DOH! Almost forgot to mention – there are also a whole passel of irregularly-sized images for dual-monitor setups on the Desktops page of Tru7h and Reconciliation- go get ’em! (Watch the spoilers.)

There’s a new article over at Bungie’s Tru7h and Reconciliation site today, which focuses on the ties between Marathon and Halo. Are any questions answered? No, not really. It’s a good overview for those who don’t know much about Marathon… but the Bungie skill of saying a lot without saying anything is very much in evidence here. Oh, yeah, and go read what Hamish Sinclair had to say about it, over at the Marathon’s Story page… Thanks to mnemesis for the heads-up – though I should have seen it myself on the Story page… shame, shame…

A dent has been made on the Gameplay Tricks queue – 9 new tricks have been added today. They range from funny little glitches to major thought-provoking engine explorations… look through ALL of ’em! (There are still half-a-dozen in the queue – including one or two that have been in the documentation phase for a LONG time – but we’re getting there.)

New fan art – one from wetslayer, three from Germain Couët. You’ll find all four in our Miscellaneous Art section. (Splat’s pretty funny. 😉 ) Update: Germain CouÔ´ has sent in ANOTHER image – you can find it here, or see all five with this link.

Today’s batch of Fan Fiction for you:

• Halo Beyond, part 1, by Joey21488
• Banserki’s Journal, part 5, by Sarge
• Gods Love a Tryer, part 1, by Dee Pulled by author’s request
• The Long Ride Home, part 3, by Joshua Barreto

Lessee if I can get these posted before more come in…

Sometimes, I just want to cry. For months and months (and months on end), Matt Soell, spokesperson for Bungie Studios, has been yelling at the top of his lungs that Halo is coming to PCs/Macs – but judging from the mail we get (and posts on our forum), nobody hears him. Yesterday, Adrenaline Vault put up a story that “Microsoft Says Yes to Halo for PC” – and we’ve already gotten several emails, telling us how wonderful this news is! Whatever works, I guess…

New Halo commercials at Xbox.jp – 4 of ’em, ranging from hilarious to… um, confusing. All in .asx streaming format. There are also two larger files on that page – the new trailer mentioned yesterday, and the one posted back in February. Thanks to op_ivy for the heads-up. Update: These commercials have been added to the Movies database.

Whoa – nice design! Haloplayers, one of the old guard Halo sites, lost its domain name a little while back… but they’ve taken a new one – RealHaloplayers.com – and are back and better than ever! (If you can’t see ’em yet, the DNS changes haven’t propagated – be patient.) Classy new design, a serious focus on the multiplayer community… these guys are ready to rock. Check ’em out!

It’s nowhere near as finished as I’d like… but it’s functional, and it’s MUCH more finished than the old version. For those people looking for Halo Movies, we’d like to announce our newly-overhauled Halo Movies Section. More features will be coming soon (sorting, searching, and so on) – but for now, hopefully you’ll find an up-to-date, organized list of Halo movies to be useful. There are lots of new things – many movies have been converted to different formats, to make them more accessible (usually that means smaller) – and several movies that have been missing for ages have now been found. Browse away!

A rather well-documented entry has been added to the Gameplay Tricks section – there is now quite a bit of documentation on getting through the locked door on Silent Cartographer. In addition, there are a pair of bonus movies – both are from xbill; one shows how to get through that door in a jeep without explosives or beating, and the other shows some entertaining cutscene manipulation. Check it all out!

Fan Fiction offering – lighter than usual:

• Halo (in a nutshell), by Jenova
• ODST Saga, Chapter 3 , by Robo42786
• The Renegade Marines, part 13, by Shadow

Don’t forget that script!

A new magazine has hit the streets – ThePerfectCore lets us know about it in our forum. (You’ll find the cover in our Miscellaneous Art section.)

This showed up in our inbox yesterday. We think it fell off the produce truck in Hollywood. Or something.

As noted by MSN on our forum, and Firfin via email, Microsoft has decided to drop the price of the Xbox outside the US – new prices (as of April 26) will be €299/£199/A$399 in Europe/UK/Australia, respectively. Makes you wish you’d waited, huh? Update: Veebs points out that Microsoft is giving everyone who bought an Xbox BEFORE April 26 two free games and a free controller – so it’s all good. (except, of course, for those of us in the US, who STILL have to pay $299 US per xbox…)

Microsoft’s Japanese Xbox site has a new Halo trailer (Windows Media Player format, High Bandwidth only). Nothing new for seasoned Halo movie watchers but some nice gameplay nevertheless. Warning: it may contain a spoiler for those who haven’t played Halo. Pax.

Apologies for the slow news service – major connectivity problems yesterday has led to quite a bit of cleanup today – not much time for Halo. However, this is big news: According to this MacWorld.uk article, a UK company has announced a DirectX solution for the Macintosh – which should make the porting of games (potentially even Halo, though maybe the timing is off) to the Mac a whole lot easier. Thanks to Miguel Chavez for the heads-up on our forum. Woohoo!

Three new Halo reviews, thanks to Blues News – StonedGamers.com (who didn’t summarize, so we’ve left them out of the Reviews Database, though they loved it), Ausbox.net (they loved it), and Gamers Xtreme (they loved it). Running tally: 115 reviews (plus 2 unranked), average 94.9%.

Quick update on the eBayed Halo shirt mentioned yesterday: It’s up to $41 right now, and we’re still 2 and a half days from the end of the auction! PCDestroyer says, “Bungie must not want to make money hand over fist…” Heh. (These shirts will likely be half that price, or less, when the Bungie Store finally reopens.)

Today’s Fan Fiction installment consists of new chapters to existing series:

• Aftermath, part 5, by Alex Cross
• The Hell Of War, part 6, by Jaywhit10
• The Renegade Marines, part 12, by Shadow

That empties the ff queue… for probably about 15 minutes.

Rather an odd size for a desktop image… but that’s what he’s calling it. 🙂 Germain Couët has created another mural image – this time of a battlescene during the day, in the snow. You’ll find it in our Wallpaper section.