Noctavis, of Rampancy.net, has posted a pretty nice screenshot analysis to R.net’s forum. The rest of the thread covers some points he missed. Worth a read!

Our Movies page has been updated with the two new Gamestock movies… go grab ’em if you haven’t yet!

There’s another hands-on preview over at xbox.ign.com, and their take on the multiplayer issue is a bit more heartening:

As for details like multiplayer, Bungie is still keeping its mouth shut on how it will be implemented in the Xbox version of the system, if at all. According to the team, Microsoft is still working out its online launch strategy, and that will determine exactly what we can expect from the online aspects of Halo.

Wait-and-see is always better than who-knows-if-it’s-worth-it. For those not interested in the Xbox version:

The good thing about this, for PC gamers anyway, is that Jason Jones of Bungie mentioned that the PC version might feature different multiplayer elements than the Xbox version.

All in all, a very Bungie-positive review, with some good reading in it. (They also were a bit more neutral about the perspective issue – ‘at this point’ was used twice.)

Thanks to both Kyle Konrat and Bongo, who wrote to tell us that the Gamespot article mentioned below contains some troubling words about multiplayer:

Howard also said that Bungie currently has two people working full time on Halo’s multiplayer component, although the company still hasn’t decided exactly how or if it’s going to support multiplayer for the game.

That would be a great disappointment to a great many fans… In lighter news, the article describes two weapons that should be immediately obvious to any long-time Bungie fans:

For instance, while the assault rifle we were playing with is undoubtedly an offensive juggernaut, it does suffer from a few drawbacks, such as an inconsistent spread and high rate of ammo expenditure. Likewise, while the Covenant energy weapons effectively have unlimited ammo, they do overheat very easily.

Sounds an awful lot like the AR-75 assault rifle and the Zeus-class fusion pistol from Marathon, doesn’t it? Okay, back to watching that second movie – the waves are amazing.

Kudos to Darkman on our forum who spotted a second Halo movie over at ZDNet. It’s a longer better one. Go read the hands-on Halo review as well.

We’ve updated our Screenshots section with the nine new shots released today. Most are available in two resolutions: 800×600 (originally found at MSXBox.com), and 1920×1440 (originally found at Daily Radar). Enjoy!

In the midst of new screenshots and movies and previews, Anrkey submits a short story about our beloved cyborg. Go and read ‘Technology Collides’ in our Fan Fiction section!

Hawk from HaloCenter would like you to know that they have mirrored the Gamestock movie. Swing by if you’re having Flash troubles with Microsoft’s site! Pax.

Recently, someone on our forum asked about the number of missions that might be available in the solo player game. We don’t have an exact number… but from MS’s Gamestock page:

Fight the Covenant in dozens of missions as you uncover the dark secrets of Halo. Among your many objectives – attack enemy outposts, raid underground labs for secret technology, rescue fallen comrades, steal alien vehicles and weaponry, and snipe enemy forces.

We liked that ‘s’ at the end of ‘dozens’…

Jon Keegan writes that he’s converted the Halo .avi found on MS’s Gamestock site to .mov format… you can find it here. It’s 3.1 MB, with no sound. Thanks, Jon!

The Shaft! Thanks to John B Hopper IV , who noticed that MSXbox has posted the other three screens they were missing… and a new one besides! So THAT’S what the Shaft looks like…

Thanks to Ferrex, who noted on R.net that Daily Radar’s Xbox newsletter contains yet more info pertaining to Halo. It just keeps coming…

Halo video! Thanks to Fernando, who noted that Microsoft’s Gamestock site is up and running… there’s a 2.5 MB .avi video of Halo there, along with some other fun stuff. (QT on a mac won’t touch it… haven’t tried WMP yet. Plays just fine on a Win98 box.) Interesting that a lot of the shooting is done in first-person mode…

Wow. Daily Radar has the shots, as well… but they’re HUGE. 1920×1440 pixels. You want Hi-res, you got hi-res!!! The preview they go with is worth a read, too…

The gameplay seems to be developing as quickly as the graphic improvements. The world is now populated with an interesting and imaginative assortment of alien varmints, many bent on your destruction. The single-player game is awe-inspiring, taking you all around the gigantic artificial ring-shaped world on a quest to defeat an alien race known as The Covenant. You’ll engage them in straight-out blasting duels, attack Metal Gear-style in complete stealth, or even commandeer heavily armed vehicles to launch more destructive attacks (those vehicle modes switch to a third-person view).

Go read about it!

Matt Soell dropped into our forum to update folks on the Gamestock presentation. The kicker?

And new screenshots are just the beginning. 🙂

Go read what you missed!

Oops, my bad: there are 8 new images in total, on those two sites. The unique ones are here, here and here (on the Xbox site) and here and here (on the MSXBox site). The other three are common to both sites.

Woohoo! NEW SHOTS! Thanks to Scott Cline who noticed 5 of ’em at MSXbox, and to Zypper, who hollered in the Xbox site (which has the same five shots, plus this one). Commentary later, maybe… right now, we’re droolin’. 🙂

The Marathon’s Story page had an interesting hypothesis this morning – that one of the business cards that showed up on the Bungie Webcam last night was Halo-related, due to its shape. Thanks again to Pallor and Mat Noguchi, who collaborated to bring us this closeup of that card – it’s clear that 1) it’s not really the Halo symbol after all, and 2) the card belongs to Bob Settles, who’s known to be the program manager for the Phoenix project. Curiouser and curiouser…

Now HERE is an interesting theory. Foxhound puts forth a novel suggestion for the origin of ‘Pillar of Autumn’, the ship that brings the humans (and, indirectly, the Covenant) to the Halo. Have your own ideas? Add them to the thread!

xbox.ign.com weighs in with their preview of tomorrow’s events… the Halo comments are interesting:

Halo: Well, uh, “duh”. Anyone who had doubts about this puppy being shown, shouldn’t even be calling themselves an Xbox fan. Supposedly, the latest version running off the NV20 chipset will be there, and that is said to look much better than the previous PC shots that have been released. While you’re waiting for Monday, why not read our preview.

Running on the NV20… that’s one rev back from the final (NV25) that the Xbox will ship with. Should be exciting! (Thanks to Razorback for the heads-up on our forum.)