As reported earlier at halo.bungie.org, Bungie has posted a Halo banner on their bungie.com site, featuring that nasty jeep machinegun in action. Not a major thing in itself, but lets hope that banner begins appearing all over the web... kudos to the first non-bungie site spotting!

Zach Stroum, better known to Marathon vets as VidBoi, sends word of a new Halo webring. Here's an excerpt from the PR:

I'm inviting anyone out there with a love for Halo to sign up and be there when it all happens. Gamers will be hungry for the latest news, screens, movies and rumors. This is going to be one helluva ride.

Interested? Then check it out, and sign your site up for the ring (how apt).

Kudos to Butcher, who pointed out a new Gamespot preview, the second of many in the next few days, I'm sure. The screenshot is the same as the IGN preview, but the content is very interesting. Here's one line that is certain to stir up speculation:

Also, the ring encircling the planet was constructed by a third and as yet unseen alien race, but Bungie wouldn't comment on whether we'd be able to see or fight against that race when the game is complete.

Definitely worth reading... enough info for yet another FAQ update.

And so early, too! While wandering around through the private directories of Bungie's webserver, the guys at Soon(tm) appear to have stumbled upon a Halo readme file! Knowing their responsibilities to the community, they did what they had to... and posted it. Worth checking out. ;)

With the influx of new information, the FAQ is seeing a few updates, and will continue to do so over the next few days. If you see that I've missed something (or am blatantly incorrect), feel free to point it out.

Damn you, Murphy! And kudos to Supercobra and Chris t' Crappy, who both pointed out the new Halo preview at IGN.

Yay, another PR cut and paste, you say? Not so! Not only is there a brand new screenshot, but a detailed preview article too! I've yet to read it myself (rushing to post this ;), but the screenshot alone should be enough for a good week of speculation.

IMG has posted a very interesting item regarding a recent Gamespot article that stirred things up for a few days last week. That article, of course, was the very slanted Macworld Expose, and it looks like it garnered some notice.

Hmm... apparently we weren't on crack after all. In the interests of not ecouraging this kind of tabloid journalism, you might avoid that second link, but definitely take a look at what people are having to say about it at IMG.

After just over 200 votes, I've closed up the most recent poll, analyzed the results, and posted them for those intrepid few of you who actually care. An interesting poll, though, wrapping up in a three way tie... which name do YOU think sounds coolest? Well, we have some idea now...

That's right--the HL server is up before the site! Noctavis sends word that a new, dedicated Halo server is now up and running. And here's a bit about it:

Right now it's a bit spare in the files area, since it is so new, but we plan on tossing up every last tidbit we can find regarding HALO as soon as possible. We also anticipate some intermittent outages over the next 24 hours, while our SysAdmin shifts a few things around.

We're still making the necessary preparations to launch HaloNews.Com itself.... Stay tuned!