Whoa. Ruzhyo noticed that TeamXbox has some extra goodies to go along with the new Xbox skin for WMP for Windows XP – and while the Halo skin in their goody pack is windows-only, the music tracks aren’t… and there are three new (never-released-on-the-web) Halo tracks in there! (Windows Media Player format, of course.) The package is a bit over 4 megs – and worth the download!

The Fan Fiction deluge continues… Roger Lin sends in Chapter 2 of his Resistivity saga, entitled The Perils of Reentry. Check it out in our Fan Fiction section.

Robo has dropped off a fun little One-Shot for your enjoyment… it’s not often you see this particular alignment. (Don’t look if you’re unspoiled…)

Divender, of AreaHalo, has uploaded one of his desktop images. It’s a little small… but it’s pretty cool. Check it out in our Wallpaper section.

On page 49 of this week’s London Sunday Times is an article on gaming consoles – and the picture they chose to use was the Master Chief… wielding a flamethrower! Rather odd, given that it’s been known that the flamethrower was pulled in development over 4 months ago… If there are any UK Halo fans who have access to the Sunday Times, a scan of this article would be much appreciated. (Thanks to Hamish Sinclair, stuck in low-tech no-scanner-land, for the heads-up.)

A new magazine called Xgamer went onsale in the UK last month, and the first issue contained a 12-page Halo spread. (We’ll be posting scans, courtesy of Ghôlsbane, later this week, when issue 2 hits the stands.) In the meantime, though, Games Radar UK has put up a chunk of the text of the spread – most of the actual review part is there. You can read the review now (they gave it a 9/10), and check out the added details later, when the scans go up. (We’ve added this one to our Reviews database, and put the 11 screens into our Screenshots database.) Thanks to Ghôlsbane for the heads-up on the online review, as well!

Divender writes to let us know that AreaHalo, a new German Halo site, has come online. Nice design (not NS4-friendly, but then, what is?), some GREAT wallpaper, high-quality content. Check ’em out!

Ran across another Halo review – this one from Xbox Au. They thought it was somewhat derivative… but that didn’t stop them from rating it a 9.4/10. We’ve added it to our Reviews database.

A reminder – The deadline for the first half of the Maw 700 Contest is this Friday night, at midnight UTC. Three more days to get those entries in! And by now you should be thinking seriously about submissions for the SECOND half of the contest – the movie submission. Rules, suggestions, and prizes can be found on the Maw 700 info page. (Thanks once again to poena.dare #CP#g, who has done most of the work on this baby.)

Fast and Furious, that’s what we call the Fan Fiction section around here. Shadow has dropped off another chapter of the Renegade Marines saga – you can read Chapter 4 by itself, or you can read the entire series. Don’t forget to leave some feedback!

Took longer than I expected, but our FTP Uploads folder is back up and running again. We’re happy to take submissions there. (The only real change – the directory is no longer world-readable. It’s a dropbox only… so be sure you let us know there’s something in there!)

Another new Halo review – this time, it’s the French site VoS JeUx. They loved it. They didn’t get a chance to play multiplayer… but the single player blew ’em away. You’ll find it in our Reviews database, as well. Thanks to Cyberpro54@aol.com for the heads-up.

The Master Chief and Cortana… back on Earth. Jehkoh drops off a new fanfic entitled ‘Order of the Seraphim‘, which looks at battle on Earth, post-halo. You’ll find it in our Fan Fiction section.

Manatee Bound has reviewed Halo – they saw the limited weapons-carrying ability and the limited enemy assortment as the biggest flaws. Final rating was 8.75/10 – we’ve added the review to our Reviews database.

Psyrixx dropped us a note to let us know that they’re working hard on bringing the Psyjnir Complex back online. In the meantime, he’s redrawing the comic series he started before the server melted – with more detail than the first time. Check back every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for a new comic – until the site’s online, they’re not going to be archived, so if you miss ’em, you miss ’em.

A couple of Fan Fiction submissions for you – both nearly free of punctuation. Luckily, one’s a poem. You’ll find Jaywhit10’s The Hell of War and Jehkoh’s Untitled Poem in the Fan Fiction section.

Got a Nokia cell phone? Want to make it ring with the Halo theme? Rage Reset has posted the codes necessary in Nokia Ring Tone Composer format on our forum… and it’s got Marty’s OK (though nobody checked with Microsoft, so be sure you don’t go to Redmond and get calls with this thing…). The lengths some people go to…

A few new One-Shots have been added to our collection – check out the goodies! (No serious spoilers, even for those who haven’t played, I’d guess… minor stuff only.)

Naligun points out that the UK TV show Thumb Bandits finished its season on Friday, and announced that Halo was the best game of the entire series! It was, in their words, “Outrageously good. This game has everything. Utter, unmitigated genius.” High praise, indeed!

Freewill has put up a video comprised of over 1500 webcam snapshots taken over a 14 hour period… it’s 6 megs, and shows (mostly) the projection screen we used for the first 12 hours or so. However, there are people shots, as well… if you’ve got a fast connection, give it a look!