The Haloport team writes with the info that they’re looking for a few beta testers for their site. The official request:

www.haloport.com is looking for select members of the Halo community to beta test a system which has been underdevelopment for several months. We’re looking for mainly squad leaders, members of squads and anyone of great intrest in Halo. Please contact alan@stott.net.

If you’re interested in trying out what’s behind the curtain, drop ’em a line!

ActionTrip has reviewed Halo – ‘A HALO review from a PC gamer’s perspective‘ – and though they spend well over half the review whining about how Halo isn’t really a console title (and the Xbox is really a mini-PC in disguise), and how they HAVE to take points off because “MS ruined some of the fun by making it an Xbox title”… they STILL gave it a 91%. If you’re willing to put up with the constant whining (I thought he had it out if his system after he spent the first 25% of the review on it, but it came back well before the end), go check it out. We’ve added it to our Reviews section. (Thanks to Harry Al-Shakarchi for the heads-up.)

Last month, Matt Soell wrote an article for the opening of Bungie’s Seventh Column community site called ‘Hosting a LAN Party‘. Now Part 2, written by David ‘Candyman’ Candland, has been posted: ‘Finding the Right Venue‘. It has some great ideas about places to get together, if your living room just doesn’t cut it. It also has a hilarious screenshot to go with it. Thanks to No7orious for being the first of many to point this out.

A glimpse into the mind of a Portuguese student… Razorback submits a sketch he did during school last year, doodles and all. I love the duck. 🙂 Check it out on our Miscellaneous Art page.

BiBoFieTo sent in information about using jeeps as flag defense on Blood Gulch. Using some of the techniques described recently, or a combination of rocket launchers and grenades (if other vehicles aren’t available as ramps), you put a Warthog on the roof of your base… then drive it down onto the flag. (Alternatively, you can block the lower entrances to the base by pulling it around the corner once it’s inside – you still have to watch for folks climbing over (or dropping down from above), but the chain guns might help…) He sent in digital camera pics, but they weren’t much different from what’s been seen. He also passed along a pair of images showing a little-known sniper location:

From the blue base it looks like a steep trangular face of the cliff (bloodgulchsniperbottom.jpg). Simply walk up and snipe (bloodgulchsniper.jpg).

This is a different location than the sniper spot mentioned in the recent Multiplayer Guide update at Bungie’s Truth and Reconciliation site – that one is behind the red base, in the shadows, and has cover to hide behind. BiBo’s is at about 2 o’clock (if you’re IN the blue base, looking towards the red base), and is wide open – but you’ve got a nice field of fire.

Thanks to LK.Rage, who pointed out a Dutch review of Halo, in video format. Okay, it’s not really a review – ShrimpTV simply played the game on camera for about 5 minutes. It’s not bad footage… and it’s relatively understandable for non-Dutch speakers (there isn’t much voice-over stuff, and a chunk of what there is is actually in English), but it’s a rather large file. It’s episode 11 of ShrimpTV, available as a 95 MB download (in zipped WMV format) from this page. The Halo segment starts about 9 minutes in. (There’s some footage of Return to Castle Wolfenstein, as well, for those intrigued with the graphics of that game.) They liked it… the ‘Positief’ listed at the end is simply ‘moehahahahaaa’, which sums up Halo pretty well. (Their negative has to do with the wait Europeans are faced with.)

VoodooExtreme’s recent poll on console systems has ended, with the Xbox crushing the competition (47% of 6800 votes)… there’s a new one up; ‘Who is the 2001 Developer of the year?’ Bungie is currently leading, with 172 (17%) of 1011 votes… but Blizzard isn’t far behind with 104. If you haven’t voted, get on over! (Thanks to Aginor for the heads-up.)

Thanks to Vector40, who wrote to point out a new article at Bungie’s Support site about playing system link games over the internet. Bungie’s Stefan Sinclair has written up a nice overview of the available options and their pluses and minuses… worth a read if you’re interested in finding online carnage. (Thanks also to No7orious, who pointed out the same article on our forum, several hours later.)

Wow, that was fast… bsotizz submits a desktop image based on Razorback’s recent Miscellaneous Art. You’ll find it in our Wallpaper section.

Razorback submits a sketch of a Halo marine – there’s the before pencil sketch, and the after colored version. (They’ve been combined into a single image for our Miscellaneous Art collection.) Check it out!

More vehicle shenanigans – DraegonMage and IllusionGuy spent some time putting a bunch of vehicles INSIDE the base on the Blood Gulch map – DraegonMage sent a bunch of pictures, but image quality was very, very low. Here’s one of the best shots. It’s pretty clear that we’re talking Warthogs and Ghosts here… which means that Team 7HR33, made up of Finn, Shovelface, Chavez, Dodge, and Lift, takes the award for First Team to Put a Scorpion INSIDE the Base – you can read Finn’s account here. (As Count Zero said, the best line is this one:

Then add two Warthogs and lightly season with Ghosts.

Beautiful imagery, there…) Can’t wait to see the Team 7HR33 website!

Oops, we missed it… but it’s all good. VoodooExtreme’s last poll, ‘What game released in 2001 had the best graphics?’, was won (narrowly) by Halo – 23 votes ahead of Return to Wolfenstein (with more than 8700 votes cast). The new poll asks your opinion on the best console system of the year… and yes, the Xbox is currently winning. Go add your vote!

DT_Spike, a mod on the IGN forums, did some nice driving during a CTF game on Blood Gulch. He took some photos with a digital camera – check out the results here. Let’s see who’s the first to get a SCORPION up there…

XboxGate has reviewed Halo (don’t pay attention to the ‘Preview’ banner at the top – this is a full review), and they loved it.

As you play the game it gets you saying to yourself, “Man, this is just like a movie.”

With the exception of the 2-weapon-at-a-time limit (and the fact that “you seem to run out of ammo quickly”), they thought it was nearly perfect. We’ve added the review to our Reviews listing.

You gotta wonder, sometimes, where our forum denizens get their free time… Matt Baker has submitted his interpretation of the Halo team for our Miscellaneous Art section. What I wanna know is, how did Marty get that scar?

Hmm. Momo writes to ask us to add the German site ‘PlanetHALO‘ to our links list… seems we noted when they came online (a year and a half ago), but neglected to ever add them to the links page! Sorry… rectified, now.

Jack has put up the beginnings of a Halo Story page. In his words,

It’s my own little attempt to give back to the halo community, and it’ll be there til’ someone puts up a REAL one :). I’m no hamish, so i don’t plan on updating this thing constantly, or really making it really that good, butt it should provide some sort of resource for the future Halo Story Page maker! 🙂

To all who have pointed out to us both the need and our ‘responsibility’ to provide a resource like this… we’re working on it. 🙂 As soon as we have something presentable, we’ll post it, we promise! In the meantime, feel free to send in suggestions – we’ll hold them in abeyance until we have a real home for them. And thanks, most of all, to folks like Jack, who make it clear that if we fall down on the job, SOMEONE will be there to kick us till we get up.

Oh and not to forget: a very nice addition to the multiplayer strategy guide has been made on Truth & Reconciliation: overhead maps of all the multiplayer levels! Pax.

New concept art hits Bungie’s Halo site, Truth & Reconciliation; this time featuring human vehicles. Check out those tank concepts! Pax.

Last year, the first images from the Bungie Research Center Photo Archives surfaced, and generated a bit of confusion. This died away when no further pictures were forthcoming. Today, the latest discovery has found its way into the light… when we know what’s going on, we’ll be sure to pass that information along.