Tarrsk and FatWalker both write to point out that PC Halo is #4 in Gamespy’s Most Wanted Games of 2003 list. Tarrsk also reminds us to keep an eye peeled for the Top 10 Console Games list coming later this week. (That link won’t work until tomorrow…)

A month and a half ago, we mentioned a tournament at Central Michigan University, in Mt. Pleasant. Jake McCarthy writes to remind folks that this is happening this weekend, on January 25. You can call him at (989) 774-6367 for details.

bungie.org is proud to announce its first-ever Art Contest. The Pillar of Art will reward artists who work in traditional media – no digital art allowed! Prizes include cold, hard cash and some super-cool stuff from Bungie. Read the details on the Pillar of Art page! (Before going in, don’t forget to admire the front artwork, done by Ian McConville, of MacHall fame.)

Mike Miller has created a movie called ‘In Too Deep (Things to Do in Halo When You’re Bored)’ – it’s 6:22 long, 20.7 mb large, and pretty much covers everything in our Tips and Tricks section in one easy lesson. (Okay, not everything. But an awful lot of it.) Mix in some humor, nice timing, a decent score, and a Monty Python quote I’ve been waiting to see in a Halo movie for over a year, and you’ve got entertainment. Currently housed at mythica.org and the Psyjnir.com Hotline server– but we’re happy to post mirrors if you want to provide bandwidth for this.

MacCentral has posted a project status update from Westlake Interactive, the folks that are working on the Mac port of Halo.

Westlake said that’s in “Prototype” stage, an important development milestone that precedes the game’s playable status. Bold hopes to ship the game almost concurrently with its PC counterpart’s release, expected later in 2003.

So – not playable yet, but getting there! Thanks to potifer for the heads-up.

Dark Helmet is back. After a spell away from Halo moviemaking, he’s submitted a slew of films in recent days. Two new ones today; a 250+ meter jump on the level Halo (measured with a Navpoint), and a truly high-flying banshee. Both posts lead to WMV vids.

RevolutionSF reviewed Halo about a year ago – dr_saius discovered it today. We’ve added it to our Reviews database. They also reviewed The Fall of Reach, at about the same time. (They liked it.)

What’s this? Two Halo Story Page updates in two days? What’s the world coming to?

Recently, Ghôlsbane extracted the vector-format weapons schematics from the Halo Manual. We’ve tossed them up for you to grab, if you’re so inclined.

Fan Fiction entries from this weekend:

• Liberation, part 10, by Hoju
• Legend Hunting, part 1, by Dispraiser
• Under the sergeant’s cap, part 4, by Traumatised Marine
• Spartans: The War on Solstice, part 1, by Shadow X
• A New Year’s Day, part 10, by Guilty Spark
• Force 81, part 6, by NobleWard

What are you waiting for?

Yesterday, Bowser posted a note to our forum explaining how a slow run through the Maw seemed to gain extra time at Foe Hammer’s pickup site. Some experimentation showed the limits of this feature. Here’s a short film (23 seconds, 1.4 mb, QT format) showing a gain of almost a minute. The situation is this: when you pass into the area where you’re supposed to wait for Foe Hammer, the timer drops off the screen. It doesn’t come back until AFTER she is shot down, and when it DOES come back, it comes back with the amount of time that was on it when it disappeared… with an exception. The rule is this: If you enter that area with LESS than one minute on the clock, your timer will be reset to (2 minutes – your time on the clock). Go in with 59 seconds, you’ll come out with 61. Go in with one second… you’ll come out with 1:59. This suggests that if something happens to you on this run, and you get to this area with less than a minute on the clock, you should run it down to nearly zero before crossing into the ‘pickup zone’; the longer you’re willing to wait, the more time you end up with. (Of course, if you misjudge, and the timer runs out before you get in, you’re dead.) Interesting find… even more interesting, in context; the game has been on the shelves for more than 14 months, and nobody noticed this before!

Links around the Halo universe… there are lots. Chris Hamilton pointed out his new Halo site, Proximity Zero. It’s devoted to Halo 2 info. He plans to buy a domain name if the community grows enough, so go visit! Also, OrangeMC pointed out that the family of Halo sites at forerunners.org isn’t listed in our Links section – that’s been rectified. (Soon, we’ll do another links pruning as we do periodically.) There are also a couple of Tournament sites worth noting; different scales, but we report what we’re told about. The Elite Spartan sent word that the Arkansas tournament we mentioned last week now has a website… and Jay, from the Associates of Gmaing Professionals, sends word about AGP’s second Halo Championship Event. It’s taking place in Nashville, TN, on April 12-13, and there’s a guaranteed $7,000 pot no matter how many teams show up. There are slots for 64 teams, and Darkman and the Dream Team will be back to defend their titles. That should keep you busy for a little bit!

Another pair of Halo 2 covers for our collection – one is from Spikedadragon, the other from Z77. It’s getting to be a big collection!

Again, we had to filter out a number of images, but the remainder (four pieces, plus variations) can be found in our Miscellaneous Art section. Some nice stuff!

Heh – pu1l found a NEW .fortune message (if you don’t know what a .fortune message is, check the Easter Eggs page). We like this one.

Beginning to clear out the artwork backlog… first up: desktop images. Three new ones (and several that didn’t meet the newly posted guidelines) – check ’em out in the Wallpaper section.

More action figure goodness… this time, right from the source. Check out the story at b.net, including a nice shot of a Cortana figure prototype. (A tad too sexy for my taste… but she ain’t done yet.) Thanks to mnemesis for the heads-up.

Whoa – we forgot to get back to it. Thanks to archon, at the Marathon’s Story Page forum, for reminding us. A week ago, some Halo dogtags (from Japan) went up for auction at eBay. They closed a couple of days ago for $77.02. Now THERE’S a nice profit.

Nice find. Brandon Tyler points out an article at Yahoo which details the agreement between Racing Champions Ertl (a marketer of collectibles) and Microsoft to create collectible figures and vehicles based on Halo (among other games). No dates have been given.

scibot3 points out his new Halo site, Bungie Halo. Currently, the Weapons section is the most fleshed out, but he plans to add content continuously. Check it out!