Heh – disappointed with the ‘NSync-related Halo sighting we posted a month ago, Brandon Thomas pointed out that Dave Grohl, guitarist for the Foo Fighters, puts Halo on the shortlist of hobbies (up there with skeet shooting and speeding in residential areas). That’s a pretty wide swath of the popular music spectrum playin’ Halo! Update: Jester reminds us that the latest Foo Fighters album (One By One) actually has a song called ‘Halo‘ on it.

Woohoo! New comic artwork from Lorraine Reyes-McLees, in honor of the Danger Boy interview! It’s Chris Carney day! (The caricatures are astoundingly good.)

Matt Soell has interviewed Chris “Danger Boy” Carney, an environment artist/designer at Bungie. Read it for some interesting insights on how this farmer wannabe gets his work done!

A couple of forum threads (here and here) and an email from Broony all point out that according to the Bungie webcam, the latest offering from the Bungie store will likely be hooded sweatshirts. Nice!

Yesterday, Destineer Studios, the Macintosh game publisher founded by Peter Tamte, bought MacSoft, another Mac game house, from Infogrames. (Tamte founded MacSoft 10 years ago.) The press release for this sale can be found on Infogrames’ site. What does this mean for you, the Halo fan? Not a huge amount… except that according to Inside Mac Games, “Destineer plans to begin marketing all of its future Macintosh products under the MacSoft brand immediately.” This means that Bold is no longer the arm of Destineer that will market Mac Halo – MacSoft is.

The Fan Fiction never seems to slow down.

• D-Day: Reflection, by Shadow Spartan
• Aftermath (pn) Part 2, by PalaNIN
• Halo Zero Part 3, by nicholas
• Stranded at Home Part 3 and Legend Hunting Part Three, by Dispraiser
• A New Beginning, by Bryce
• Earth: A Halo Tale: Part 1, Chapters 3 & 4, by Nike

You’re waiting for…?

Alien Nation? Check for yourself.

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.