Wow! Kudos to Harry Al-Shakarchi, who noticed that the latest Apple monthly newsletter reminds readers that the Mac version of Halo will be out at the same time as the XBox version. (‘Reminds us’? Seems to me we never KNEW that in the first place!) This came from Microsoft’s Vice President of Games. Corroboration as soon as we get it…

They’re doing it again… the king of the Halo Makeovers, Battleground: Halo, has switched looks again. There’s nothing there yet (again), but the blue and white has given way to black and orange. Just in time for Halloween…

MICROSOFT TURNS BUNGIE INTO SWEATSHOP: Oh, wait… that’s not right. Matt Soell stopped by R.net’s forum this evening (yeah, we know, he’s not allowed to do that) and volunteered a bit of info about what’s going on behind the scenes. Promises of more info have been made… beware, Matt, your words have been recorded. Go check it out… as he says, “Microsoft Tasta Mo Lika Bungie Spice.” (Talk to Matt.)

Miguel Santiago has sent in a hand-drawn Halo Marine, as a cartoon. Pretty nice work… you’ll find it on our Miscellaneous Art page.

Clay Bratt has put together a new Flash Halo logo… you can see it here. (Thanks to Clay for the heads-up on our forum, and to •Mimer for the corrected URL.) Pax.

MacNN has news of a new SETI@Home client… 3.0. Currently available for Windows98/95/NT, MacOS, MacOSX, and Unix, the new version adds pulse and triplet detection to signal analysis, faster FFT routines, and better multitasking. All versions are available from SETI@home’s Downloads page. Grab it today, and increase your searching abilities! Find the Covenant before they find you!

The second chapter of Role Reversal, a Halo fan fiction-in-progress, arrived this evening. The action’s heating up! Elmo warns that this will be the last chapter for a few weeks… life getting in the way, again. You’ll find it on our Fan Fiction page… enjoy!

Good to know that even when real life gets in the way of updates, fans keep on top of the good stuff. Island Four (otherwise known as Nathan Bitner, former Producer of Halo) is back on the forums, spouting Neruda, Blake, and his own feverish rantings. A line from an R.E.M. song comes to mind:

This boy and girl that gather pearls
Of wisdom falling from his mouth
Wash off the blood, wash off the rum

Stay tuned… you never know what’s coming next! (Thanks to Carth for the heads-up on this one.)

Thanks to Diogo Barbosa, who submitted a fully hand-done version of the new Marine… you’ll find him in our Miscellaneous Art section. Diogo’s not happy with the arms… but he says he’ll get back to them. Take a look!

“Halo-Online” writes to say that a new Halo fansite is up and running in Germany… halo-online.de. German speakers, check ’em out! Pax.

Thanks to Christian Ytterström, who sent in a newly colored version of the original Marine. You’ll find it on our Miscellaneous Art page.

Thanks to Aaron Sommer, who spotted an article about Cannibal Harry’s online woes at UK-based The Register. Definitely worth a read.

The Halo SETI Marines gain another 6 recruits this week, and remain firmly in 43rd position in the Battle of the Teams. DarthFlounder again outcrunches the competition, and Trux (a new recruit last week) leapfrogs over 48 team members to garner the Frogblast award. The most interesting movement, though, is the second-place cruncher this week… Chucky. Does the 35-50% increase in crunching (compared to the previous couple of months) mean the Halo dev team’s computers have been beefed up… or that they haven’t been used as much this week? All the gory details can be found on the 7 day stats page. Pax.

Seen at Battleground: Halo – Speedy3D has an article comparing Black and White, Team Fortress 2, and Halo, discussing how they redifine their respective genres, and dreaming about how sweet it would be to see these in time for Christmas. Aside from the wholly unrealistic estimate of release dates, it was a fine article, at first… but my eyes glazed over when I read this line:

The story that is running behind Halo is reminiscent of Quake 2.

To each his own, I suppose. Excuse me, I have some more Banks reading to do.

David, an Australian fan, sent us this note:

This is David from the Australian Music Group Seventh, one of our fans made up a video Music Clip using Halo footage. The song in the clip is “I’m Gonna Fly” we recorded the track ealier in the year with Halo in mind.

The song won the Australian Triple J Unearthed Contest, which groups such as Silver Chair, Savage Garden have won and so on… The track I’m Gonna Fly is free for download from our site as well. If you get time check it out, its pretty cool…

The clip is in RealMedia format, and weighs in at a bit over 20 megs, zipped. The video is an edited version of the E3 movie, and fits surprisingly well with the music. We’re hesitant to point out 20 meg download links any more, after what happened to Cannibal Harry, so be careful. If you want to check out the band, their website is here.

StarHawk sends word that IntelGamer has a new Halo preview up. It’s nice to see new people excited about Halo, even if some of the info is out of date or just plain wrong. (All the pictures in the article use the old-style, outdated screenshots, Larry Niven is named in connection with the storyline, and IntelGamer suggests that there are rumors “that Microsoft is withholding release of HALO until the X-Box of released”, among other tidbits.) The fact is, though, that not many games could generate a new preview like this in the current drought that is Halo PR.

Thanks to Elmo, who submitted the first of what should be 8 chapters for a new piece of Halo fan fiction.

I really want to get some feedback from fans. I’ve taken a few creative liberties with the story before they arrive on the Halo but i want some feedback on how well this works.

Read it on our Fan Fiction page, then let Elmo know what you think!

Interesting. Seems the Xbox is going to have a VChip-like parental controls, according to Alex Kotowitz (Xbox’s Senior Director of Sales), as reported by Game Informer. Parents will be able to restrict what games are played on the Xbox, based on game rating. This gives everybody (parents, regulators, adult gamers) what they want… except the kids. Will it affect what console the kids ask for? Pax.

Battleground: Halo puts up another episode of “Retaliation”, a fan fiction in parts by Patrick Palmer. Pax.

Wow. Seems the nVidia movie has caused some major problems… R.net has a story that every Halo fan should read. Cannibal Harry, a Bungie fan with a big heart, now has a big (whopping big) ISP bill to go with it. From the outside, it sounds like Earthlink (his ISP) was either astoundingly ignorant of what was going on on its servers, or just plain greedy. In any case, you should read this thread on the R.net forum, and this explanation from Harry himself. And let us HOPE that this gets resolved in a reasonable manner… because it’s not only a problem for CH, it’s a problem for everyone who tries to do his part in a fan community.