Hehe – Cheerio noticed this item on eBay – hurry, you’ve got 8 hours left to buy an advance copy of Halo 2. (Of course, you’ll pay at least $69.99 for it, and there’s absolutely no guarantee you’ll get it any faster than you would by going down to your local EB Games… but hey! You can say you were first in line!) Caveat Idiota.

In late August, 2002, the Halo National Championship was played in Los Angeles. G4 Media, the folks who run the all-gaming cable channel G4tv, filmed it, and on September 20, broadcast it for the first time. A couple of HBO regulars (Asmodeus and Lophan) were kind enough to film this – but we could never get the folks at G4 to let us know whether we could put up a copy on the web. Well, it’s a new year, and it’s no longer in the episode rotation schedule… so we’re gonna give it a shot. We’ve broken it up into three segments; the two semifinal rounds, and the finals. We’ll release one every couple of days. The first chunk is Semifinal Round 1, and the first minute is of dubious quality. (A problem with Asmodeus’ tape deck – and Lophan missed that minute.) From that point on, however, quality is decent. The movie is 7:16 long, 28.4 big, and hosted by Mythica.org – we are happy, of course, to add mirrors. Go grab it… and see how the first 8 of the top 16 Halo competitors in the country play!

Matt Purcell dropped off a new desktop for your perusal – you’ll find it in our Wallpaper section.

A couple of Fan Fiction stories built up over the holiday:

• The Legend of Kazak’-Dun, by Kane172
• Halo: The Legacy of the Spartan IIIs Chapter 1, by Kyle/Mutated Elite

I guess most writers have been reveling… Update: oops, missed one; Sarge turned in Banserki’s Journal, part 10 yesterday as well.

eva05 noticed a new poll at Gamers.com (bottom of the main page) – ‘Which 2003 Xbox games are you most excited about?’ Halo 2 is currently running away with 52% of the vote…

Fury Three discovered yet another Lego Warthog over at Brickshelf – check out the work of Jeremiah VanderMark. I love the dedication of Lego fanatics. The little painted Master Chief rocks!

To make up for the Metroid vs. Halo train wreck posted earlier, we’d like to present you with Halo-Wannabe’s Official Bungie Illustrated Swimsuit Video. 6.9 mb, 1.45 long, in QuickTime format. Thanks to Brian Towne of Mythica, as usual, for the hosting. Happy New Year!

Matt Purcell has turned in a new Halo banner – originally enormous (far too big for service as a banner, but attractive nonetheless). We’ve scaled it down a bit, but the original is still available from the Banners section.

If this weren’t half a meg, I’d have said forget it… but it’s so bad it’s funny. Check out Wisgary Torres’ Halo vs. Metroid flick – 572k in WMV format. Don’t get mad – we’ll be posting another film in the not-too-distant future.

Grant White sends word that a friend has put together a Warthog mod for Operation Flashpoint: Resistance. You can see a picture of it, and apparently can download the mod, as well – though the download server seems to be offline at the moment. (When it’s up, go to ‘Addons2’ and follow the link for a FAV.) The list of games affected by Halo grows…

Happy New Year, everyone!

Got some cleaning up to do – there might be updates later today. (Or maybe not until tomorrow…)

A simply MASSIVE new logo from X – in our Logos section.

Heh. We’re flattered. 🙂

Two months ago, forum regular Tarrsk set up a list of HBO forumgoers and their Xbox Live gamertags, so that people could find friends to play with. Recently, that list moved here, to HBO. Now, it’s become quite a bit more automated. The list keeps track of which XBL games you play, and you have full access to your own entry, so that you can add and remove games as you buy new ones or get tired of old ones. All existing entries have been moved to the new system, and assigned random passwords. None of these, of course, have games associated with them, because that information wasn’t collected the first time around. If you’d like to edit your existing entry, simply visit the list, and follow the ‘Edit your existing entry’ link at the top of the page. We found email addresses for most existing entries, so you can have your password mailed to you – once you’re in, you can change the password to something you can remember. There were about a dozen entries for which we have no email addresses – if you’re one of these, you’ll need to mail Tarrsk again with your address. (Follow the instructions on the page for details.) You’re welcome to set up a new entry, as well – but be advised that these will be screened; spam will be deleted, and spammers will be banned from the system. Hopefully, this new setup will give people more control over who they play games with! If you have any questions about the list itself, please contact Tarrsk. If you have a PROBLEM with the list (something isn’t working properly) contact me – I coded it, and any errors are certainly my fault.

Whoa. Nice find by mnemesis. After seeing all those hardcover copies of The Fall of Reach on the Bungie Webcam, he went looking at Del Rey’s online catalog… and the latest iteration of the entry for the next Halo novel is rather intriguing. It’s now listed in 3 categories, instead of just two. The older two (‘Fiction – Science Fiction’ and ‘Fiction – Science Fiction – Adventure’) have been there for months… but now it’s listed in ‘Fiction – Movie/TV Tie-In’ as well. After all those times Matt’s said that there’s no Halo movie in the works, it looks like SOMEONE thinks Halo’s gonna get SOME screen-time… I’m curious to see how this unfolds.

Back in September, we posted a piece of Halo fan art that showed an interesting composite submitted by macro werner. Well, its fame is spreading – you can find this picture (unattributed) on page 91 of the February 2003 issue of OXM. (Interestingly enough, the footer of that page says ‘February 2001’ – maybe they’re having some quality control issues.) Thanks to elect5 for the heads-up.

Griffon pointed out that he announced a piece of Halo fan music more than two years ago. (As far as I can tell, this is the FIRST piece of Halo fan music – I’m sorry it’s remained buried until now.) You can grab a copy (3.2 mb, mp3 format) from mythica.

Matt Purcell asks a momentous question, Katana_701 sketches some weapons based on the Halo assault rifle. You’ll find the results in our Miscellaneous Art section.

Fan Fiction from the last day or so:

• Fallen Angel, part 2, by Gruntkiller/Covert
• A Shield of Deception, by Jahan
• Rebirth – Shadow’s Prologue, part 1, by Shadow
• War on the Home Front, Chapter 1 and Chapter 2, by Anthony Coronado

Go get ’em… Update: oops, missed one. Don’t forget to check out Ring Of The Forerunners Part II, by Locke.

A couple of days ago, we mentioned a new piece of Halo fan music. We’ve recently gotten permission from Spiderstyle (the creator) to host a copy here; we’ve placed it on Mythica’s HBO Mirror. It’s 3.9 mb, and nicely polished. We’ll add comments from the author about the piece as soon as we get them. Hopefully, this will take some of the pressure off Xboxworld.nl, the original host (they still have it available, we’re simply mirroring it). Enjoy!