Blam!… Dink! The Halo SETI Marines finally pass Team #Amiga!, only to be hammered down by the Israaliens. Position 43 in the Battle of the Teams remains firmly in their grasp. (Probably didn’t help that the SETI servers lost over 1000 of the Marines’ units this week, and 500 last week…) A great big welcome to kevin murray, and his 2180 units… as well as Daedalus and Elf, and all the other non-top-400 joiners. Full weekly details can be found on the 7 day stats page. (Apologies for the delay in putting these up.)

Peter Askam writes to say that Halo Command UK has changed its name to Halo Command Central (HCC), and has a new look to go along with the new name. Stop by and take a look!

Thanks to Pr@iler, of Halo.ch, who sent in a pair of desktops (variations on a fun theme) for our Wallpaper page. Enjoy the winter!

Xerxes writes to say that a new German site has hit the Halo scene: Halo Orbit. (This is no relation to the defunct Orbit site which closed up 7 months ago.) Germany is becoming the biggest home for Halo out there!

Chapter 7 of $erial-ki!!A‘s ongoing fan fiction story has been posted to our Fan Fiction page. Heh… when he said “before Chrsitmas”, he wasn’t kidding. Check it out!

Good Lord. 4 weeks in a row, Matt Soell’s managed to write up weekly progress reports for the Halo team (and the Oni team, we should note, posted over at Oni Central). This one is chock-full of home-cooked goodness – lots and lots and lots of weapons, oodles of net game types, D&D research… the boys have been busy. Hey – the Producer position, open since Nathan left, has been filled! Welcome, Rick Ryan. And we’d be remiss if we didn’t wish Alex S. a belated birthday. But enough rambling… go read Matt’s words!

Heh… thanks to Alan Stott, who passed along this article from The Register, discussing a major security breach at Microsoft. Although the Register’s spin on this story is more dramatic than, say, CNN‘s, the potential damage is great. The story focused on WinMe code, but we’re wondering about the Gaming Division… personally, we’d keep an eye on Blizzard. (The related story listed at the Register is even funnier.)

Jeff Campen noticed that the Halo trailer (The E3 2000 movie) holds a place of honor on the MSN WindowsMedia.com Broadband page… It’s right up in the top section. (Not new material, but interesting placement.)

The Marathon’s Story page has an update about Konrad Sherinian, former Halo team member, from an anonymous source, describing a bit more of what he had been responsible for. From the tone of the note, there is an implication that Konrad’s leaving wasn’t entirely voluntary. Details can be found in today’s What’s New entry.

When the Xbox debuts next fall, its biggest competitor will probably be the Playstation2, which was released in the US and Europe last night at midnight. The hype was tremendous… though in some cases, it was hard to tell what was actually being sold. Wait… who’s that in the background?

As Mikkel Eriksen says, it’s not just the Strike Force guys going at it! Weapons Factory, a modmaking team that focuses on multi-class, team-based play, has already announced plans for a Halo mod. The interest is building…

Thanks to Neil Grattan, who submitted a collage for our Miscellaneous Art page. A bit dark… but nice. A bit of old, good for reminiscing…

Mail from SOKAR tells us that Halo Empire has put up the largest German Halo forum – it’s made up of 4 sites from three nations: Halo Empire and Halo Information Network from Germany, Halo.ch from Switzerland, and HaloZone from Austria. Check it out… the actual forum can be found here.

As mnemesis noticed last night, the main Bungie page has had a news update. Not much there yet… but Max promises great things in the near future. Nice to hear!

noddy99 wrote to inform us that the US Halo Command is no longer dead. Well, it seems it hasn’t been dead since last month, if the news page is any indication. We’ve moved it off the dead links. (The quizlet, though, is dead… it wants to know what platform you are looking forward to playing Halo on… PS2 and Dolphin are choices, but the Xbox is not.)

Thanks to Diogo Barbosa, who submitted a pair of desktop images (variations on a theme) to our Wallpaper page. Aptly titled, those…

Thanks to Neil Grattan, who sent in a new piece of fiction for our Fan Fiction page. Go take a look!

Okay, here’s an odd one. Halo Command UK has started a section called ”Flippapers’… it’s wallpaper you can turn upside down. (The obvious question will remain unasked.) If you’re intrigued (and who wouldn’t be?), head on over and take a look! (Follow Media to Stuff, then to Flippapers.)

Ryan “Mhaddy” Matthews sent us mail that the Junkyard is having a contest… they’re making custom-designed Tribes maps or logos. Visit the site, click on Custom Orders, and fill out the form (name and email)… if you win, they’ll make you what you want. Apparently, the logos part can include Halo. If you’re interested, stop by! Pax.

Thanks to 3of9 (undead), who caught this before Matt had a chance to berate us for missing it (he posted it to the R.net forum): Happy Birthday to Stefan Sinclair, another Halo Dev Team member! October is the month for Halo guys, I guess.