Once again, Friday’s Halo Update posted at Haloplayers has been added to our searchable Halo Update database. Is that the first time Matt’s discussed missions? Check it out.

Thanks to eldar-colonel, of Halo HQ, who found yet ANOTHER poll in which Halo plays a role – This time it’s PC PowerPlay, asking “Which game are you most looking forward to?” Halo trails Black and White and Return to Castle Wolfenstein (by how much is unknown, since there are no totals… but percentage-wise, it’s 3 percent). Stop by and vote! (You guys done good over at MSXbox – Halo is crushing the competition, with 46% of the currently 1700+ votes.)

Thanks to Kharn353, who noticed another poll over at the MGON network main page, asking what game you’re waiting for. Currently Halo’s in third place, trailing Black and White and Tribes 2. What game are YOU waiting for? Pax.

Another poll to smash! (Let’s try not to cheat this time…) Thanks to Ph.D. for noting on our forum that MSXbox has a new poll up, asking which would be the one game you’d buy for the Xbox if you had money enough for only one. Halo currently has a slim lead over Metal Gear Solid – let’s make sure it stays that way!

And the roll continues. Matt sent his weekly Halo update to Haloplayers… there’s some good stuff in there today. The big news – the Oni team has joined forces with the Halo team to become the ‘Dream Team’… and they’re ALL working on Halo. Woohoo! Beyond that, there are bug fixes, working material types, almost-working holograms, and ‘the coolest tree ever in a videogame’. Read all the juicy details for yourself!

Thanks to Iden (who mailed this to us this morning) and Forensic (who posted it to our forum a little later), for the heads-up on a comment posted at MSXbox.com. Ed Fries jumped into the thread started by the no-delay news bit we mentioned a few days ago. Here’s what he had to say:

“Any of you who have large monitors with your PC’s you’ll be happy to know that we are most certainly supporting VGA output without any adapters needed! There was some speculation on wether or not we’d implement that feature right ouf of the box.

Also, the remote which will be required to view DVDs witll be very inexpensive. You’re looking at roughly $20.00 american.”

Good news for those wanting to use non-tv outputs! Thanks, guys.

And the recount is over… according to the readers of VoodooExtreme, the best game developer (with almost 30% of the 11,000 legitimate votes) is Blizzard. Bungie followed in second place, with 17% of the vote. Looking Glass (a dead studio) was third, followed by Valve and Dynamix. Makes you wonder what the logs REALLY looked like…

Interesting. Adrenaline Vault has an article about the recent Surgeon General’s report on the causes of youth violence. As we reported back on January 19, the Los Angeles Times stated that this report drew definite links between video games and youth violence. As you can see by reading the report for yourself, that conclusion was NOT put forth by the Surgeon General’s office – in fact, the report says that there isn’t enough information at all to determine the impact of video games. Additionally, according to AV,

The report is the second major government study in a few months that downplays the role of violent media in making people commit crimes. Last fall the Federal Trade Commission released a report that also raised doubts about the conventional wisdom on this subject. This latest report, like the FTC study, was commissioned in the wake of the 1999 Columbine high school shootings.

Good to know we’re not all homicidal…

As noted by Jester, the VoodooExtreme poll has been extended… and Blizzard has pulled ahead of Bungie. (As of the time of this writing, the tally is 3311 to 3217.) If you haven’t voted… go vote! (If you have… find another machine!)

MSXbox noted last night that Microsoft has issued a statement pertaining to the pending lawsuit over the Xbox name:

“Despite some reports, Xbox is on track for killer launches in the US and Japan this fall and Europe in spring 2002. While there is a known trademark issue which needs to be resolved, Microsoft wants to assure Xbox fan community that the company is still on schedule to ship later in the year.”

Whew! That’s good news… for US customers. ‘Spring 2002’, though, for Europeans… wasn’t the old plan Q1 (i.e. before April), not Spring (i.e. before June)? Pax.

Gotta hand it to Hamish – he’s keeping on top of the Bungie Webcam. A second hippo has appeared (this one’s hugging a monitor, not a wall, but…). Pax.

glock dropped us a line to let us know of a new Halo site, HaloNews.Org, hosted by Telefragged. Nice clean design – check it out!

fAt1 from MPZ Halo writes to say that he’s put together a new Halo compilation movie.

A little while ago I cut and pasted together a compelation of the most spectacular Halo clips from the Halo movies released so far, and I divided them up into sections like ‘Interiors’, ‘Exteriors’, you get the idea. If you look, you should be able to recognise lots of the e3 trailer, a fair whack of the nVidia promo and a bit of the MacWorld preview.

It’s 5.5 MB zipped, in .asf format (you’ll need Windows Media Player to view it), and while it doesn’t contain new footage, it’s a pretty nice composition. Release was delayed by the attempt to get permission to use parts of various movies. Check it out!

Ever wonder where the Halo logo came from? Well, Lorraine Reyes, Bungie artist extraordinaire, passes on a bit of Bungie trivia in this post (and in several of the followup posts.) The whole conversation makes me wish I could have seen some of the rejected designs!

Seen on the Marathon’s Story page… the fabled Hippo makes an appearance on the Bungie Webcam! (Pay no attention to the book in the foreground… this is a family website.)

We got this in the mail from info@halo-net.com:

 I must be quick as they're after me. 
I found this data left at the location. 
I hope you can make use of it...  

796F757220616374696F6E73206172652066 
6F6F6C6973682E207768617420796F752068 
61766520646F6E652077696C6C2063617573 
6520737566666572696E6720756E746F2074 
68652067616C6178792E206265207761726E 
656420796F75722069646C656E6573732069 
7320796F7572207765616B6E657373  

Delta signin' out... 

For the lazy among you, that hex code translates to

your actions are foolish. what you have done will cause suffering unto the galaxy. be warned your idleness is your weakness.

The Halo-Net page says ‘reopening March 1st’…

More fan fiction from our forum. NevinNiven posted ‘The Sacrifice’ this morning, and told us we could put it in the Fan Fiction section. Choose your reading location!

Final round of voting! The VoodooExtreme poll “Who’s the best game development company?” is in its final round! Currently, Blizzard is in the lead, with Looking Glass second… and Bungie 6th! (Of course, there are only 200 votes so far. Get over there, and make sure they take it!

Dink!… Dink!… As of last Thursday (the last time the team stats were compiled), the Halo SETI Marines had fallen two notches in the Battle of the Teams. Ouch! Darthflounder continues to do his part, with almost 200 units this week… are YOU doing YOUR part to find the Covenant? See who’s slacking on the 7 day stats page!

Thanks to Anonymous Coward, who wrote a short bit of fan fiction and posted it to our forum. (It’s been added to the Fan Fiction section, as well.)