Bungie has put up a series of pages about the dedicated Halo PC servers they run that are hosted by HomeLAN, the same outfit that hosts well-known webcomic Penny Arcade. There's a list of servers, a rundown on rules and regulations, and info about HomeLAN itself.

[image:6655 left hspace=5 vspace=5 border=0]The 'net has been all abuzz of late about the so-called "release" of Half-Life 2 in parts of the former Soviet Union; it has been spotted for sale in Ukraine and Siberia. Most of these reports have drawn attention because Half-Life 2 is hotly anticipated, and because this game is not yet near an official release, and the source of these copies for sale is a leaked beta.

However, the average gamer may or may not be aware that piracy of computer software, music and movies isn't limited to Internet-based peer-to-peer schemes and shady chat rooms in CIS countries; it's right out there on apparently legitimate store shelves for everyone to see.

Case in point: Halo for the PC. Shortly after the release of PC Halo in the US (and long before we got our copies here at Rampancy, which arrived in a package with Mac Halo and First Strike) there were CDs on store shelves in former Soviet countries that purported to be Halo for the PC-- version 1.5, no less. (Perhaps that's where the rumors came from.) This applies not just to games, but operating systems, application suites like Microsoft Office, even enterprise level software like Oracle 8i.

The jewel case art itself is an interesting study; while the cover art appears to be based on screenshots from the shipping game, the back of the box features screens as old as E3 2000 and older.

Of course, trends are in place to reverse this state of affairs. Microsoft has opened representative offices in some (not all) former Soviet countries, and has been lobbying their governments to enact (and enforce) protection for intellectual property rights, as well as urging local computer resellers to cease practices like selling cracked copies of Microsoft operating systems and applications with new computers, or selling OEM copies over the counter that are clearly marked "for sale only with a new PC".

However, the real "gotcha" for anyone who plonked down hard currency (or its nearest equivalent) for "Halo 1.5" in any of the CIS countries-- and the going price is about two U.S. dollars-- is the system requirements. The only words in English on the back of the CD case are for the system requirements, and they read:

Pentium-2 233 Mhz, 64 MB RAM, 4 MB 3D Card

If anyone actually tried to play Halo on that system, that's almost punishment enough for warezing the game... almost.

In summary, piracy is something that affects not only Half-Life 2, or even just Halo-- but just about every piece of software you can imagine. And before anybody asks, no, I am not going to tell you exactly where you can get this. Buy Halo.

Nick posted that MonoxideC has made multiplayer action in The Library possible with a set of instructions and links to the level itself in an HBO forum post. Thanks to Louis Wu at HBO for the heads-up.

CobaltNova has put up their third Public Service Announcement, this one on paranoia about cheating in PC Halo. Definitely worth a read.

As part of CobaltNova's new image, they've added a section with three (soon to be more) essays on PC Halo. Two are on teamkilling... well, scratch that, they're all about teamkilling.

SketchFactor has put up a guide for Halo PC players, focusing on such key elements as knowing which game you're playing, CTF, Oddball, Race, or, heaven forfend, Body Cou... I mean, Slayer (F that). Our official copies have yet to arrive here at Rampancy, so we've had to make do with playing the PC demo, and from what I can tell, there are lots of people using CTF games on Blood Gulch as a stand-in for team slayer (not included in the demo). Also, it seems that one of Gearbox's strategies for getting people to buy the full version is to disallow players from turning off the Banshee in the demo; fully half the games on the demo servers sometimes are named "NO BANSHEES". Not that anyone pays attention to this.

Fluffy has posted at Battleground: Halo that as of January 1, they will end their Halo Beta ladder and start the official one. More information is available at TCLN: Halo.

Brandon "vector40" Oto has written a tutorial on flying the Banshee called Banshee Handling in our Halo Articles section. Maybe this will help me a bit; frankly, I've been on the side of the argument that says that Banshees are unbalancing Halo multiplayer, but that may be because of lag... or lack of skill. Yeah, definitely lag... or lack of skill.

SketchFactor has put up an admirably detailed account of the Cyberathlete Professional League's 2003 Winter Championship held last weekend in Texas. 35 5-man teams competed in the Halo event. Team [xeno] battled back to win in the championship game of Assault on Blood Gulch against Demise, the same team that had bumped them into the loser's bracket in an earlier round. Team [xeno] took $9,000 of the $30,000 prize pool. Next summer's event will also feature Halo and will have an even larger prize pool-- $50,000.

A poster named accident at the Hardfought forum (registration required) has claimed to have used a working Halo aimbot. The article contains no proof-- no movies, screenshots, or URLs-- and don't ask us where to get it, because even if we knew (which we don't) we wouldn't say.

The post also claims various other cheats exist, including a banshee pilot program. We're a bit skeptical of that one.

UPDATE: Claude Errera points out that a film of the Banshee Pilot program (but not the aimbot, at least not so far) has been made.

[image:6581 left hspace=5 vspace=5 border=0]The newest version-- SparkEdit 2.5-- of the third party Halo editor is available from HaloMods.com. Thanks Grenadiac.

Several IMG reader reviews, as well as the IMG review itself, have listed as a con that FSAA (full screen anti-aliasing) is broken in Mac Halo. However, a quick turn around the forums at Gearbox that ported Halo from the Xbox to the PC will turn up the fact that Halo does not support FSAA. The Halo PC Performance FAQ at HBO covers this under point 1.3.1. The IMG review claims that MacSoft said this was due to a "bug in ATI's drivers", however, Halo on the PC doesn't support FSAA on Nvidia cards, either, so I doubt this is caused by a bug in ATI's drivers. And I don't see how Mac Halo would support FSAA if PC Halo doesn't, unless something about DX9 compared to OpenGL is responsible. So while the lack of FSAA support might still be considered a strike against the game for those who are used to it, this isn't a bug in the game or in anybody's drivers-- it's just not there, and turning it on will reduce your framerate.