Three new desktops for you today, including a rather oddly shaped one, an image that was first submitted in a much smaller size for the Misc. Art section, and a subtly changed image (look closely in the shadows). You’ll find all three in our Wallpaper section.

Another comic from Stosh – this one should be appreciated by Matt Soell. You’ll find it in our Miscellaneous Art section.

And while the sick are sleeping, the gnomes work. The Subnova Hotline crew, aided in no small part by Miguel Chavez and in spite of their neglect of the correct answer dangled in front of their noses no fewer than 4 times by Cunbelin, managed to solve the egg mystery; details can be found on our forum. (Credit, too, must go to Matt, who triggered the first clue decoding… and, indeed, to everyone on the HBO forum who participated in this event in recent days. Many insights came from people simply building on other, partial ideas. That’s one of the beautiful things about this sort of community activity.) Miguel posted a very humorous (but very long) chat log from the HL server last night… read it for laughs.

Wow. Are you a UK resident who hasn’t been able to justify the price of an Xbox yet? Here’s a deal you just can’t turn down… £194.99 buys you

• Xbox Console (with one controller)
• Halo
• Splinter Cell
• Jet Set Radio Future
• Sega GT 2002

(You can buy the same package, without Halo or Splinter Cell, for £35 less… but why would you want to?) Visit Gameplay’s web store for all the details. (This package will be available next Friday.) Thanks to Nijhazer for the heads-up.

Project-Halo has gotten a facelift, and some new content… browse around!

Start the weekend with some Fan Fiction:

• Fafnir, part 9, by KnightmareWolf
• The Tides of War, chapter 6, by Corbantis
• Shadows of Archon II, part 28, by Wado

Get to readin’!

Over the last few days, the HBO forum has fixated itself on finding a mentioned-in-passing easter egg in Halo. Elan Sleazbagano has done a decent job writing up the progress to date; start here, if you’re interested in joining in the hunt. What began as a casual remark has turned into another community event like the bungie.org glyph puzzle last year. Keep an eye on that Miguel character…

Eric Redmond turned in a very nice piece of Halo artwork; it would probably make a great desktop, if not for the fact that it’s less than 400×300 pixels. Nonetheless, it’s worth looking at; you’ll find it in our Miscellaneous Art section. (There are game spoilers in this image.)

Ever wonder how Bungie works out their multiplayer map designs? Are they totally haphazard, or is there actually thought behind the various features? Get the lowdown on three different maps at Bungie’s Tru7h and Reconciliation site, in the latest story written up by Mordia, entitled ‘Designing for Carnage‘. Very, very cool.

Next weekend, a large gaming event is taking place up in Ontario – Fragapalooza East 2002, 3 days of carnage with $40,000 in prizes to be given out. The focus is on PC games (UT2003 and Warcraft III), but also listed on the ‘Official Tournaments’ list is Halo CTF, 4vs4. If you’re nearby, this might be a worthwhile weekend activity! Thanks to Battleground: Halo for the heads-up.

End-of-the-week Fan Fiction:

• HALO: Pilots of Autumn, part 2, by Jake Anderson
• Wings of Death, part 13, by el_halo_diablo
• Stormbringers, part 2, by WildebeestNZ

What’s on YOUR bookshelf?

James Snow has turned in an update to an older banner in our collection – you’ll find it in the Banners section. I’m not 100% comfortable with banners that were built to plug other fansites… but we accepted the older one, so we should accept this one. In other banner news, I need to figure out what we’re doing about banners in general; a significant chunk of bandwidth is being wasted by people who use banner links from our pages for their signatures on various message boards. I haven’t come up with a perfect solution – what will probably happen in the not-too-distant future is that we’ll zip all the full-size banners, and show only a thumbnail; they’ll still be accessible for anyone browsing our pages, but external links will no longer work. I hate to do this, but people don’t realize that when they post a link like this on a board, we end up paying the bandwidth charge, for zero benefit to ourselves (folks don’t even know where the banners come from, in most cases). This is just a heads-up; I don’t have time to make these changes right now. If you are one of the people using our banners in your signature, now would be a good time to find other hosting. Thanks!

Want a lot of Warthogs on your desktop? Visit our Wallpaper section.

Late afternoon Fan Fiction:

• I want to be a Spartan, part 2, by assman
• Stormbringers, part 1, by WildebeestNZ
• Decisions, part 2, by Warbow
• This is Suicide, part 2, by Neile Pederson

Go get ’em!

A pair of new desktops for you have been submitted to our Wallpaper section. (A reminder; if you upload material either to our ftp uploads area or our http uploads area, and do not identify it, we cannot post it.)

7th Column chapters Halo Diplomatic Core and xboxlanaz have taken it upon themselves to create a list of the top chapters in each state of the US, one chapter per state. You can see their work in progress here. We’re tickled that the HBO Junkies were picked as the Connecticut representative. Check out the list, and give ’em some feedback on the project!

Back in August, Mr.Poke discovered a pretty cool mp3 of some of Jen Taylor’s voice acting credits. It’s pretty fun to hear ‘Cortana’ selling body wash and chicken strips. It never occurred to me, or to anyone else who communicated with me, to look for other Halo voice actors… but today Stuntmutt found a similar file for Steve Downes, the voice of the Master Chief. That got me to do a bit of digging… and armed with The Names Behind The Voices, and the archives of Voicebank.net and The Talent Group, you can find clips from a large number of Halo voice actors. Moviemakers… start your engines!

Whoa – great find by Ghôlsbane. If you visit COMPUTERCAFE.com, and navigate your way through gallery -> broadcast -> Bungie (in the Flash version, it’s the first icon), you’ll see the opening movie (the cells morphing into the earth, with a Bungie logo), and its credits.It was created by NoiseTV, for Microsoft/Bungie. Interesting that nobody involved is credited anywhere in the Halo manual. Anyway, if you have need for an opening cinematic that has to capture the attention, now you know a company to call!

That Weasel, enjoying the newfound space on That Weasel Television, has added two new mirrors; the OXM Warthog Jump movie and Jackass. Links have been added where appropriate. He’s also put up a movie we decided we didn’t have space for; The First Time Playing Halo Online, by Assassin X. It’s 20 mb, 8:25 long, and in .wmv format. Once again, the community thanks you!

Just a couple of entries in the Fan Fiction database today:

• HALO: Pilots of Autumn, by Jake Anderson
• Sestina to Master Chief, by Megan Swaine

For those who don’t know what a sestina is, you should read this.