Over in MBO's Asulym forum, there's details from Psyched, including rules and brackets, for Myth Tournament 2005 (which is actually being played with Myth II). Thanks Gholsbane for the heads-up.

With only a few weeks before its expected release, Wideload's first game, Stubbs the Zombie, is making some noise. Of all the non-Quake-engine games shown at QuakeCon 2005, Stubbs the Zombie got the most attention according to GameDaily. There is also another batch of screenshots in our Stubbs gallery for you to peruse. The Stubbs the Zombie soundtrack will be released on October 18. And we hope to have some more info on Stubbs to share with you very soon...

Due to a lack of time to work on it, the HomeFront mod team, striving to bring the Halo universe to the Battlefield engine, has been cancelled as the team no longer has time to work on the mod. Thanks to Mr.Cynical who spotted itin the HBO forum.

Psyched has announced that MariusNet and The Myth Jumpers will soon be holding a Myth 2 tournament called MAJORMATT 2005. Read about all the details in Bungie's Underground forum. Thanks MBO.

There's a freely available streaming video interview with Tim of Wideload Games over at GameSpot. (Sorry no last name-- the screen size of the free streaming video is so small I can't accurately transcribe it, so I won't try.) He explains the basic gameplay mechanics, as seen elsewhere-- the unholy flatulence, the gut grenade, the brain-eating, and the hand-- and also the use of Stubbs' head as a kind of deadly gaseous bowling ball.

The interview says that the Xbox version should be out in time for Halloween with the PC and Mac versions to follow about a month afterwards.

UPDATE: GameSpot has also posted an updated Stubbs preview with information from a recent hands-on session. It mentions several new features, including a Halo-style two-player cooperative mode.

(I think the underlying concept of Stubbs is valid-- being the Flood is more fun than fighting them--Ed.)

UPDATE: Tim is actually from Aspyr, the publisher of Stubbs, and not from Wideload as stated above. Thanks to Matt I believe, who didn't login, or someone else who doesn't hold a grudge against Tim.

The Battle Cat at Forerunners.org (and Cortana.org) wrote last week that there's a group that assembles each Saturday night at the hl.forerunners.org Hotline servers to assemble for networked games of Bungie's Marathon series, using the latest builds of Aleph One. If you've only ever played the Halo games or perhaps the Myth series, you owe it to yourself to see what Bungie fans were playing while everyone else was shooting exploding barrels in Doom. It's well worth it.

Chris Remo at Shacknews has posted an updated preview of Wideload's upcoming Halo engine game, Stubbs the Zombie, after playing it at QuakeCon. Remo reports that while initially intrigued by the title's unique story and gameplay, his first experience of it was slightly disappointing, as the level design was repetetive. (What is it with the Halo engine and that particular complaint?-Ed.) In any case, he got a chance to play a different level and had a lot more fun, the only other issue he noted being dips in the framerate.

Modders of Halo games on the Xbox may be holding their breath while HaloMods is closed pending an upcoming auto update. In the meantime, Gearbox's PC Halo fork, Halo: Custom Edition, is still getting new user-created content. Verdafolio at Demented Puppy Dot Com this week noted the release of two new maps: ColdRush by JackBauer and Dualing Keeps by DOMINATOR.

Tuncer Deniz has posted at IMG Magazine that they are hosting a 25 Mb QuickTime version of the Stubbs the Zombie trailer; earlier it was available in WMV format at MTV.com. The modified Halo-engine third-person action game comes out this year for Mac OS X, Windows, and the Xbox.

Verdafolio reports over at demented puppy dot com that the UK Halo map site, conveniently enough called Halomaps.co.uk, is reopening with a new site system and a new forum.

[image:9478 align=left hspace=5 vspace=5 border=0] Infernus441 has written a small Windows program called the Xbox Live Experience Calculator that, when given your Halo 2 rating on XBL and that of your opponents, will precisely calculate the experience you will gain or lose as a result of a victory or a defeat. He's also posted his own description and download links in our forum. Versions for other platforms are in development.

The Halo CE section of Gearbox Game Zone is hosting the 1.07 update for Halo Custom Edition, bringing the same vulnerability patches as included in the same patch for PC Halo. Only Mac Halo remains unpatched at this point. Thanks Louis Wu at HBO.

According to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Microsoft senior vice president and chief Xbox officer Robbie Bach all but says that Bill Gates misspoke himself at E3 when he referred to Halo 3 being used to blunt Sony's launch of the PlayStation 3.

At E3, Gates said "It's perfect. The day Sony launches, and they walk right into Halo 3." Meanwhile, Frankie told Bungie fans the week before E3 that no announcements were imminent, and now Bach is saying "We haven't announced anything on what Bungie is doing or where we're going with the future of the 'Halo' franchise." The specific language does more than just retract Gates' statement, it confirms Bungie's treasured independence from Microsoft:

With all respect to Bill, I don't run Bungie's studio, and neither does he. We'll work with the Bungie guys and let people know."

There's no indication there of anything relating to Halo being done by anyone other than Bungie, despite the fact that Gates didn't mention Bungie by name. So, as incredible as it sounds, it seems as if Gates was just off the mark on this one. As it stands, when Sony announced a projected launch date for their new console of "spring 2006" as the article cites, it changed Gates' deadline from being difficult to meet to being next to impossible.

Thanks to Louis Wu of HBO for the heads-up on this story.

PlayMyth turned three years old earlier this week. Check PlayMyth for all the latest Myth news. Speaking of Myth news, the annual Myth tournament, the Myth World Cup, will be happening sometime later this summer; word on the MWC05 forums is qualifying rounds sometime in June. Stosh posted the MWC'05 announcement at Bungie.net.