Macleans.ca, the website for a leading Canadian news magazine, has put up a Halo review – they gave it 5/5 (the best of any of the 4 games they reviewed). We’ve added it to our Reviews database. Thanks to Ph.D. for the heads-up!

Thanks muchly to SonicStorm and the Battleground: Halo crew – the latest movie, ‘Halo Hurricane’, now has another set of download links at FilePlanet. We’ve started a mirror list, to provide easy access to existing mirrors. More as we hear about ’em! Update: Alan Wu (no relation) points out that his Project MJOLNIR now has mirrors for both Hurricane Halo and the .wmv version of ‘Halo: The Movie‘. Links have been added to the respective mirror pages. Thanks, Alan!

A new movie has hit the scene… and it’s a biggie. 21 megs, almost 7 minutes long… with some great stunts, weird glitches, and a large number of laugh-out-loud moments. As of now, there’s exactly one host – our favorite savior, mythica.org. You folks have been known to peg even that prodigious pipe, though… so anyone who can mirror this, eternal gratefulness (at least until the next one comes along) will be yours. Drop us a line and we’ll hook you up. For right now, go visit mythica.org and download Halo Hurricane, from Mark Mendenhall… and crank it up. Update: Appleicious has graciously put up a mirror on his university webspace – hopefully, it won’t get crushed before more come in.

Another pair of desktop images from Eric Gandhi – find ’em in our Wallpaper section.

Just a small note of concern… this peep stuff is getting a little out of hand; you people are starting to scare me.

Thanks to Djoey.154, who pointed out that the Xbox.com Winamp skin easter egg page now contains a second Halo track for your listening pleasure. Worth a look!

Another batch of Fan Fiction – it’s pretty scary how much you guys write…

• The Renegade Marines, Part X, by Shadow
• The Capture, by Jason Pridgen
• Check, please, by Kellen Squire
• The Rookie, Chapter 3, by The British Commando

Go to it!

Whoa! I accidentally hit an old bookmark… and discovered that Rampancy.net is back online! (Okay, it’s BEEN online, at rampancy.synfibers.com, all this time… but the original name works again.) The domain hasn’t been renewed yet, so who knows how LONG it’ll be there… but hey, you should go visit, it was a great site that is now suffering from neglect.

Eep – we missed this one. Xbox Xtreme [dot] Net has put up a new Halo review – they gave it a 10/10, and used a lot of exclamation points to describe it. We’ve added the review to the Reviews Database. (In fact, looking at their site, the original Halo review they posted – with a rating of a 9.5 – is no longer online… but there are now 3 Halo reviews, all with a rating of 10. This is too confusing for us, so we’re going to leave the original for the time being, and add this newest one.)

PanZer is attempting to compile a database of all the human and grunt dialog lines in Halo. Never mind that Marty has told us there are over 5000… he’s trying it, and he needs your help. Stop by the database, and see what you can do!

Yesterday, Frogblast posted a series of movies chronicling his experiments with the Blue Beams of Death on the level Halo (the series will show up on the Tricks page soon)… not long after, Dark Helmet sent in a new movie to iBonk.com, showing what happens when you Warthog-Jump into one of the blue beams. That hog’s… GONE! Whoa.

Appleicious, one of the participants at last week’s Battle of the Bay, has put up several Halo movies for download – both flavors of ‘Halo: The Movie‘, the new Movie Teaser, and both flavors of the Rocket Dance vid (which he’s in). We’ve added relevant links to all mirror pages, so if you’re having trouble getting these films, you have a new place to try!

The One-Shots page finally got its update – 8 new images, submitted up to 3 weeks ago. (They’re all dated today, because it makes more sense to me that way.) Check ’em out! Next up – the 9 new tricks submitted since Friday’s major update… (look for it tomorrow, or the next day.) Note: If I missed your One-Shot submission (and I very well could have), drop me some mail. I’ll get it up in the next batch, or I’ll explain to you why not.

Eric Gandhi sent in a new desktop for our database – you’ll find it in the Wallpaper section. Nice and blue…

Three new fan fics this evening (though one is actually a concatenation of a pair of submissions; they both came before I got to this update, and the second was too short to stand alone, and they’re both part of the same story…)

• ODST Saga, Chapter 2, by Robo42786
• Well Enough Alone, Part III, by Ryan
• Halo: Combat Revolved, by eL diAbLo

Check ’em all out (and keep up the comments!) in our Fan Fiction section.

Macgamer.com has put up an interview with Peter Tamte, of Destineer Studios… and while this shouldn’t even need to be said, it does:

One thing which Mac Halo naysayers tend to focus on is, even though Bungie has stated repeatedly that Halo will come to Mac, Microsoft pulls the financial strings (suggesting that it’s not for Bungie to say one way or another if a Mac version can or will get made). When you say that you “know this to be true” about Halo for Mac, is this because of Bungie’s assertion of it or because Microsoft has been clear with you about it? Or something else?

Anybody who has asserted that Microsoft will prevent Halo from shipping on the Macintosh is not well informed. Making Halo available for Macintosh is a promise that was made by Ed Fries, the VP who manages all of Microsoft’s games software, on stage with Steve Jobs at Macworld Expo.

This, of course, won’t actually make a difference with the hardcore doubters… but hey, we don’t have a copy of PC Halo to rub their noses in yet, so this’ll have to do. Go read the rest of the interview – it’s good to hear what Tamte’s got going!

Xbox.com reports that according to NPDFunworld (the folks who keep track of video game sales), Halo has sold over one million copies to date… and has become the fastest million-unit seller ever for any next-gen console. (‘Next-gen console’ means PS2, GameCube, Xbox.)

Statistically, this means that more than six copies of Halo: Combat Evolved have been sold every minute of every day since its launch on Nov. 15, 2001.

In the UK, 86 percent of all Xbox system purchasers bought Halo – whoa. The big question, though, is… how many of them get their Halo news here?

Jeff Green, who wrote an editorial at Gamers.com yesterday, predicting that PC Halo would be cancelled after all, stopped by our forum to clarify his position. Seems he DOES want to see Halo on a PC – he’s just afraid that MS wants to milk the Xbox dollars as much as they can before allowing the PC users to get their hands on this one. (It’s not an uncommon belief, actually, though Bungie would tell you that the current lack of a PC version stems more from… well, from it not being done than it does from any nefarious plot by Microsoft.) Here’s hoping Mr. Green’s pessimism is unfounded!

When Brian Josselyn, of Blackstar Productions, released ‘Halo: The Movie‘, a ‘trailer’ of a ficticious Halo movie, Bungie employee Dave Candland asked, “Want a job at MS marketing? ;)” He was kidding… but Brian’s most recent production, ‘Halo: The Movie Teaser’, shows it wasn’t a fluke. If Bungie ever DOES make this movie, the advertising work is well underway. 🙂 You can find this latest movie (1:34, 10.6 mb, QT5) at Brian’s mac.com space, or at mythica.org (with perpetual thanks to Brian Towne). We’ll set up a mirror page as soon as a few folks volunteer to help with this puppy (hint, hint). Check it out – you won’t regret the download. ObSpoilerWarning: There are minor spoilers here, though nothing as strong as the first one. (Which we forgot to warn you of. Sorry…) Finally, Brian has also put together a newsletter to give people some more information about what he does – you can find it here.

Purgatory has created some Master Chief artwork (both alone an as a poster) we’ve added all 5 variations to the Miscellaneous Art page.