A week ago, we mentioned that GameSpy’s Most Wanted Games of 2003 put Halo for PC at number 4. Their Most Wanted Console Games is now up, as well… and Halo 2 pulled the number 3 slot (beaten by Final Fantasy X-2 and Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker). Not too bad! Thanks to Ben Bayes for the heads-up.

5 new desktops, from two artists – some nice composites, and three modified MC uniforms. Check ’em out in our Wallpaper section! (More stuff later – have to head out for a bit.)

Wow. I thought I had a handle on Cortana… but I’m starting to wonder. The speculation today started with Mark Simmons – he brings up some pretty intriguing points. Even if you feel you can slough off most of what he says, though… check out barkbat’s reply. Wow – there’s some serious food for thought in there. (It should go without saying that posts like these are FULL of spoilers – but I’m saying it anyway.)

Yesterday, the new Elite shirt showed up on the Bungie webcam. Today, MastaSnypa noticed that it’s for sale in the Bungie Store. Nice!

Whoa – boatloads of Fan Fiction sent in in a very short time last night:

• Halo Zero Part 2, by nicholas
• Eye of the Storm II, by Ashur
• Stormbringers Part 6, by WildebeestNZ
• Earth: A Halo Tale: Part 1, Chapters 1 & 2, by Nike
• Rainer’s Voyage, by Bloodcider
• D-Day: The Dunes, by Shadow Spartan
• Aftermath (pn) Part 1, by PalaNIN

PalaNIN’s story was apparently a prizewinner at a Fan Fiction contest held at Halo Online last year. I’d point you to the contest page… but I couldn’t find it. 🙁

One of the few remaining places to explore in Halo is the bottom of Truth and Reconciliation (level 3). Many have tried… but nobody’s gotten down there yet. c0ld vengeance and demonelite are getting close, though… check out this forum post. (Movies are listed later in the thread.)

Forum regular Lion wanted to point out his Halo site, Truth and Reconciliation. There’s not much there yet… but there are a couple of notable items. The first is a movie he made some time ago – it’s called ‘Friends’, and you can download it from the Movies page. (the site is framed, so I can’t point you there directly, without losing the navigation.) The second is a page devoted to an XBC Halo tournament – there are currently 5 people signed up to play, so if you’re an Xbox Connect regular, sign up and join in!

Joshua Griffon, of TheForce.net, has written an interesting editorial for his site. A Halo-engined Star Wars title? Hmm… there’s an intriguing idea…

The NPD Group has released a report on video game sales for 2002 – and among other interesting facts, they’ve compiled a Top 10 Best Selling Game Titles list. On the list are seven PS2 games, one GameBoy Advance game, one GameCube game… and Halo. Booyah! Thanks to kareem ramos for the heads-up.

After a 2-week hiatus, the Bungie Webcam is back in action – and if you look now, you’ll get a glimpse of the Elite Halo t-shirt. (It’s archived here, in case the image changes.) Thanks to SketchFactor for the heads-up!

Took some work… but the Movies database has finally been brought up-to-date. 20 films released in the past 2 months are now listed (and searchable). Hopefully, this’ll help folks looking for that special film. The most recent addition hasn’t even been mentioned here in the news yet – so let me do that now. Athol Productions has created The Blair Halo Project, a nearly-7-minute-long vid which starts, and ends, like the movie it got its name from. (In the middle you’ll find gamplay and antics.) It’s available in QuickTime and WMV formats, and weighs in at 30 or so megs. (Plus or minus 3, depending on your format.) We’ve put it up at both Mythica and The Psyjnir Complex Hotline server… but additional mirrors would be very much appreciated. Next up: The Miscellaneous database. (Tomorrow, maybe.)

Bringing the Interviews section up-to-date, we’ve added 4 recent interviews with Marty O’Donnell – the guy’s been talkative these past couple of months!

Three new desktops for you today – A Matrix-inspired one (well, Reloaded, at least) that’s wicked-cool, one that uses the recently-posted Helljumpers interpretation, and one that… well, I can’t really explain it. I suppose that’s because I don’t understand it. You’ll find all three in our Wallpaper section.

Joshua Pettigrew created a logo for the Helljumpers, Special Forces troops mentioned in the Fall of Reach. You’ll find it in our Miscellaneous Art section.

Lots of new stories in the Fan Fiction offerings today:

• HALO: The Spartans, part 1, by S7N
• D-Day: The Beach, by Shadow Spartan
• 5 Way War, part 4, by Demosthenes
• Eye of the Storm: Sanity’s Reqiuem, by Ashur
• Wrong or Right, by Harley
• Halo Zero, part 1, by nicholas

See what you can find…

10 tips have been added to the Tips Database, including a pretty exhaustive look at all the ways of dealing with Banshees on the Natural Bridge of AotCR. Sometimes internet worms can pay useful dividends for fansites…

Hehe… and the egg-like things continue. Yesterday, Argos noticed that ‘Rock Anthem for Saving the World’, a high-energy piece from the Halo Soundtrack, was exactly 1:17 long. Not only does that match up nicely with the Master Chief’s Spartan II designation… but expressed in seconds, it’s got a length of 77. Marty made it clear that this wasn’t an accident. The Halo Soundtrack’s been out for 8 months now, you’d think someone would have noticed sooner…

In the first all-from-existing-footage movie in a LONG time that seems worth passing along, Senator32 has combined the soundtrack from the StarCraft Ghost trailer with Halo footage spanning almost 3 years to create ‘Halo Warrior‘. It’s 6.4 mb, in MPEG format. (The byte savings from converting to QuickTime format wasn’t worth the effort.) Mythica, as usual, is doing the hosting honors. Take a look!

We got word of three new or revamped Halo sites over the weekend; John pointed out Halo Reamped (‘your source for every thing halo’), sk8er told us to check out Halo HQ (which has ZERO information except a couple of links to buy Halo and Halo 2 at EB Games, passing along a commission to the site), and Chris Ryan let us know that the Halo hub at Forerunners.org has been resdesigned. I’d expect more of these updates, as Halo for PC and Halo 2 draw nearer…

Three new desktop images for you; a nice composite of the very old (one of the earliest wallpaper submissions we ever got) and the very new (a Halo 2 shot), a nice cleanup of some magazine art, and more playing cards. Check ’em out in our Wallpaper section!