Wonga. Battleground: Halo has updated their design… and massively upgraded their content. Check out the site – visit this page for a list of what’s new (it’s too long to post here), poke your head into the linen closets. They’ve painted EVERYTHING. (I did find some unfinished grouting in a third-floor bathroom… but I’m guessing they’ll get to it.) Just in time for Halo PC!

Couple of clan-related items… Viper writes to say that the 67th Raptors (mentioned a couple of times back in May) had some problems due to the Blaster worm, and lost all their members. They’re back online, and old members should get in touch. Also, stan writes to point out that the Rabid Lilliputians are now actively recruiting for new members; stop by the site and sign up if you want to fight with The Little People. (Pressure is pretty low… the clan motto is “Not like we were ever destined for greatness”)

Hehe – Gamespy has been running a ‘Top 25 Most Overrated Games’ feature… and Halo made #10. They felt there were too many problems for it to have received so many near-perfect ratings; they wonder what these reviewers are going to do with Halo PC and Halo 2. Interesting read. They’re consistent, at least; they were the first review to score Halo less than 9/10 (they gave them 85/100), and they incurred quite a bit of wrath from Halo fans at the time. This judgement isn’t coming out of nowhere. Thanks to Harry Al-Shakarchi for the heads-up on this.

Doug Radcliffe, author of Sybex’s Official Strategy Guide for halo PC, stopped by our forum with some pretty cool info about what’s included. Look for this guide in the next couple of weeks in a store near you!

Xbox Ottawa has put out FTC8, a sequel to FTC5. There’s a low-res version up on their website now, and for a $5 donation, you can become a lifetime member, which gives you access to hi-res versions of their films. For the public, there are links to a DivX-encoded AVI version (both direct download and BitTorrent). We’re hosting a mirror, as well, and I should have QuickTime versions for them sometime later today. Comments can be added to this forum thread. Update: Quicktime version is now at files.bungie.org – there’ll probably be a version on xboxottawa.ca as soon as they can grab it. (It’s 21 mb.)

Interesting. Apparently, there was a video shown at X03 in France this week that was a bit more than the E3 demo – but there aren’t any final plans for releasing it. (That’s different from there being NO plans to release it. 😉 ) Thanks to Neo Alucard X for pointing out the link.

[NBA]J0rd4n (man, whatever happened to letters?) stopped by our forum to point out a movie he and his friend, byt3-ra1d, made. It shows some pretty amazing timing; a single-player escape from Blood Gulch in a warthog, aided by a perfectly placed grenade toss. The vid is only 1.6 mb, but has been compressed with XVID. gwdpto has provided both a mirror, and a link to the codec, if you don’t have it. (That’s a windows codec; an alternative is the 3ivx codec, available free for many platforms, which reads this movie without a problem.) gwdpto ALSO provided a SECOND movie, based on the first, showing another (easier) location for applying this technique. (This one’s in mpeg format, and weighs in at 3.4 mb.)

Iceman1330 looks at weapons modifications in a hacked Xbox in today’s Guest One One Se7en. (This was posted on our forum some time ago; it’s just now coming into the release rotation here.)

SilverBrin**** has submitted another impressive piece of Fan music; this one’s called ‘Mombasa‘, and it weighs in at a hefty 7.4 mb. (It’s just over 4 minutes long.) Here’s what SB has to say about it:

      Ever since seeing the Halo 2 demo played at E3 and watching videos of it, I have been taken with the broad and epic tone of the orchestral music accompanying the fantastic New Mombasa level. It think it is one of Marty O’Donnell’s biggest successes to date. Last week I decided I would like to totally remake the orchestral theme accompanying the video and accentuate my favorite themes and melodies and add some moments of my own. So I started from scratch and finished with this four-minute remake of the New Mombasa demo music and named it “Mombasa”.
      Mombasa.mp3 is actually part of a much much larger Bungie audio/fan-music based project that Jester and myself will be showcasing on Psyjnir. Jester will be talking more about this project “SitKoB” later. Enjoy this file and feel free to give us feedback!

Because I’m loathe to add email addresses any more to the front page (spam is evil), your best bet for feedback is our forum.

15 stories in the Fan Fiction section today…

• Before The Probe, by Master_Chief189
• Retaliation: Chapter One, by Blue Jaguar
• Attack on ERISTOCK-Part 4: Core, by xitWOUND117
• Halo 2:Warfront Chapter 2, by Adlin Yusman Yusoff
• Derailed Part 4, by Dispraiser
• Halo Sonnet, by Gre’Thor117
• The Adventures of Alpha Squad, One, by Hunter_Killer
• Drowning In Sorrow – Prologue & Chapter One, by Phoenix89uk
• Do you know?, by Mainevent
• Preacher of Death, by Walker
• Human Elite Ch. 2, by Tinmad!
• And now all hell will break loose Part 4, by metallicafan
• Homeworlds VI, by Mainevent
• Revenge Part I: the Shadow, by af’pooaopfasofo
• Survival, Chapter Two: Strength and Honor, by Agent Shade

The first one was actually posted 4 days ago; it should have made it into that ridiculous update on Tuesday, but somehow got overlooked. That’s what happens when more than 2 dozen stories come in over the span of a couple of days… sorry.

Last May, Bungie held a massive Fanfest during E3, in Los Angeles… and Mr Smiley was there with a video camera to capture all the fun. Back in late June, we mentioned part 0 – the intro. Well, there were a few snags in production – but things are back on track, and now parts 0, 1, and 2 are all online. You can find small versions of all three episodes available over at Bungie.net – and we’re hosting larger versions here. (Please – only grab the version you want; conserve our bandwidth. Thanks!)

• Episode 0, QuickTime (640×480, 19.2 mb)
• Episode 0, WMP9 (640×480, 24.6 mb)
• Episode 1, QuickTime (500×333, 23.6 mb)
• Episode 1, WMP9 (640×480, 19.4 mb)
• Episode 2, QuickTime (500×333, 24.1 mb)
• Episide 2, WMP9 (640×480, 23.3 mb)

Whew! (The versions at B.net are all much friendlier to those on slower connections; they’re all in the 4-12 mb range.) Episodes 3 and 4 will be coming soon!

Now they’re just messing with your head.

Goodness. mnemesis updates the Halo Story page for the first time in over a month… and I manage to misinterpret his note informing me of this. (I thought it was just a ‘here I go, I’m gonna start updating again’ note. DOH.) Anyway, go visit the Story page. Forerunner origins, Covenant history, xenobiology, weapons theories… it’s some deep stuff today.

Hehe – once again, Stuntmutt points out the danger of overestimating your weapon in today’s One One Se7en. Remember, folks… use the right tool for the job.

For those interested in the CPL Winter Event, registration opens next week – Tuesday, September 23 (one week before the game hits the shelves). Interest is high, and there’s a 32 team maximum… so you should think seriously about getting in gear. (CPL says, in the same thread, that there is no risk to signing up before the game is released; you’ll have until October 14 to back out with no financial penalty, if your team decides (after seeing Halo PC) that it doesn’t want to compete.) Thanks to CobaltNova for getting the word out on this one.

A few days ago, Ninja On Fire posted a picture that had shown up on the Halo PC betanews list (a private newsgroup devoted to the PC beta). It (ostensibly) showed someone being arrested by a Plano police officer for the theft of the gold master of Halo PC. There was quite a bit of discussion about whether the pic was real, or faked… and when the same disc appeared on Gearbox’s site (twice), it started to look like the ‘it’s a fake’ contingent had a point. GB Crush, a staffer over at 3d Retreat, stopped by early this morning to clarify things: turns out 3d Retreat’s Editor in Chief is also a Plano police officer. It’s a real photo – but it was staged. And now you know the REST of the story.

botman, a programmer over at Gearbox, dropped some pretty cool info in our forum this morning:

I know that we plan to have the Halo PC editing tools download package available on the day the game is released (Sept 30), so you should be able to buy the game, download the kit and start creating new maps all in the same day.

This is really, really, REALLY good news for modders. Woohoo! Update: botman jumped the gun a little – yes, the tools will be available, but the timing is still unclear. ‘On the day of the game’s release’ is not official information, and this forum post should not be pointed to by anyone demanding their editors NOW. Apologies for the confusion. (For what it’s worth, we jumped the gun, too; this should NOT have been put on the news page without confirmation. My bad.) -lwu

Whoa. op_ivy seems to have turned up the first new Halo 2 screen from X03, in France. (This is a big annual trade show.) Gorgeous! (Ross Mills found a larger version at Worthplaying.com… and BOLL found this one (4.8 mb – careful). Whoa. More later.

Picture of the day over at Gearbox is a shot of the Halo team. No names – but at least you’ve got faces! (The guy from the parking lot, in handcuffs, is not among them.)

The third Guest One One Se7en from Germain Couët – hehe, it made me laugh, anyway.