Thought PC Halo would never get patched again? Well you might think. But you weren't counting on the wonder that is Windows XP Service Pack 2 to create a remote crash possibility, did you? No. Well, after tomorrow it won't matter-- Bungie will release a hotfix for PC Halo to close this as-yet-unexploited hole.

A new dedicated server, 1.05, is already out. It seems possible from the post that Gearbox may choose to update Halo CE as well; however there is no news of it in the Gearbox Forums as of yet.

Believe it or not, there's Myth news today. Over at MythForums there are two news items; one about an update to the Myth 2 FAQ, adding information about the community game servers that replaced Bungie.net; the other is the launch of Myth Gazetteer, a site that aims to be a meta-directory for Myth maps; they've got 500 so far. Thanks vinylrake.

BlackOps has posted in the Gearbox HaloCE forum about a modification that he and some associates have made to an Unreal Tournament 2003 statistics program. Now this statistics package works with Halo server logs if you have FTP access to the logs themselves. They aim to produce an open source Halo statistics package; currently it tracks kills, deaths, suicides, team kills, who killed whom, flag scores, double kills, triple kills, killtaculars, and more. It also implements a UT-style ranking system, where players with low ranks get more "points" for killing players with higher ranks. You can see a demo of the system as well.

Thanks Louis Wu at HBO for the heads-up. This may be a precursor to what we'll see in the XBL portion of Halo 2.

More transcriptions of Halo music today from Poop Scoop: The Maw, On A Pale Horse, and Halo: Master and Chief. Each containins a MIDI file of the score, the PDF files and a Finale Printmusic! file of the score that can be edited if people have the software. (Note: Halo: Master and Chief is by Justin R. Durbin, and Poop Scoop's version is minus the drums.) You can see them all in the Halo section of our Sheet Music area.

Hellface has posted in the Gearbox Forum something that appears to be about the Halo Editing Kit. We're not really sure... but the thrust of it seems to be that there may (or may not) be something good going on, but if there is, and they aren't SURE it's going on, they aren't going to tell us. The moderators might (or might not) know about it, but if they do, they can't tell anyone, and if they do, they're in trouble.

Everybody with us so far?

Thanks Louis Wu for the heads-up.

...and MasterNeoChief is their instrument, making this mod where you play as an Elite, eliminating UNSC forces. Get it over at HaloMods. Thanks Louis Wu at HBO.

Slashdot has a story on the Xbox emulator, CXBX, which is now apparently able to run at least one commercial Xbox title; in this case, Turok Evolution. The CXBX site has screenshots and AVIs of it in action.

...because you won't need it to watch HaloTV, a new project by the guys at cookedgamers, rapture and synide.

The service streams various Halo movies, and in addition did a live broadcast of the CAL season finals between xeno and Gamers Paradise.

Unfortunately, the broadcast had to be capped after the first 50 users, even though more than 500 tried to tune in. An edited copy of the match footage will be available on Friday, and rapture promises Season 2 broadcasts without a user limit.

Thanks to Louis Wu at HBO and rapture at cookedgamers.

James at HaloMods writes that the multiplayer version of Assault on the Control Room is now complete and released as version 1.3. MonoxideC is running a server for it as well, check HaloMods for the information.

TeamXbox has an interview with XNA developer Scott Henson at Microsoft about what exactly XNA is going to do for the average gamer. One scenario he imagines is where users on Windows PCs play one kind of role in the same game as console players fulfilling a different role:

So from a gamer point of view, I could take on the role of the commander. I could use the hi-res screen of my PC and act as a general leading and directing my troops. The guys/girls that you're playing with are on a console in the battle fighting it out. So one person is seeing the results, commanding from one point of view on a PC and then there are others having that visceral, down in the trenches experience on Xbox. So, for a gamer, I just think this causes an explosion of possibilities.

So... will there be a Mac version? Just kidding.

Wraith has produced a mod for Halo PC that you can get at HaloMods that allows you to use the Fuel Rod Gun the SpecOps Grunts use in the level Two Betrayals. He wants his gold star.

TURBO in the #HBO IRC channel pointed out the new Halo Editing Kit screenshot over at Cortana.org. It appears to be showing what we can only assume is shot of a Halo level being edited in 3ds Max.