Andrew from Team XBO wrote to let us know that FTC9 is finally released and available for download for by members; all others get BitTorrent.

Konrad9 and Louis Wu report from HBO that the third Halo novel, First Strike by Eric Nylund, which covers the period of time between Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo 2, has hit some store shelves. No word on possible damage.

SketchFactor at Bungie.net, along with several other news outlets, including HBO, have reported that Halo's price has dropped to 29.99. While not quite the bargain-bin Platinum Hit price of $19.99, this is a significant reduction. Pick up a few backup copies.

Matt "Mr Smiley" Dunn writes that a new Halo Babies comic is up, pondering the impact of network performance versus player experience.

On November 15, both the Xbox and Halo celebrated their second birthday, and at least as important as the things that did happen were those that didn't happen:

• Halo 2 was not released.
• The vaporware "Halo Special Edition" did not materialize.
• Halo did not become a bargain-bin "Platinum Hit".
• Louis Wu did NOT have to shutter HBO for being "out of the loop" (which he isn't).

Here's what DID happen:

• A celebration was held at LANWerx, with players in person and on the Internet.
• The CobaltNova Halo League finished its first week of play.
• HaloBabies released a commemorative birthday comic.

This rumor just won't die, no matter how many times people try to kill it. And it seems that no one is satisfied to just wait and see when Halo 2 shows up, they've got to be speculating that something big is happening on the 15th to mark the two-year anniversary of Halo and the Xbox-- besides the DVD controller with extras that's already been mentioned.

This time, it's the revival of the "Halo 1.5" or "Halo Gold" or "Halo Online" version that was widely rumored to be following the initial version of Halo, motivated mostly by players disappointed that Halo didn't work on XBL. (Nevermind that Halo was being finished before the XBL API had even been published fully to developers... developers... developers.)

Bungie's own Matt Soell (now departed) squashed this rumor flat in the Rumor Control Database, saying: "We will not release a Halo game with explicit support for the Xbox Live network until Halo 2 ships." That's pretty unambiguous.

However, fueled by mention of a "Prima Guides Halo Deluxe Edition" (gee, think that could be the Deluxe Edition of the Strategy Guide, not of Halo? Maybe) several sites have gone right off the deep end.

But after SketchFactor killed the recent rumor that Halo 2 had been finished in secret and was ready for a Nov 15 release, it looks like the rumormongers came back to this dead horse and decided to take a few more whacks, which of course got mentioned even in places where they know better. In fact, some stories used SketchFactor's denial as evidence that Halo Deluxe exists.

Or, of course, Bungie changed their minds.

Mr Smiley writes that in addition to a new comic, there's a new section called Cool Crap at Halo Babies.

Louis Wu writes on HBO that the one month for the Great Halo Scavenger Hunt has come to an end. A page with the solution is now up.

Louis Wu at HBO, tipped off by Toxicoman and Howie, posted that there are system requirements for Mac Halo listed at the Apple Store. Look on the right hand side, in the "New to the Store" column, or do a search for "Halo". Nevermind that MacSoft's Al Schilling said only yesterday they weren't determined yet. Here's what the Store says:

• Power PC G4 700 Mhz or faster
• Mac OS X 10.2.5
• 256MB RAM (iMacs req. 512MB)
• Radeon 8500 or Geforce 2 MX with 32MB

A couple of interesting notes there. Despite the much-vaunted "Megahertz Myth", and the difference between OpenGL and DirectX9, the requirements for PC and Mac Halo are nearly identical. That says to me that either the video card is more important to Halo than anything else, or these system requirements are really just a copy of the PC requirements.

On the Red Vs Blue site, buzby writes that the DVD of the first season of the Blood Gulch Chronicles is now at the duplication house, and explains what they did during the slight delay:

We sent the DVD out for testing -- which was mainly for our guys to make sure that all the buttons worked and that there were no major glitches. However, the universal opinion was that we needed more content. So we pulled the disc back in and added a bunch of extra features, including outtakes, easter eggs, additional footage and some extra stuff. We even made a new cover for the disc itself. Keep checking the site and we will be adding more info as we move forward.

After they finish making backups of last season, they'll start on the second.

SketchFactor of B.net posted in the HBO forum that MTV is holding a poll to determine the best game of the new millenium, called the Ultimate Video Game Countdown. Halo is one of many options. Oddly enough, rather than trying to control multiple voting, MTV's poll system actually suggests it, providing a link "feel free to vote again". What the poll doesn't do is show you the results, so we have no idea how well Halo is doing at the moment. Thanks Louis Wu at HBO.

ReviewGamer gave PC Halo an 8.96 out of 10 score overall; the review is almost completely positive, in comparison to most recent reviews. Thanks Blue's News.

MacSoft's Al Schilling told IMG that although the hardware specifications for Mac Halo aren't known yet, the boxes are going to be printed very soon.

Shades of Marathon? Hmmm.... Thanks HBO.

Marty O'Donnell of Marty's Army fame is having a 2-year anniversary party for Halo. Apparently some Halo 2 info will be on tap. Thanks HBO.

An extremely long and thorough Tweak Guide for PC Halo has gone up at TweakTown. The site also has several tweak guides for the Windows operating system itself (mostly XP), and suggests you visit those first. Thanks HBO.