Eep. Glock writes that HaloNews.Org (which started life less than a month ago) is closing its doors due to RealLife time constraints. Ouch. We wish him the best of luck in whatever he does. Pax.

R.net got confirmation on the identity of the Banshee today – Matt clarifies that it’s the high-flying Covenant vehicle (referred to as a ‘Ground Support Craft‘ in the concept art released in 1999). The low-flying hovercraft are known as ‘ghosts’. Glad that was cleared up – thanks, guys!

This week’s Halo update shows up at Battleground: Halo, and one of the best parts is this:

Lots of bug fixes on the programming side this week, getting the game ready for Gamestock.

For any who were unsure if Halo actually WOULD make a showing there, your fears should be laid to rest. Other highlights include the showcasing of Oni team strengths being brought to bear on Halo issues, and several AI factoids. This will be added to the Halo Updates database on Monday, but for now, read it in all its glory at BGH!

black flag and a red star posted a ‘week in review’ summary of activity on our forum – it’s pretty amusing (and on the mark). Check it out!

And while we’re off-topic, those of you crunching SETI units might have noticed that you haven’t been able to connect to the SETI servers for a couple of days. This is because (as the SETI home page redirect mentions) vandals cut the fiber line connecting UC Berkeley with LBNL. They hope to have it back up and running today.

Update: Seems the repairs won’t be done before tomorrow, late in the day (PST)… call it another 27 hours or so.

Okay, this is totally unrelated to Halo, and that means we usually stay away from it. Seems to be a good cause, though… Neil Grattan, a frequent contributor to the fan-built sections around this site, writes

Mythos (the creators of the xcom series) are in extreme trouble, and are facing liquidation. I myself hold no links with them apart from being an avid follower of their games for many years. The one thing that I wish of your community is perhaps a look and some support of their latest title, which has been cut short and canceled due to publishers Virgin withdrawing funds. At this point you might be thinking…well what do you want me to do about it, its already canceled. If you were to visit http://www.mythosgames.com/dreamland.htm for info on the actual game and http://pub50.ezboard.com/fmythosgamesltd32854frm1 for the forum you would see that opposition for the move is very much alive.

The game itself looks incredible – Grat brought it up recently on our forum, and the response was pretty positive. Check it out – maybe another Looking Glass can be avoided!

Thanks to Foxhound, who sent in Chapter 2 of his story, ‘Group 3’.

I tried the squad comm link then flicked on the console in the jeep, just to see if there were any signals. There was nothing, nothing except the dry crackle of the damn energy storm, all communication in our vicinity were dead, for the time being anyway. I again looked out of the windscreen…

Check it out in our Fan Fiction section!

Are you a fledgling programmer? Do you dream of working on a project like Halo? Dream no longer – Tom Van Sinden noticed yet ANOTHER new job opening at Bungie – Programming Intern. They want someone

…to come work, learn and write the best “What I did on my summer vacation” paper ever.

If this sounds too good to be true, send in your resume! Pax.

Um… we got mail from Psyrixx, about a new section of the Psyjnir Complex – Tabloids. It’s a bit odd. Stop by and check it out. (Be aware that visiting with a browser that doesn’t properly implement cascading style sheets will result in a very, very unfriendly page. Netscape/iCab users, stay away.)

Earthquake followup:

We are Bungie Tough.

(Why am I getting visions of juice spilled on a kitchen floor when I hear that?) Matt Soell takes time out of his busy day to let us know that aside from some disarray introduced into Mordia’s action figure collection, the Bungie offices are damage-free. Good to hear! Now where are those screenshots?

Earthquake in Seattle? Xero tells us (on our forum) that a 6.2 magnitude quake hit south of Mt. Rainer, near Seattle, about 30 minutes ago. While the Bungie Webcam is still running (and shows no signs of panic), the Seattle Insider website has some information about it. Is the Juan de Fuca plate finally slipping? Will Seattle be inundated with a tsunami? And most importantly, will Halo’s ship date slip?

Yet another cleanup of that dang xbox screen image. (This is the last one we’re mentioning, folks… we mean it!) Dorkonaspork, of AOD Halo, has posted this shot – makes the gun the Marine is holding pretty interesting-looking; is that an artifact of the enhancement process or a new gun? Your call. (And here’s hoping we get some DIFFERENT Halo news to post soon…)

SOKAR, from Halo Empire, writes that they’ve done some image enhancement on the TV screen shown in the Seattle Times pic, and gotten a clearer view of the Marine. To my eyes, it’s closest to a screenshot that came out in PC Gamer UK last July… so I guess that’s a pretty standard pose.



One of these days, maybe we’ll even find out what those guys were looking at!

Big thanks to Geoff Grosenbach, who scanned in the Seattle Times front page photo mentioned yesterday. You can see it here. Geoff asks

Do you think they’re really playing the game? I think they’re probably just posing since the picture on the tube looks a little static and they guys look way too enthusiastic.

Hmm… good question. There’s no split-screen, as is common with console games played head-to-head… but on the other hand, maybe a game just ended (Mat’s demeanor lends credence to this). In any case, it’s nice to see Halo on the front page of a major city newspaper. Thanks, Geoff!

Thanks to the anonymous uploader who put our latest wallpaper into our uploads folder – you can find it on our Wallpaper page.

Faces, clarified. MSN (check those initials, yah!) writes to tell us that the folks in the Seattle Times pic are (left to right) Marcus Lehto, David Dunn, Rob McLees, and Mat Noguchi. Put together with Matt Soell’s Halo updates, we can probably infer that we’ve gotten our first glimpse of the Halo Tools Programmer. Welcome, Mat!

Thanks to Dilbert, who found a smallish version of the aforementioned Seattle Times picture in the paper’s Business and Technology section of their website. The actual picture in question is here. It’s difficult to tell what’s what, because of the size… but that looks like Marcus Lehto (Art Director) and someone else 😉 handling console controllers while Rob McLees and Shikai Wang (?) look on. The screen is pretty tough to distinguish, but it’s definitely the Halo Marine… and the press coverage begins! (Anyone want to scan in a better version of the shot, or give a more accurate accounting of who’s there?)

Thanks to MSN, who noted on our forum that there’s a picture of the Halo dev team and the cyborg running on (presumably) an Xbox dev kit screen on the front page of today’s Seattle Times. Anyone in Seattle have a scanner?

Blam!… Blam!… The Halo SETI Marines regained the two spots they lost since the last time we looked at team standings – they sit at 48th place in the Battle of the Teams. DarthFlounder crunches an amazing 430 units in these past 2 weeks – at this rate, he should overtake the number one spot by next Monday, or maybe Tuesday. Welcome to our new members (especially Hellboy, who brought 203 units in)! Check how YOU’RE doing on our 7 day stats page.

Woohoo! Useless, am I? Was visiting Microsoft’s Game section, and ran across a release estimate for Oddworld: Munch’s Oddysee… ‘Holiday 2001’. That’s a tighter timeframe than ‘Q4 2001’ – by at least a month. Presumably, Halo and Oddworld should be coming out at the same time (they’re both supposed to be launch titles for the Xbox), so maybe now we should be saying ‘November-December 2001’ instead of Q4?