much about myself). Eurogamer’s is actually a pair of reviews; the first editor was pretty unhappy with what DIDN’T get improved between the Xbox and PC versions, the second acknowledges some of the weaknesses that other reviewers have noted, but ends with this comment:

With Doom III and Half-Life 2 now delayed to 2004, there’s only one other real contender for the crown of being the top multiplayer FPS this Christmas; and unless Unreal Tournament 2004 can pull something fairly amazing out of the hat, we’re pretty confident that Halo PC is that game.

Pretty much sums it up for me, too.

Clan AKA has created a tool that can modify the Blood Gulch map to change projectiles (tank shells can be replaced with needles, for example, or vice versa). At the moment, it doesn’t do anything else, but they’re coming out with new versions every day, and they should have a final with in a week (one which will let you change ANYTHING). It’s only 11k, so its a much easier solution than downloading a 5+ mb modified mapfile; just grab this, and add the effects you want yourself!