A new set of HUDless screens, from the levels Halo and Truth & Reconciliation, are up in the HBO forum, courtesy of Mills.

Version 3.02 of the Halo map editor SparkEdit is available over at HaloMods. It fixes a few minor errors. Thanks Grenadiac.

Tycho has posted over in the Marathon Resurrection forum (and mentioned in ours) that the last texture (in this case, the Tick) has been finished, paving the way for this four-year-long project to bring the content of the original Marathon game to the Unreal engine to finally be completed.

At this point, we need your help...we need help to finish these remaining SP maps. We need everyone who can map and can dedicate some time to please try and help, or if you know someone who can help, ask them...if you know of places where you can ask for help, please do. The second part is that I'd like some input from everyone as to how to set up the distribution and collection method for these unfinished to finished maps.

If you're a mapper, or could be, or knows someone who is, drop into their forum and say so. Tycho says he is expecting an "early summer" release for Marathon Resurrection.

Brandon has posted at COERCE that the HBO-COERCE dedicated server for PC Halo is back up.

In addition, the RSS feed for news from COERCE now seems to be working, so we've added their feed to our newsfeed page.

MereCatFish responded to XLNC's HUDless multiplayer shots with a collection of his own; XLNC has already pledged revenge. The new shots are in our MereCatFish gallery.

...or, too many secrets.

There's a bit of buzz being produced right now over Digital Extremes' recently-announced FPS, Pariah. If you thought Bungie could be secretive, apparently this game has been in development for over two years. Ever wonder what the team that used to be working on Phoenix is doing now?

DE's founder Jason Schmalz has been interviewed about Pariah over at Voodoo Extreme; it seems that at least some developers besides Bungie agree with R.net readers on the importance of storylines in games:

VE3D - Is Pariah more of a single or multiplayer oriented game?

James Schmalz - It's highly single player focused. We want to get back to our roots and deliver a killer single player experience with amazing visuals, amazing AI, great story and great in-depth combat. We have learned a lot in the last decade since I first started Unreal, so we are putting all that knowledge and experience into basically redoing what I set out to accomplish with Unreal except brought into the year 2004.

So, just as Halo was a modernization of Marathon, perhaps Pariah will be a modernization of Unreal. I hope the Nali get more lines of dialogue this time around.

Pariah is being developed for the Xbox and PC.

Rapture over at COERCE is asking for input on what game types players would like to see on the HBO-COERCE Halo PC Dedicated server.

With 21 teams registered so far, there are 11 spots still available for CPL's Halo PC tournament this summer (the one with the $50,000 prize purse). Thanks cookedgamers.

BGH pointed out an article at Halo Phenom documenting how, as has been done to countless PC-based shooters before it, modified maps, models and textures are being applied to PC Halo to give players what might euphemistically be called an unfair advantage. Cheating, that is.

The article contains URLs to some pictures that show such modified maps, models and textures.

Major League Gaming has revised their event schedule for March-June, 2004. Each event begins on the 4th of the month; originally the order began with San Fransisco in March, then Dallas, L.A. and Boston.

The new order is Dallas, Boston, L.A. and then San Fransisco.

UPDATE:We've been informed that there's yet another schedule change, that the next event is in April, and we should have a new schedule again soon.

Brandon "vector40" Oto has submitted the third in his series of articles on Banshee tactics, Banshee Handling III: Applying Reality. If you haven't already, make sure you read part one and part two first or it won't make much sense.

Steve at Cortana.org writes that the Halo Editing Kit testing is indeed going on right now. Good news!

More screenshots and renders to add to galleries today:

• New images in the dolbex gallery
• New images in the BOLL screenshots gallery
• MereCatFish gallery newly created