Fire Phoenix sends along another logo for us… pretty spiffy, I’d say! Check it out on our Logos page.

You knew the world loves ’em, but it never hurts to hear it again. Massa, of Halo Network, sends along word that the July issue of GameStar magazine (in Germany) contains a small feature, in which 50 top developers were asked “What game are you looking forward to?” Halo placed third, with 6 votes… beaten only by Black and White (7 votes) and Metal Gear Solid 2 (for the PS2, with 8 votes). Even the developers are waiting for it!

$erial-ki!!A has submitted the first three chapters of what looks to be a very long work of fan fiction… you’ll find them on our Fan Fiction page. (You can read them sequentially by following the “More by this author” link at the end of each entry.) If you like it, send him mail… he’ll release the rest!

The Halo SETI Marines crunch valiantly, but lose almost 250 units to the SETI Black Hole. Banzif and Dash take top honors… details on the 24 hour stats page.

Haloplayers has gotten confirmation from PCGamer UK that the September issue (on sale July 31) will contain the E3 trailer. UK Halo fans now know where they’re getting the trailer from! (No word yet on the US carrier.)

Tim Jenks PR Officer at Haloplayers sends us this PR snippet:

After noticing a large increase in European based Halo squads, we’re just reminding people of the European Halo League – a league ready to go as soon as the game is here. – We currently have a large number of European squads already signed up for places in the league, and hope to see a few more interested. You can sign-up for a provisional place in the EHL at http://www.haloplayers.net/ehl/ and for the other leagues by mailing us at halo@haloplayers.com. We also hope to get everyone in the community involved in these leagues, and many other ladders, cups, and international tournaments once Halo is finally here.

As mentioned on R.net, Game Critics Awards planned on announcing their Best of E3 awards tonight. They’re up… and Halo got a mention or two. Best Action Game and Runner-Up for Best Game, PC, specifically. Here’s what they had to say:

Shown to only a select few at E3 ’99, Halo has been building buzz all year long. So it was no wonder that people waited in line for up to an hour to see game designer and uber-brain Jason Jones show off the Halo engine and a movie that left every jaw in the room on the floor. Everyone with a pulse who saw Halo at E3 2000 is feverishly anticipating its release. We were no exception.

Go check out the rest of the awards… if you can get past the Black and White mentions, there’s some interesting stuff there!

Another poetry thread has started up on our forum. Go and contribute! (I particularly like this one. It’s fun.)

Dink!… The Halo SETI Marines lose a spot int the Club Rankings to the fast-climbing Hardware Central team. Can they get it back? Still only a third of the team turning in units… Banzif easily takes la Crunch Honneur, and Dr. Raw Stag Footrot FRACS and PunkRocker tie for the Frogblast award. Full details on the 24 hour stats page.

This has come up a few times, so it bears mentioning here. Orbit, a site which started up in early January, closed its doors on May 2nd, 2000. We neglected to mention the closure on our front page, but we DID move the Orbit link to the Static section at that point. (You can read Haloplayer’s news item here.) Unfortunately, Orbit seems to have left a server-side date tag on their main page… so that the date shown above the “Abandoned” message is always close to the current date. This means that folks stumbling across the page read the note, and think Orbit closed yesterday. They didn’t. 🙂 Hope this helps.

Posted to our forum yesterday, but we missed it amongst the rumor-mongering and name-calling. Jex has put up a website for what seems to be the first announced Halo mod… Macross + Halo. Not much there yet… but he’s looking for lots of help. Coders, modellers, texture guys, level designers, sound guys… and someone to fetch coffee. Sign up today!

Mhaddy, of the Junkyard, has submitted a wallpaper for our Wallpaper page. Not strictly Halo… but then, neither is the Junkyard. Available in more sizes than you’ll know what to do with.

More Halo font impropriety spotted over at the Marathon’s Story page. Harry “the Tome” Al-Shakarchi found a German web page forAxe Phoenix deodorant which uses the Halo font. The Story page has been reporting about this flagrant abuse of Bungie’s Halo font for some time now. Go get ’em Bungie!

The Halo SETI Marineshang on to position #48 in the Battle of the Teamsbut HardwareCentral are right behind us. Some good crunchin’ by one third of the team but is it enough? Can we hold out?Team membership rises to 414 marines. Banzif and SkyHook take top honors. Full details on the 24 hour stats page.

Thanks to our HBO offices in Berlin (Germany) we’ve got some German Halo news for you.

First off HaloNews noted a Halo preview at Krawall Gaming Network. Three pages long and quite detailed but no new screenshots and some are actually scans taken fromHaloplayers. What’s Jenkz going to do about that?

Halo Network report a German Halo clan site called DarkCide.

We’ve also got two new German Halo sites on the register: Halo-Fans and Halo Zone.

More interesting rumors. Roger Maxwell has posted a couple of idea-filled missives on our forum, postulating that Pixar and Bungie are working together to release an animated movie to complement the game’s storyline. You can find the original post here, and Roger’s followup (with more details) here. Intriguing stuff!

Even with all the rumors flying around the Marathon’s Story page is still churning out the Halo theories. Jjaro textures (Marathon Infinity) in Halo? The parallels may be more coincidental than anything but nice work by Alan Greene.

There’s a small blurb about Halo and Oni in the latest (July) MacAddict, titled “Bungie almost got game”. While they are excited about both titles, they feel that “Bungie has left us hanging” too long without a release. As they say, though… “strangely enough, your mom was right – patience is a virtue, and good things do come to those who wait.” Thanks to Mojo of Halam for the heads-up on this one.

Looks like the Halo SETI Marinesare going to lose their 48th spot in the Battle of the Teams. HardwareCentral are chasing our tail. Only a major all out effort can stop those hardware crunchers! Big welcome to Twizzler who brings 204 badly needed units to the war effort. While we’ve got over 400 marines in the field only a third are actually doing anything! :(More gory details on the 24 hour stats page.

Tycho has posted another fan fiction piece on our forum. We’ve added it to the Fiction page. If you’re in a vengeful mood, this is a good story for you.