Raptorv22 wrote in to let us know that the first Halo 2 clan (at least that we knew of) has now opened its doors: the 67th Raptors. Go take a look.

In the forums at HBO and Subnova lately, there's been much attention paid to a special easter egg put in a Halo level by Jaime Case Griesemer for the benefit of his long-time significant other, Meg Pallor Sagi. It has come to be known as The Megg . Recently Megg-hunt discussions have nearly taken over the HBO forums, prompting the creation of two Megg FAQs, one at HBO by Louis Wu and one at Subnova by Shishka, and now a new Megg-only forum at Subnova. The Subnova Megg forum is of particular note, as that community features the only people who have firsthand knowledge of what it takes to see The Megg, including Pallor, whom it is said may deign to read it and post once in awhile.

Some may remember the questions raised when Halo was first announced for the Xbox, specifically with regards to how chatting would work in Internet play. This, of course, turned out to be a non-issue when Halo shipped without any officially supported Internet play.

However, at the time, there were those of the opinion that any shooter was best played with a mouse and a keyboard, and that having a keyboard gave the added advantage of allowing text chat.

Now that Xbox Live is out with voice chat, texting seems unnecessary. And most will admit that although different from the mouse and keyboard, the Xbox controller is more than serviceable for playing Halo.

However, that didn't stop Sega from doing what many said could not, should not, would not be done-- the production and sale of a dongle that would undo the incompatibility-creating USB dongle that Microsoft made for the Xbox to prevent you from plugging USB peripherals into what is, essentially, a USB port.

That is to say, they are selling a USB keyboard adapter for use with Phantasy Star Online, which was noted today at Penny Arcade, which also has a bit of a review of the Xbox version of PSO.

Enjoy.

Several major websites reported earlier this month Bungie's revelation that Halo 2 would not be released in time for the 2003 holidays as many had expected. The news even went as far as major mainstream sites such as Reuters and BBC News.

Matt Soell made the original posts at Bungie.net and the HBO forum, and it was soon picked up by Louis Wu in the HBO news. After the news started to reach other sites, poena.dare compiled a list on HBO's forum.

There is no release date other than 2004 at this point.

OK, since we hardly ever update around here these days, maybe this will slip by and no one will notice. Maybe not.

Anyway, this has to be about the strangest Halo reference we've ever seen. And before anybody complains, the text and images in this story we're about to link to are of a decidedly sexual, some might say odd-- nature. So be forewarned.

Game Girl Advance ran a story last October on a Japanese game called Rez for the PlayStation2, which ships with a peripheral called a trance vibrator . Lord knows how this escaped our notice til now.

And yes, that means exactly what you think it does. Pervert. And if you weren't thinking that, you're probably too young to be reading the story anyway. Whatever you do, don't ask your parents what it means and then mention we told you about it. That would be bad.

At any rate, the Halo reference comes in here (pun intended):

Now, let me confess that this is not the first time that I've used a game component to, er, stimulate myself physically. Ever since they invented the whole rumble pack/vibrating technology in controllers, it's been on my mind, and sometimes in my practice (fellow game girls, you know what I'm talking about). The thing is, though, it's often frustrating since the vibrations are not nice and steady, but sporadic. Also I found it's tough to actually play the game and use the controller in nasty ways at the same time. I did discover that Halo was a pretty good game for this (although for not much else), because as the gunner in the Warthog, you have unlimited ammo and you can just park yourself somewhere and rat-tat-tat to your heart's content. Another issue, and one not solved by the Xbox controller, is the shape of the device - less than ideal.

Unless somebody can do better than that, I vote this the strangest use for a Warthog ever. Randy Glass, move over.

Thanks to Mikey-San for pointing this out on RHL.

The latest email update from Gamasutra, a site devoted to game development, lists positions for a developer and an 3d environmental artist as open. These positions aren't yet listed on Bungie's own Jobs page, but they can be seen by searching Gamasutra's job database for Bungie; they're listed as new as of January 31. Thanks to Acrappa for the heads-up.

c0ld vengeance has given us his plan for how to handle Halo 2 when it comes out, and entitled it Halo 2: A Bachelor's Guide . We might actually try this; although, to be honest, this is only a slightly formalized version of an average weekend.

IGN is reporting that Halo has now been included in the holiday promotional package that comes with every Xbox sold between December 11 and 31 in Germany. Earlier the bundle included Jet Set Radio Future and Sega GT; now it comes with all three games.

Thanks to Acrappa for the heads-up on RHL.

Of course, the other thing that inevitably occurs in the void between releases is boredom, and it leads to things like this, and this, and this, to which Matt responded thusly.

Simply try to realize the truth: there is no yellow banshee.

The original organizers of the Halo Winter Season tournament currently run at iGames locations have resigned over philosophical differences with iGames. Jester and Psyrixx have both resigned; Jester posted about it in the HBO forum, and put his letter of resignation up at The Psyjnir Complex. It reads, in part:

For I have been a part of the Bungie community for five years, and that loyalty has made me extremely hard-headed and diffucult to deal with professionally. My zeal to give Halo players the best, cheapest tournament possible has interfered with my ability to effectively compromise and negotiate with iGames. [...]

Ultimately, I was trying to run a national level business-run tournament on a fan tournament budget. This was both idealistic ... and totally unrealistic. Thus my crusade comes to an end.

He also took a few moments to speculate on what the role of tournaments like the one at iGames will be in the future of Halo competition:

I simply don't think the future of national Halo competition lies in game center LANs. This summer PC/Mac Halo will allow online play. Next winter Halo 2 will support XBL. The online support of Halo will suddenly allow tournament directors like myself to run large-scale tournaments without the hassle of registration fees, finding a venue, securing the necessary equipment, and getting teams to actually show up to a physical venue. There have even been discussions regarding the possibility of the first Halo World Cup based on the popular Myth World Cup series.

He went on to say that he harbors no ill will to iGames, and that his team will continue to compete in the Halo Winter Season.

Thanks to Louis Wu at HBO for the original story.

The Halo Winter Season's second round of qualifiers is set to begin obn December 14. The first round was on November 2nd, and the third and final qualifier will be held on January 11. Each qualifier consists of a series of four man games of a single game type. The top two teams at each Qualifier will advance to one of eight regional tournaments to begin on February 2nd. Apparently there are going to be some nice prizes for the winners.

A reader over at HBO named gd found some funny and strange sound clips while playing Halo. Get all the info in the HBO forum.

A track from Halo that didn't make it onto the CD (a fact discovered by Bungie fan Micah Allen) has been added to the Outtakes page at Bungie.net. Kudos to Louis Wu at HBO.

Matt has returned to the HBO forum to disabuse the usual suspects of their delusion about release dates from Electronics Boutique.

Okay, okay... despite flat statements to the contrary from the developer (something along the lines of it is not Marathon 4 , if I recall) and the serious mismatches in timelines and terminology, Game Girl Advance has advanced the theory that Halo really is the sequel to Marathon Infinity, citing the use of the Marathon logo and the basic similarities between the two games. You be the judge.

Thanks to Louis Wu, who also differs with GGA on this point.