Diogo Barbosa sends in another pair of desktop images for our Wallpaper page… the theme today is blue. Check ’em out!

Seen at the Marathon’s Story page: seems there was a front-page article in the Los Angeles Times a couple of days ago discussing the links between video games and violence. Marathon 2 was mentioned by name – a study cited in the article claimed that students who played the game generated 43% more agressive responses in later tests than those who played a nonviolent game. This isn’t just another newspaper puff piece – the US Surgeon General is behind the report, and the ramifications for the entertainment industry might be far-reaching. Will Halo be targeted, because of the singling-out of an older Bungie game? (The immediate Bungie response would suggest they aren’t taking it very seriously…) Pax.

The Annual Bungie Pentathlon takes place today… and the new QuickPoll at bungie.net asks who you think is going to walk away with the prize this year? The Halo team is currently tied for first (with the ‘CinemaOnline’ team, made up of the Cinematixxx crew and the Online crew) – go see if you can bump up their lead! Pax.

Andrew Paul has submitted a new desktop for our Wallpaper page – this one’s a real work of art, and came close to getting put into the Miscellaneous Art section, instead, but it looks great on an 800×600 desktop, and that’s what it was submitted as… Check it out. Great battle scene!

Thanks to Miguel Santiago, who sent in another Halo drawing for our Miscellaneous Art section. We like the marine a lot… but what’s that dog doing in there?

Lloyd Wright popped onto our forum to ask how Halo handles terrain. Since we didn’t know, we asked Bungie. Jaime Griesemer, Halo Designer, pointed out this article at Gamasutra, published last April. Warning: this is a pretty technical read.

Kudos to Appleicious (heh – he said ‘kudos’), who points out (on the R.net forum) that NewTek lists Halo among game titles that use their Lightwave product. The press release that contains this information was put out on November 28… we’re a little slow sometimes.

As noted on the bungie.org news page, the Trivia Contest that was held at the Fanfest last week has been converted to a web-friendly format, so you all can go test your knowledge of Bungie lore. Go take the test, and see how much you really know about the team behind Halo!

An apocalyptic conclusion to the Firestarter Squad series was submitted by Iden to our Fan Fiction section. Hit the “more by this author” link to read all three installments in order.

Matt Soell raises his head from a San Francisco gutter (wow, those fanfests can be corrupting) long enough to squash a “Halo Demo coming soon” rumor that’s been floating around since last Friday night. And to clarify what “three weapons finished” means. Thanks, Matt. You can pass out again now.

Dink!… The Halo SETI Marines fall another notch in the Battle of the Teams, as Overclockers UK pushes them down to 49th. The mandatory switch to the 3.0.3 client has hit totals hard – in fact, if not for the addition of twostar, and the influx of those 621 units, the team’s weekly unit increase would have fallen off by over 30%. You can see all the gory details on the 7 day stats page. (Sorry for the delay in processing – blame Martin Luther King, Jr.)

Freedom writes to let us know that Halo Marine has put up a Halo screensaver. It’s PC-based, a bit under 7 megs, and contains screenshots theme music. You can find it here.

Thanks to Noctavis, who mentioned another cache of fanfest pics on the R.net forum – this time from Tobin. (Who’s Tobin?) Go check ’em out!

Damn, that man’s good. First, Jay Faircloth showed up on the scene over at the Marathon’s Story page, with a stunning piece of Marathon artwork. Then, he entered the Gathering of Developers’ Oni Art Contest, and placed second, with this image. Now he’s turned his sights on Halo… and though the final product isn’t available yet, he’s released a teaser for a larger piece for our Miscellaneous Art section. Jay says that this is

a “sneak preview” of a Halo piece I’ve been working on. It’s a wallpaper-sized (1152*870) jpeg snippet of a larger piece I hope to finish by the end of Monday, which shows the full Marine, a couple of “regular” troopers, and an actual background. I still have some cleanup of the image to do…

‘Cleanup’… hmm. Looks pretty spiffy from here. Thanks, Jay!

Pheonixmiser writes to say that the Halo Stronghold has come online. Go check it out!

And more – SiliconDream weighs in with a pretty nice roundup, posted to the R.net forum here. (Where are all the b.org reports, that’s what I wanna know?) Separate pistols for the player and the standard Marine, visual character variations between unit classes, evasive dives and rolls as part of the engine AI… and a playable build the next time we see it (maybe at E3). Wow.

Woohoo! Cunbelin has sent R.net a whole passel of images from the fest… including 5 of those “exclusive” Halo shots! (Yeah, they’re the old engine… but hey, it’s the only engine we know!) Plus a tidbit of artwork that um… is PROBABLY Halo-related… Uh, oh, I’m drooling again.

Update:Harry Al-Shakarchi clarifies that that image was Bungie’s Halo Christmas card, drawn by Shikai Wang. Thanks, Harry!

Thanks to Appleicious, who posted a Fanfest report to our forum. Halo details included:

• In [the] keynote, we got to see about ten exclusivescreenshots from the “old” Halo engine (exclusive = never before seen).
• the Halo multiplayer design doc is almost finished and work on the network code will begin in February.

There’s lots more, so read the whole thing for yourselves! Also, codetoad posted another report over at R.net, with these tantalizing tidbits:

• there’s 3 weapons finalized in halo
• there will be a “halo invasion of the media” (due to MS money) very soon, and we won’t have to worry about getting info on halo, because it will be ALL AROUND us. (Could this mean perhaps there is truth to the superbowl wild rumor? :-P)

Again, there is much more to that report, as well. As mentioned in both, Phoenix was officially announced… though there isn’t much info about it yet, and won’t be for a while. Ack. Why are you reading this? Go read those reports!

… And the fanfest is under way. No, we don’t have any information about it right now… I just thought I’d wish all the lucky festers the best, and remind anyone who HAPPENS to be in San Francisco this evening but DIDN’T know about the Fanfest to stop by the West Bay Conference Center between now and 9 pm PST! Have a blast, folks.

Ack. No sooner posted than refuted. Matt dropped another note to our forum a couple of minutes ago, shooting down the possibility of a live broadcast from the Fanfest.

That was the initial plan but it fell through for a variety of reasons.

All hope is not lost, though… check the rest of his post for a teaser!