To celebrate Halo PC’s Gold status, SketchFactor has posted the fan-generated interview with Michel Bastien that he collected questions for last week. Read this. Lots and lots of juicy info.

It’s FINALLY official! Halo is gold. You can read the full press release here. In stores September 30!

Very cool. Last week, MacGamer visited the home of Phil Sulak, the president of Westlake Interactive. They walked away with a lot of video. There’s 13 minute Halo-specific vid (available in a 70 mb version and a 10 mb version), with a TON of information about where the Mac port stands and what it’s gonna need. Definitely a good thing to watch for those waiting for the Mac version. There’s also an 11 minute long interview with Phil Sulak, Ken Cobb, and Duane Johnson discussing Westlake in general (with a goodly amount of Halo info). This one weighs in at 63 mb or 9 mb, depending on whether you get the broadband or dialup versions. If you’re a Mac gamer, or you’re interested in how some of the PC-specific features implemented by Gearbox are going to be translated to the Mac, go watch these!

The gold MCs are back on the front of Gearbox’s site – this time for real, it seems. Woohoo! This would suggest that an announcement is imminent…

27 new snippets have been added to the Dialogue Databank, including the infamous ‘I would have been your daddy’ quote. Thanks to Captain Spark for his tremendously high-quality work!

Gamers Hell put up ANOTHER 6 shots from some multiplay stuff. These are either grabbed from a REALLY old beta, or they were grabbed using a pretty horrible video card… even the gametype indicator is missing. You’re looking for the 6 shots labeled ’12/09/2003′; it’s a series from Battle Creek. (They’re not at the top; those are the recent release of Infinity shots from Microsoft’s official Halo site.)

This afternoon, Red vs Blue put up Episode 18 for the rest of the world. It was unclear whether they were going to do this – the original plan sounded like PSA 4 was going to be this week’s release. They’ve gone over and above (again), though, and made both videos available. Do them a favor and use the BitTorrent links to grab these!

Today’s One One Se7en looks at a potential problem with that Fuel Rod Gun…

Whoa. Looks like Halo PC has gone gold. Several gaming websites have reported that Microsoft has given them word of the game’s Gold status (this means it’s complete, and is ready for printing). For the record – we’re not one of these sites. There was also (for a brief period) a graphic replacement on Gearbox’s front page; the red and blue MCs were swapped for gold ones. GlennKM let our forum know that he saved a copy for posterity – and if his site goes down, we’ve got a copy here, too. (The gold MCs are still on the Gearbox server, just not referenced on the front page, for those who think this is a photoshopped hoax.) Gotta love the excitement!

Interesting. Deathwhore wrote to point out that a couple of tracks on Peter Gabriel’s album ‘Passion’ (released in 1989) are musically similar to some of the material on the Official Halo Soundtrack. The two tracks he pointed to specifically were ‘Of These, Hope (Reprise)’ and ‘A Different Drum’. These tracks can be purchased individually (for 99 cents each) at the Apple Music Store if you don’t have the album (and don’t want to buy it). Unfortunately, you must have a Mac running OSX for this. Intriguingly, an interview that appeared on Bungie.net back in June 2002 contained this exchange:

Matt: Let me ask one last question: do you think the Halo soundtrack is ideal background music for a night of passion?

Marty: I can’t imagine anything better.

Coincidence… or a veiled tip o’ the cap to Mr. Gabriel? You decide. Update: The Plot Thickens. Åstro points out that ‘A Different Drum’ has been pretty popular in the Myth community, since the map group Creation used it as background music for one of the opening narration for one of their large scenarios. Hmm…

Stuntmutt takes a hilarious shot at our forum in today’s Sunday edition of One One Se7en. I hope folks take it to heart.

Two new Halo PC Previews: DailyGame and GameZone. Both are based on the 1.5 beta (and the DailyGame preview strangely mentions that the two new weapons, fuel rod gun and flamethrower, were not available for testing – they’re definitely included in that beta). The press list grows. Thanks to Blues News, by way of ash.

This morning, we mentioned a sponsors-only extra available at Red vs Blue. This was a movie the RvB team made for Microsoft’s Professional Developers Conference 2003… and it’s pretty funny stuff. If you’re not a sponsor, you can STILL get your hands on a copy… if you have a PC. Microsoft is hosting its own copy here. Thanks to Ninja on Fire for the heads-up. (If you have a mac, and you’re a sponsor, there’s a QuickTime version available at RvB.) Update: it’s now available to everyone, not just sponsors, in both WMP9 and Quicktime formats, from Red vs Blue themselves (both download and BitTorrent links). Thanks to Jandals for the heads-up.

Randy Pitchford and Pete Parsons spoke to Gamespot recently; they’ve posted a video interview (49.7 mb, zipped) on their Halo media page. Unfortunately, it’s subscriber-only; if you’re not a Gamespot Complete member, you can’t see this. There’s not a huge amount of new information, and from what I can tell, it was filmed about a month ago (Randy talks about the Rocket Hog change as brand-new; that took place just before Fanstock, in mid-August), and the gameplay footage in it comes from a pretty old beta (pre-1.5, even)… but it’s got Randy and Pete philosophizing about what made Halo great, and how they tweaked things to make Halo PC better. Thanks to ON-X for letting us know.

Whoa – Marty O’Donnell’s planning on releasing a surround sound mix of the E3 2003 Halo 2 music suite – details to be posted on the Marty Army 7th Column site. I’d have known about this if I’d read my email, but Deimosâ„¢ over at Subnova pointed it out first. Droolin’!

A pretty darn cool sponsor-only extra is now available at Red vs Blue – check the Sponsors for more details. Currently WMP9 only… but a QuickTime version is coming. Thanks to P_40E for reminding me to go back and check.

Another guest strip from Germain Couët over at One One Se7en; a different perspective on the Halo 2/Half Life 2 rivalry…

10 stories for you today in the Fan Fiction section…

• Battle for Croton 3.5, by Earl Hershberger
• Homeworlds VII, by Mainevent
• They Died with Their Boots On, by Walker
• Untitled Improv Boredome Story #1 , by Mainevent
• Part 2 Capture, by JAfdifai’fih
• Nothing to Lose Part IV, by hornet34
• The Virus Part 9, by monitor101
• Courageous Pride:Solutions Unavailable(Chapter 1), by Sergeant B
• Human Elite Ch. 1, by Tinmad!
• Do Spartans Dream of Ossified Sheep?, by Crushed Acorn

Go Go Go!

Microsoft has put up shots of Infinity, the last of the 6 new levels in Halo PC, on the official HPC site. These, combined with the shots you can find in our Fanstock Screenshots section (put up almost a month ago), should give you a good sense of how massive this level is (and how much fun it’s going to be with Warthogs)…

Move over, Evel Knievel… Baby Elite’s gonna kick your butt. There’s a new Halo Babies posted – thanks to mrsmiley for the heads-up.