Many Halo Xbox players who’ve had a chance to try out Halo PC (including me) have commented that the pistol seems to be toned down; it’s not the dominating weapon it is for Xbox players. Dave Mertz chimed in to a thread on the topic over at the Gearbox Forums with a definitive statement: “The pistol was not touched.” It’s the lack of auto-aim that gives the impression that it’s not as powerful a weapon… and jayWHY, on our own forum, points out that you can test this yourself by attempting to shoot your own teammates on the Xbox version. (There is no auto-aim when your weapon is not trained on an enemy.) Good to know.

Hot on the heels of the Wallpaper update, we’ve cleared out the Miscellaneous Art queue as well. There’s a pretty wide range of stuff; comics, some very cool stylized logos, a beautiful pic of a machete-wielding MC, and a bunch of other stuff. Visit the Miscellaneous Art section for all the goodies!

TruthandReconciliation.com has posted a new movie – it’s called ‘Master Chief Casting Call’, and it’s about a couple of guys trying to cast a new Master Chief. They don’t have a lot of luck… It’s available from the site in two formats: WMP9 (18 mb) and MPEG (35 mb). It’s 7:30 long. Go take a look!

Wow. It’s been 11 days since we’ve updated our art sections. We’ve received 11 desktop images in that time for the Wallpaper section. Sorry for the delay! Update: Make that 10. We’ve yanked one because it’s a tweaked version of an existing wallpaper – the author went to the trouble of asking the original creator for permission, was turned down, and SUBMITTED IT ANYWAY. People – don’t do stupid stuff like this.

Benny, from XboxOttawa.ca, lets us know that not only is the site back up and running (it has been for a few days now), but all the FTC vids are available there again (in both DivX and QT formats). They’re working on the next episode… but if you missed any of the first six, stop by!

Mrguy writes to point out that there’s some Halo artwork at this website – and if you visit the site’s console gaming section, you’ll find some lan party pics. Check ’em out!

According to Marc, of Halo Universe, Halo has pulled down yet another award: this time, the VUD (German Entertainment Softwaer Association) has given Halo Best Xbox Game for the Games Awards for Interactive Achievement 2003. Not bad, given that it was released over a year ago in Germany!

No Fan Fiction posted this weekend, due to too much Halo playing – here are the 19 stories that WEREN’T deleted:

• The Longsword[H & R 3], by Jillybean
• Soldiers of Heaven: Chapter 1, by Sergeant B
• Private Johnson, by Roo
• The Lost Colony Part Two: Orders, by xitWOUND117
• White Tiger is under attack!:A Marine’s tale part 1, by Zak
• Shay’s Rebellion: Down but not out., by Mainevent
• The Last Stand Of Humanity part 1 (new blood), by bloodsoldier3
• Another ONI Black File: Halo &#4294967190 We Got There First: Part 6, by Arthur Wellesly
• Another ONI Black File: Halo &#4294967190 We Got There First: Part 7 , by Arthur Wellesly
• Stranded at Home Part 6, by Dispraiser
• The Lost Colony Part Three: Welcomer of Destruction, by xitWOUND117
• Blue Squadron Chronicles , by Hunter_Killer
• A series of Wierd Events, Part Two, by Hunter_Killer
• The Rise and Fall of the Flood-Chapter 7, by BlackValkyire
• Alpha trilogy [part one], by Grey Wolf
• The Battle of Evermore Part 1: Ambush, by Gruntkiller
• Soldiers of Infamy: Part 1, by mr ninja
• Chapter One: Stranded Eagle, by Blue Jaguar
• Spectral Warriors: Prolouge, by Nightblade

Enjoy.

Missed it last night – but it looks like Blackstar has put up a short video clip giving a taste of some of the gameplay at the Summer Slaying event on Saturday. (Handheld video, really dark space – and at the time it was filmed, only one of the two projectors in the garage (there were three, total, at the event) was running.) Heads-up goes to Rampancy.net, which has been doing a massive amount of updating recently – look around while you’re there!

A bunch of Halo-related artwork over at Elfwood, including this comic, an interesting concept piece, a grunt, and a spoiler for those still waiting for Halo PC. (hehe) Thanks to Hamid Djangi for the heads-up.

Tec[H]noGeeK has mirrored last week’s MXB movie – there are boatloads of OTHER files at his site, too, you just need to register to see them. (It’s free – he asks this so he can keep track of downloads.)

A new Halo site – R Gamer – has come online. The content is filling out… go take a look!

I missed it yesterday, because we were pretty busy cleaning up… but Red vs Blue managed to resurrect the lost Public Service Announcement #3 from the failed hard drive, and it’s now available to everyone (sponsors and regular visitors alike). It’s pretty damn funny, on several levels. I nearly spit out coffee at the thought of a Milli Vanilli tattoo…

Tycho, from Unreal Ops (an Unreal fansite), came along on the Halo PC Fanstock event last week. He’s posted his own impressions of the game (as well as three new screenshots, snapped from a beta build we were given) over at the Unreal Ops site. A nicely non-Halo perspective… go read it!

Ever since E3, I’ve been wondering how easy that Ghost hijacking trick’s gonna be. Seems Stuntmutt’s been wondering, too… check out today’s One One Se7en.

What happens when you drive your warthog too fast? Why, the wheels catch on fire, of course. (DivX and QuickTime formats, 15-18 mb.) Blood Gulch looks amazingly bleak… and the weapons mods are pretty hilarious. BOLL continues to turn out seriously entertaining hacking vids.

Blackstar has put up a nice little photo gallery of yesterday’s Summer Slaying lanfest here at HBO HQ. This screen says an awful lot about the skill of Geeoff; give him a pistol, you die. That simple. (I’m having trouble figuring out why SAAACK is 12th, though… I’m not 100% sure what they were playing there.) Comments can be found in this forum thread.

A word puzzle was posted on our forum a few hours ago. It’s not clear that the solution has been found yet, though folks have made quite a bit of progress… there some interesting stuff waiting for the first 3 correct answers, so give it a shot!

Exogenesis dropped off a report from the Penny Arcade Game Day at Lanwerx yesterday. Sounds like it was a fun time! Update: there’s a report from Randy Glass, too, on his Warthog Jump site. (News for August 24, in case it’s scrolled down…) Turns out MANY of the replies in thread are from folks who were there; read the whole thing.

Very nice Randy Pitchford interview at Belgian Webgaming Forever (there’s a Dutch version too). Great overview of where he came from, and what drives him to make outstanding games. Thanks to ash for pointing it out.