HBO's own Louis Wu has posted that IGN's Halo review is out-- although most of us won't be able to see it for awhile. It's at IGN and is Insider Only at the moment.

BattleGround: Halo's SonicStorm is reporting that VoodooExtreme has posted their review of Halo, rating it a 95 out of 100. In short, they loved it:

Halo's visual prowess is unparalleled in today's crop of first person shooters; the power of the Xbox allowed Bungie to go wild in the graphical department, spending polygons like pennies on detailed character and vehicle models with all the other bells and whistles you'd expect from a game optimized to run on a GeForce 3 based graphics accelerator. The massive outdoor levels come stocked with near photo realistic textures with water and sky effects even more beautiful than what the Unreal engine currently offers. Indoor and underground levels lose a lot of the awe factor that the outdoor maps seem to inspire, but upon close examination you'll find no compromise in their construction (it's just that they're not as flashy). In-engine rendered movies with great voice talent and stellar lip-synced character dialogue serves as glue to hold the plot together, and through the movies, players are taken on an interactive tour of this exciting world created by Bungie.

The reviewer, Apache, says that Halo has now surpassed Half Life on his list of most engrossing games ever .

In the ratings, Halo pegged the scale at 99% (I don't know if VE gives 100s) for Graphics and Sound, and 95% for Gameplay and Innovation. Longevity and Stability received 90% each, although minor framerate issues were cited.

Also via Louis Wu at HBO comes word of this report from Hyperium about a Halo review at TechTV.

Apparently, they preferred Oddworld over Halo, rating the former a perfect 5 and calling it a must-have while giving Halo only a 4 in the Gameplay and Sound categories.

Although there's no rating category for it, it looks as if one of their major problems with the game were the controls:

The first thing you will notice when playing the game is that it takes a while to adjust to the controls, which make use of every button on the Xbox controller. Moving is controlled via the left analog stick, and your camera (i.e. your character's head) is controlled with the right. Getting the hang of moving around like this can take anywhere from a few minutes to an hour, and it only becomes more complex when faced with an enemy, trying to fire with the controller's right trigger, and reload with the x-button. Thankfully, most levels offer plenty of stuff to hide behind while you get your bearings. One major gripe some players may have is that you cannot run, which at times gives the game a lethargic feel.

The rest of the review is mostly positive, although it does have a few minor inaccuracies; it erroneously seems to indicate that the game's AI drives the jeep during solo play, when it can't, and refers to the developers as Bungie Software rather than the appropriate Bungie Studios . The review also includes a video clip.

Shockwave at TeamXbox has posted a complete review of Halo. Par for the course, he was impressed by the game, especially the graphics:

In case you have been living in a cave, you might want to take a look at the screenshots from this game. There really isnТt much dispute over HaloТs beautiful graphics. Anyone who knocks the graphical splendor of Halo should be given a brisk slap upside the face. The world of СHaloТ is so gorgeous it almost reaches the point where you probably wonТt even notice the minute details of the environments around you. Everything from weather effects and lighting is wonderfully done, and you might feel the urge to stop and smell the roses, but not for too long or you might end up buried 6 feet under them instead.

He rates the game a 4.8 out of a possible 5. The review also includes four new movies that HBO has reported include spoiler material. Thanks to Louis Wu for the heads-up.

Louis Wu has reported over at HBO that the recent exposure of the Halo launch party on some of the larger Xbox fan sites has generated a deluge of RSVP responses; about three times the number they can actually withstand. Matt Soell has also posted in the forum about how they will handle the situation:

We're building a list of attendees in order of when they RSVPed. (Thus Tom Van Sinden, the very first person to RSVP, is assured a spot.) I'll be contacting people who didn't leave names, or had some other weirdness associated with their name (i.e. I will definitely come but I might bring 27 friends, or possibly just six and that sort of thing). The first 250 people who responded will get priority; people who responded after that first batch will be admitted as circumstances allow. People who didn't RSVP at all attend at their own risk; we may not be able to accomodate you. I'll try to contact everyone who responded to let them know whether they're in the lucky first batch, so watch your email.

Matt's also asked people not to send him more email asking about whether or not someone is guaranteed a spot, as that will just slow him down trying to determine the answer to that question anyway.

Mr. Bunny posted in the HBO forum that Halo was mentioned in stories covering the upcoming console wars this holiday season, both in the Washtech section of the Washington Post and the New York Times (registration required). The Post used Halo as an example of how Microsoft's strategy differs from Nintendo's:

The first batch of games available for each console reveal that each one is targeting a slightly different audience. The first title out of the gate for the Xbox will be Halo, a shooter game originally designed for PCs. It's a complex, flashy-looking adventure about Marines fighting aliens, a timeless theme among 18-and-up gamers.

Nintendo's GameCube launch titles will be more kid-oriented, featuring the company's longest-running characters Ч for instance, Luigi's Mansion, a cartoony ghost-hunting game that extends the Mario franchise, and Super Smash Bros. Melee, which incorporates such celebrity characters as Zelda and Pikachu.

For the Times, apparently DOA was more visually appealing... wonder why that is.

Eric Trautmann from Microsoft has posted in our forum about his involvement with Eric Nylund's Halo prequel novelization, The Fall of Reach . In the course of his post, he talked a bit about the movie rumors going around:

First: there is currently NO movie discussion; we've been approached, but we've declined until Jason and Bungie team can devote some attention to it. Right now, before pulling them into a project of that kind of scope, I'd rather sit back and let them bask in the praise and glory they richly deserve.

Trautmann was coyly evasive about whether a possible film would focus on the timeframe of The Fall of Reach , Halo itself, or afterwards.

CG Online has a short interview with Jason Jones, original cofounder of Bungie Software Products Corporation subsequently sold to Microsoft and transmogrified into Bungie Studios, developers of Halo for the Xbox. They asked point blank if Halo would still come to the PC, to which Jones replied point blank, yes .

The timetable is still up in the air. Jones points out that Bungie employees were given vacation after Xbox Halo was completed. In addition, CG Online asked:

Is Halo a better game for having been made into a showcase title for the Xbox? What have you been able to do, technically and in terms of production value, that PC gamers will see when the game is released, but wouldn't have seen if the game had just remained a PC/Mac game forever?

Well obviously we have been able to focus on two major areas for the Xbox version.
1. Single player story
2. Graphical/Audio fidelity

The Xbox really frees Bungie up to turn on all the bells and whistles. Bungie no longer had to worry about making it optimized for hundreds of different computer configurations or a low the minimum spec. We only had one minimum spec and one configuration which allowed the team to max out all the settings. Things like Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound, bump mapping, pixel reflection or volumetric lighting will just blow players away. These processes are expensive and require tremendous horse-power that is standard on the Xbox.

They also asked about Bungie's plans for the Xbox's online capabilities, to which Jones replied that details are yet to come.

Thanks to Maarten Goldstein at Shacknews for the heads-up.

AdReview might have had a point about absolute morons at gaming sites.

Problem was, they were talking about the wrong people.

Not even one day after Matt Soell re-re-reconfirms Halo for the PC and Mac for the umpteenth gajillionth time over in the HBO forum, PlanetXbox's John Yan slaps this bit right at the top of their news page, where it's almost guaranteed to generate another week's worth of whining about how Halo is Xbox Only or Xbox Exclusive or other such nonsense:

Like Halo, New Legends was destined for the PC until Microsoft's Xbox obtained the exclusive rights to the title.

Does Microsoft own the rights to Halo? Certainly. Is Halo an Xbox Exclusive ? Only in the sense of not coming to another console, because of course once again Matt has said:

We still plan to do a Mac and PC version of Halo.

And then he goes on to explain why they don't have any more information about when and how that will happen and why that doesn't affect the fact that it WILL happen.

Of course, PlanetXbox, as a site devoted to the Xbox, isn't particularly interested in what is or isn't coming to other platforms; but as a Member of the GameSpy Network that DOES cover other platforms, you'd think there'd be some way of getting information from the left hand to the right to head off this kind of error.

UPDATE: The forum link has been updated to reflect the passage of Matt's post into HBO's forum archive.

Coriolis at Ancrik pointed out a cute Bungie-themed MasterCard ad spoof in the Comics section of The Psyjnir Complex.

TeamXbox is reporting that there's a demo of Oddworld on the Halo game disc; another benefit of using DVDs for storage.

TeamXbox has noted that EBGames.com is once again accepting Xbox preorders; but these orders are expected to ship on November 19th, and not on the official launch date of November 15.

Each bundle includes an Xbox console, a controller, power cord and standard A/V cable. The Alpha Bundle adds Halo, Oddworld, Madden 2002 and an extra controller, and costs $489.95. The Bravo Bundle swaps Madden for DoA3 at the same price. The Sigma Bundle includes all four games at a cost of $539.94.

Head over and check out Voodoo Extreme's five Halo screenshots. These are some really pretty in-game shots, probably some of the best we have seen. You'll see a couple shots of the Warthog and the marine, as well as Halo's beautiful scenery.