Thanks to black flag and a red star, who has sent in his own contribution to the Fan Fiction section – a fast-paced thriller whose title should help with the twist… Check it out.

glock writes to say that HaloNews.Org has put up a new poll – “Which group do you most look forward to playing in Halo?” Go let ’em know! Pax.

More fan fiction – Foxhound sends in the first chapter of ‘Group3’, a gritty story of soldiers under fire. Check it out in our Fan Fiction section!

A Halo paintjob on a Porsche 959? Maybe… The R.net thread asking for suggestions for Bungie gear has reached epic proportions. Chime in!

Thanks to Chris Cox, who’s sent in Part 2 of his fanfic “Prisoner” series. You can find it (along with Part 1, and his three-part “Warrior” series) in our Fan Fiction section. He’s envisioning two more parts… so keep your eyes open!

Seen on the R.net forum: Bungie would like to know

If you could have only one Halo-related doo-dad, what would it be? It doesn’t have to be conventional (t-shirt, poster, book, etc.) though if that’s the thing you’d want the most, by all means say so.

Matt goes on to say that they’re not promising anything… but it’s a fun thread, nonetheless. A couple of intriguing suggestions have already been posted… can you think of more?

Dorkonaspork writes to say that AOD Halo has been fleshed out a bit. Stop by… send him suggestions, if you have any.

It’s becoming an ugly pattern – grab the SETI stats page Monday morning, lack time to actually process it until Monday afternoon. The news – could be better. We have some new team members, and are very grateful for Jacob Ericsson’s 513 units, and SerialSPNKR’s 100, but overall, the Halo SETI Marines are slipping. Only 1510 units crunched this week. (Don’t blame DarthFlounder – almost 200 of those are his. In fact, the top 7 crunchers brought in fully one-third of the total units crunched – what are the other 559 members doing?) Check out all the gory details, and see if you’re doing YOUR part, on the 7 day stats page.

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!