Raptorv22 wrote in to let us know that the first Halo 2 clan (at least that we knew of) has now opened its doors: the 67th Raptors. Go take a look.

Glenda Adams of Westlake Interactive, the company porting the PC port of Halo to the Mac, was mentioned again on InsideMacGames.com, in part 16 of Tuncer Deniz' one-one-one interview series with the president of the Mac porting house.

To wit:

Glenda: We're still working on fleshing out the DirectX9 to OpenGL code. The game uses a LOT of new 3D technology, so it's the first time we've implemented some of it on the Mac. But we have had the first actual graphics up and displaying, if in a little rough form.

The good news is that much of the foundation code for the rest of the game is already compiled and loading data on the Mac, so we're hoping once we get over the graphics implementation issues the game will be in pretty good shape.

Kudos to Jota Rota, who spotted this and mentioned it in the forum at HBO.

In the forums at HBO and Subnova lately, there's been much attention paid to a special easter egg put in a Halo level by Jaime Case Griesemer for the benefit of his long-time significant other, Meg Pallor Sagi. It has come to be known as The Megg . Recently Megg-hunt discussions have nearly taken over the HBO forums, prompting the creation of two Megg FAQs, one at HBO by Louis Wu and one at Subnova by Shishka, and now a new Megg-only forum at Subnova. The Subnova Megg forum is of particular note, as that community features the only people who have firsthand knowledge of what it takes to see The Megg, including Pallor, whom it is said may deign to read it and post once in awhile.

Several major websites reported earlier this month Bungie's revelation that Halo 2 would not be released in time for the 2003 holidays as many had expected. The news even went as far as major mainstream sites such as Reuters and BBC News.

Matt Soell made the original posts at Bungie.net and the HBO forum, and it was soon picked up by Louis Wu in the HBO news. After the news started to reach other sites, poena.dare compiled a list on HBO's forum.

There is no release date other than 2004 at this point.

The Bungie Store is taking pre-orders for Halo: The Flood . At 6.99 USD it's a bargin! Also please order from the Bungie Store since their profits go towards fan gatherings.

OK, since we hardly ever update around here these days, maybe this will slip by and no one will notice. Maybe not.

Anyway, this has to be about the strangest Halo reference we've ever seen. And before anybody complains, the text and images in this story we're about to link to are of a decidedly sexual, some might say odd-- nature. So be forewarned.

Game Girl Advance ran a story last October on a Japanese game called Rez for the PlayStation2, which ships with a peripheral called a trance vibrator . Lord knows how this escaped our notice til now.

And yes, that means exactly what you think it does. Pervert. And if you weren't thinking that, you're probably too young to be reading the story anyway. Whatever you do, don't ask your parents what it means and then mention we told you about it. That would be bad.

At any rate, the Halo reference comes in here (pun intended):

Now, let me confess that this is not the first time that I've used a game component to, er, stimulate myself physically. Ever since they invented the whole rumble pack/vibrating technology in controllers, it's been on my mind, and sometimes in my practice (fellow game girls, you know what I'm talking about). The thing is, though, it's often frustrating since the vibrations are not nice and steady, but sporadic. Also I found it's tough to actually play the game and use the controller in nasty ways at the same time. I did discover that Halo was a pretty good game for this (although for not much else), because as the gunner in the Warthog, you have unlimited ammo and you can just park yourself somewhere and rat-tat-tat to your heart's content. Another issue, and one not solved by the Xbox controller, is the shape of the device - less than ideal.

Unless somebody can do better than that, I vote this the strangest use for a Warthog ever. Randy Glass, move over.

Thanks to Mikey-San for pointing this out on RHL.

Reported by Macgammer.com...

Progress update for the Mac and PC version of Halo, the most intresting information is:

additional multiplayer maps and possible new weapons and vehicles because of expected greater online play by computer users

Could this be true? Does Bungie know about this? Get all the latest info at Macgamer.com.

Westlake update at Macgamer.com

c0ld vengeance has given us his plan for how to handle Halo 2 when it comes out, and entitled it Halo 2: A Bachelor's Guide . We might actually try this; although, to be honest, this is only a slightly formalized version of an average weekend.

IGN is reporting that Halo has now been included in the holiday promotional package that comes with every Xbox sold between December 11 and 31 in Germany. Earlier the bundle included Jet Set Radio Future and Sega GT; now it comes with all three games.

Thanks to Acrappa for the heads-up on RHL.

Of course, the other thing that inevitably occurs in the void between releases is boredom, and it leads to things like this, and this, and this, to which Matt responded thusly.

Simply try to realize the truth: there is no yellow banshee.

With the lull in Bungie-related news that inevitably occurs in the void between releases, the natives at HBO have been getting a bit restless in their search for new information.

This search is referred to lovingly as bugging Matt .

Every once in awhile Matt decides to put down the uprising, as he did in this post, which primarily consists of answers to questions about releases with the simple phrase WID (which I assume means, When It's Done , the only official Bungie release date that has ever existed).

However, he did have this to say about Mac/PC Halo:

The last build I saw was really nice, by the way. Much left to do but still playable and cool.

So, we don't know when it first became playable, but it is playable now, half a year or more away from the expected (unofficial) release target.

The original organizers of the Halo Winter Season tournament currently run at iGames locations have resigned over philosophical differences with iGames. Jester and Psyrixx have both resigned; Jester posted about it in the HBO forum, and put his letter of resignation up at The Psyjnir Complex. It reads, in part:

For I have been a part of the Bungie community for five years, and that loyalty has made me extremely hard-headed and diffucult to deal with professionally. My zeal to give Halo players the best, cheapest tournament possible has interfered with my ability to effectively compromise and negotiate with iGames. [...]

Ultimately, I was trying to run a national level business-run tournament on a fan tournament budget. This was both idealistic ... and totally unrealistic. Thus my crusade comes to an end.

He also took a few moments to speculate on what the role of tournaments like the one at iGames will be in the future of Halo competition:

I simply don't think the future of national Halo competition lies in game center LANs. This summer PC/Mac Halo will allow online play. Next winter Halo 2 will support XBL. The online support of Halo will suddenly allow tournament directors like myself to run large-scale tournaments without the hassle of registration fees, finding a venue, securing the necessary equipment, and getting teams to actually show up to a physical venue. There have even been discussions regarding the possibility of the first Halo World Cup based on the popular Myth World Cup series.

He went on to say that he harbors no ill will to iGames, and that his team will continue to compete in the Halo Winter Season.

Thanks to Louis Wu at HBO for the original story.

The Halo Winter Season's second round of qualifiers is set to begin obn December 14. The first round was on November 2nd, and the third and final qualifier will be held on January 11. Each qualifier consists of a series of four man games of a single game type. The top two teams at each Qualifier will advance to one of eight regional tournaments to begin on February 2nd. Apparently there are going to be some nice prizes for the winners.

A reader over at HBO named gd found some funny and strange sound clips while playing Halo. Get all the info in the HBO forum.

The Cyberathlete Professional Leauge is hosting an event called CPLЃ PentiumЃ 4 Processor Winter 2002, and will take place Wednesday, December 18 and ending Sunday, December 22, 2002. This is useless information until you read the schedule, on December 21 (Saturday) at 2:00pm Gearbox will have a workshop and will feature Halo for PC! Sounds like an intresting event.

Cyberathlete Professional League is the first organization in the world to establish computer game competitions as a viable spectator sport.

Thanks to Shacknews for the info.