ICDedPpl is EXTREMELY worried you might have forgotten that his Seventh Column chapter is running a giveaway for Halo: The Flood. If you haven’t signed up yet, go do it. I’m learning what ‘flood’ means…

I hate doing this – but some of you give me zero choice. 🙁 Once again, there are items in our uploads folder that have no attribution (or worse, have SOME attribution, but not enough). If, for example, you’ve sent a movie that hasn’t been posted, and you haven’t received an email from us about it, do not resend the film. Rather… give us a way to contact you. Include your email address. Even if you don’t want it published, include it in the readme (feel free to tell us not to publish it – we won’t). We have no way of contacting you otherwise. And we’re tired of getting the same file over and over, with us not posting it (for whatever reason) and you thinking we didn’t get it and sending it again. If you’re not willing to let us contact you privately, the likelihood is that we’re not willing to host your creation.

Sunday’s Fan Fiction installment:

• Just Getting Started: Chapter One, by James Kinsella
• Halo: FotF , by Frensa Geran
• What Would Have Been- Part 1, by gwinnalex
• Halo Zero Part 9 and Part 10, by nicholas
• The Tour (part 1) and The Tour (part 2), by Traumatised Marine
• What if We Miss….(yes of course it’s a comedy), by el_halo_diablo
• Chapter 5-The Space Pirate Cometh, by Ultra Sonic 007
• XP-42: Part one: Introduction, by Hunter
• Last Stand Part one , by grylsy
• Assault on Edina 3, by Steele
• The Defense of Earth 1: The 889th Tactical Fighter Wing , by Steele
• Headwaters of the Flood, by Opie301

That should keep you busy for a little bit…

Blast from the Past: In early September, 1999, a now-defunct website called ‘Total Halo’ released a home-grown movie. I re-discovered that movie on my drive while looking for something this morning… and thought it was great. I’ve re-encoded it (to reduce its filesize from the original 6 mb to a more reasonable 1.4 mb), and made it available again. Remember: this was created more than 3 years before Halo was released, by a fansite. (I no longer have any way of contacting the creators, Ian and Colin Jackson – so if they see this, and aren’t happy with the re-release, they’re welcome to contact me and I’ll yank it.)

th3gh05t writes to tell us of his new Halo website, Halo Source. Still under development, but always open to comments and suggestions.

Ertai23 has set up a Halo Multiplayer Gametype Compendium; basically, an archive for various multiplayer variations. Check it out, and send him your favorites!

Once again, scooped by Opie301 on my own dang site. Finn has updated the Halo Story page yet again, this time with some extensive fan speculation. Take a look!

We’ve mentioned recently that Cybrfrk has been archiving webcam images… he’s just posted a few short movies to our forum, giving us a fast-forward glimpse into the Bungie world. Take a look!

Today’s Fan Fiction:

• Halo Zero Part 8- A Bigger Halo, by nicholas
• Halo Zero Part 7- Old Enemies, New Friends, by nicholas
• The Battle for Rackma VI: Finale, by gwinnalex
• Halo: Law & Order Part 1, by el_halo_diablo
• Halo: Fall of the Forerunners (tie in), by Frensa Geran
• The monitor’s contest, part 3 or the end of the reign of the monitor, by Anthony French
• The Battle For Sigma Octanus Chapter 6 New Orders, by monitor101
• An Undying Hope, by Matt James

Authors should be careful that they fill out both Series names (if there is one) and Titles – and if there’s NOT a series name, don’t put the title in that box.

CobaltNova points out the iGames Spring Season site is now accepting registrations. (We’d noted the site before, but until very recently, you couldn’t actually register.) The two divisional tournaments are March 29 and April 19, with the regional championships on May 10, and the Divisional championships on May 31.

Team Overkill noticed a blurb on Xbox bundles over at Gamespy – this sounds like a deal… Halo, Amped, a DVD Remote, and a bunch of vouchers, for $59.95. Since this is being offered in Australia, that’s presumably Australian dollars… meaning that you can get all that stuff for less than $36 US. Not bad! (That particular bundle goes onsale on April 3.)

Sadly, the Miscellaneous section of this site hadn’t been updated since the end of November. I spent a goodly chunk of time classifying what needs to go in there since then (a couple of dozen items) – but I didn’t get them all fully formatted. I got through about half of them, though – and you’ll find those available now. (It’s predominately material added during December, 2002.) There are a few nice pieces of Fan Music, some maps, icons, some artwork… a true potpourri of offerings. (All of it has been made available before, in the news section… but it’s easy to miss stuff that way.) The rest will be added this weekend (along with the 10 movies not yet in the Movies section).

Last week, SketchFactor put up the first part of his ‘Building a Better Chapter’ article at Bungie.net. He has now posted Part Two – and for this one, he’s interviewed five chapter founders for their ideas about what makes a good chapter. Get to readin’!

Hehe – Roger Wilco came across an owner’s manual for Halo. Pretty funny.

A month ago, a pair from Canada sent in times for speed runs through the various levels of Halo, performed on Easy. Yesterday, Åstro and his partner, Coreman (Team Poughkeepsie), sent word (and a pair of films) of their work on the first of 10 levels… performed on Legendary. Their run of Pillar of Autumn is just a hair faster than Hartley and Copeland’s… on a much rougher difficulty setting. The gauntlet, thrown down 4 months ago, now has some content behind it. The movie of this feat, which includes everything from the time the Bungie logo leaves the screen through the Level 2 loading screen, is available in both QuickTime and Windows Media Player 9 formats (25.6 and 18.6 mb, respectively) from Mythica.org, and both versions have been mirrored on the Psyjnir.com Hotline server. (We are happy, of course, to announce mirrors – just let us know if you put these up.)

Not that he’s trying to get you to think, or anything… but Finn has updated the Halo Story page again with some intriguing speculation from our forum. Check it out!

Killer points out that you can vote for the best game in the UK – you won’t be able to SEE the results (you have to watch Game Stars on ITV1, in the UK, for that), but heck, you can vote for Halo in 5 or 6 categories.

Is the flood ebbing? Fan Fiction increases by only three stories today:

• Battle for Chippanicas Gorge Part 3, by Austin Peters
• Halo 2: Blade Squadron Part 1, by Andrew Golightly
• MARINES: Operation 2 (part 2), by Matt Anderson

Go get ’em!

Interesting. Team Overkill points out a product available at various online sellers (a couple of links in the forum post) which contains the Halo National Championship on DVD. Price varies, but is below $10 at both links. It also comes with a bunch of Xbox demos.

Whoa – get it quick, while it lasts! ToysRUs, through Amazon.com, is currently offering Halo for $29.99 online. If the Best Buy promotion is anything to go on, this will only last a couple of days. If you need another copy of Halo (because you’re playing more LAN fests, or because yours is scratched), here’s your chance to save $20! Thanks to Jose Vasquez for the heads-up.