I hadn’t realized this was such a big deal… but we’ve now received over a dozen emails about it, so maybe I’m wrong. CNN mentioned the win by Halo at the Fifth Annual Interactive Achievement Awards last week. (We mentioned the awards… but apparently, the CNN article is bigger news for a lot of you than the awards themselves.) First credit for the notice goes to Mr Yun, who sent in word over 15 hours ago.

Icons, icons, everywhere! Malagigi sends in a passel of Mac OSX 128×128 icons – you can grab ’em here, in .sit format, or preview ’em here. At the same time, El Bastardâ„¢ creates a quick MC head, and some other Bungie-related stuff, and tells us about it in this forum post.

So Halo’s the game of the year. What better way to advertise it than say it on the game box! Pax.

Wishing that you could get hold of an Xbox controller that was a little smaller than the standard Microsoft controller, but of the same high quality? Now you can – Gamespy reports that Microsoft is planning on marketing the Xbox Controller S, similar (but not identical) to the Japanese Xbox controller, in the US.

GameSpy: What does the S stand for?

David Hufford: Well, there’s not a lot of science behind it, it’s more of an art thing. I think we were all in a room and thought it would be a cool name, so we just came up with it.

As good a reason as any… check the article for the lowdown on the actual unit. Thanks to SonicStorm, of Battleground: Halo, for the heads-up.

fAt1, from MPZ Halo, drops us a note about the latest issue of Edge Magazine (issue 108). There’s an interview with J. Allard, Xbox General Manager, and one of the questions had an amusing answer:

Edge: What would you say to the PS2 being better value for money, considering that once you’ve bought a couple of Xbox games, some extras and a DVD controller the Xbox almost doubles in price?

Allard: Halo.

Sounds about right to us… (fAt1 points out that the high cost of the Xbox in the UK (£350-450, depending on what you buy with it, or $500-650 US) might lead to some embarrassment in the MS camp come the 14th… we’ll have to wait and see.)

Whew – the Fan Fiction is coming in fast and furious. Another chapter each from Velker, Shadow, and Gasmask… check ’em all out on the Fan Fiction page!

Bonk submits a fun pic showing what happens when you TRY and exploit Halo bugs (as opposed to stumbling across them accidentally). You’ll find it in our One-Shots collection. (The spoiler warning is incidental – the pic itself isn’t a spoiler, but investigating the stuff behind it might be.)

Gameplay weirdness: NthDegree256 was playing through the Maw, and when he blasted the engine vents, he saw what looked like a huge gout of red blood bursting from the opening. Ferrex stepped in to explain what was happening:

This is a “feature” that was discovered a little too late to be documented. What you’re actually seeing isn’t blood… it’s dirt. Red dirt. That particular effect does some sort of sampling of the texture color at the point where it originates from… that way, you get yellow sand spray when it hits sand, or brown dirt when it hits dirt.

In this case, the vent cores are cherry red from the heat. Those cherry red surfaces are probably (I haven’t checked this) of material type “dirt”, the default material type. The net result is that, when a grenade or rocket detonates against one of those surfaces, you get a horrifying geyser of blood colored dirt.

I haven’t seen this personally yet, but apparently, it’s dependent on where you hit the vent. However, it’s very nice to have an explanation… I’m sure it’ll come up again!

Mad Dog lets us know that his Halo site has been updated. It’s pretty bare-bones, but if you want some Halo gameplay tips with a healthy dose of attitude on the side, you should check it out.

Registration for Bungie’s E3 Seventh Column Tournament is now closed – but registration for the Fanfest itself is open. If you’re interested in going, read this news post, then fill out this form. Spots are limited, so sign up now! (And if you’re looking for practice partners, check out the Seventh Column’s week in review – there are some new up-and-coming chapters listed there, you might find someone local!)

More icons for everyone! Liquidex has redone his as a WIndows icon file – you can grab it here. For those among you for which .ico files are very hard to use (you can count me in that group), the .gif version at the start of this post is the same image. Also, Djoey.154 created a whole series of .ico files (which I’ve also converted to something a bit more web-friendly) – you can see all of them here.

Velker’s Halo 2 Chronicle continues, with Part IV. Thank goodness for snipers! The Fan Fiction collection grows.

Bonk points out that iBonk is back up! A new movie and some details of the folks behind the site are the latest additions. Check it out!

Thanks to Elvish Archer, who picked up (from a Japanese site, no less) that Halo won the AIAS Interactive Achievement Award for Game of the Year! (We told you they’d been nominated… and that the ceremony was supposed to be yesterday, but AIAS hasn’t updated their website yet.) Congratulations, Bungie! Nice feather, that one. Update: Matt Soell points out on Bungie.net that in addition to Game of the Year, Halo also won Console Game of the Year, Console Action/Adventure Game of the Year, and Outstanding Achievement in Visual Engineering. (That’s 4 of the 8 categories they were nominated for… and 3 of the 3 major ones.) W00t!

Billy Ford stops by our forum to announce that TeamSlayer.com is hosting Halo tournaments that don’t cost anything to enter. They’re even working on prizes. Stop by their site for more details!

Freewill is looking for people interested in playing in the Halo tournament at the Bungie Fanfest Convocation on Friday, May 24, 2002 in LA. If you are planning on being there… drop him a note!

A new review has surfaced – XBM, a UK magazine, has put an online review up. Except for the repetitiveness near the end (a somewhat universal complaint), they loved it – 98% was the final rating. We’ve added it to our Reviews database. (The print version will be going up this weekend, thanks to Gimp.)

Liquidex, in answer to a forum request for Halo icons, has created a nice Master Chief version (and blown it up for detail):

Except for the spelling error, it’s perfect (and if you’re using it on your desktop, you won’t want the words anyway). Thanks, Liquidex!

Three short fan fics submitted recently – two post-Halo speculations and one poem. Check out The Renegade Marines (minor spoilers), Halo 2: Hope for Mankind (bigger spoilers), and A Ringworld Far Away in our Fan Fiction section!

Another look at a post-Halo possibility, from drexx – Earth: Combat Evolved picks up where Halo leaves off, and the action starts right up. You’ll find it in our Fan Fiction section.