Well, not just yet. But the beginning of the end has arrived. View the horrifying evidence in this thread at halo.bungie.org. They're tearing each other apart like jackals, man! Jackals!

Matt Soell has confirmed on the halo.bungie.org forum that Bungie's creating a new division to do the movies for their games.

Essentially, Joseph and Marty will be heading up a new team devoted to making cutscenes, trailers and the like (both in-engine and CGI) for Bungie titles.

This is cool because they get to work on them year-round as opposed to doing it all in the two weeks before E3. I'm expecting an increase in quality AND quantity.

Matt says elsewhere in the thread that the division will be concentrating on Oni until its release, so we shouldn't expect to see any new Halo stuff for the next few months.

Read the whole thread; there's a lot of info there.

The Marathon's Story Page informs us that Robert Mclees and Lorraine Reyes have become engaged. For those who don't know, Rob first rose to fame as a Marathon artist and author of the Nar Chronicles; Lorraine originally worked in Bungie's now-defunct marketing department but has stayed on post-buyout in a development capacity.

Congratulations to you both. See, you nobly sacrifice yourself with a grenade to keep a dozen Covenant soldiers from chasing your buddy, and the girls just swoon....

Additional details can be found on Lorraine's site.

Old skule Halo website junkies will remember Halam, one of the original half dozen sites to see serious work done on them. However, Mojo has decided to lay that site to rest for good, but has started something new in it's place:

Just wanted to let you guys know that I have started up a new site entitled Bungie Jumping that will be entirely Bungie related comics.

It can be found here: mojo.fortunecity.com/halo (a forwarding site) or here: bungie.hypermart.net (the actual site)

Plenty of things in the community to poke fun at--just remains to be seen if there's enough hours in the day to get those comics drawn. ;)

Miss Pallor's editorial summing up the fan reaction to the Bungie purchase and the period of doubt about Halo's development that followed has a number of important points that I thought were worth responding to.

Miss Pallor has written an editorial at the corporation site about all the recent developments in the Bungieverse over the past few weeks, with a particular slant towards the fan reactions. It's well worth a read, although sure to incense a certain segment of the community.

Here's an excerpt:

The fans folded their arms and pouted and refused to accept any Bungie Software game not for play on a Mac. They threw these hissy fits of enormous size not because Bungie Software wasnТt going to continue making riveting, great games, but because of the platforms they may or may not support. The (ex)fans were so sure that Microsoft would corrupt Bungie that they ignored Bungie's announcements that they would be making their own decisions about platforms. In a time when Bungie needed the fans' support the most, the fans disowned them.

In the very near future I hope to abuse my inconsiderable power here at Rampancy.net to reply; in the meantime, just hop onto our Forum and post a reply if you feel so inclined.

Kudos to Cannibal Harry, who has digitized and posted several movies from the MWNY Fanfest on his site. The high quality videos are for the Halo 'Wassup!' and nVidia commercial movies, as shot with his camcorder at the event, and come in high quality and high compression versions. Well worth the downloads, especially if you're looking for a chuckle. ;)

• Forum: Fanfest movies

We've already remarked on the amazing success of the NY FanFest this past Friday, but here are a few of my personal observations:

Firstly, a huge Action Sack o'kudos is owed to Miguel (Freewill) for organizing the whole thing, from getting the pizzas to arranging for the location (Neutral Ground on W. 122nd Street).

The festivities started with a viewing of the complete E3 trailer from a DVD, and segued through pizza eating and some network games of Marathon to some fantastic giveaways of games, t-shirts and other invaluable Bungie paraphernalia. In addition to the Don't make us kick your ass Bungie t-shirt, there was a special edition Ling-Ling's Head t-shirt that on the back featured a photostat of the sale agreement of Bungie to Microsoft and a checklist of steps towards world domination-- the second to last of which was stage a bloody coup of new parent company. This item got a huge cheer from the FanFest crowd.

Hamish Sinclair of the Story Page, who won second place in the unofficial traveled furthest to come to the FanFest contest, was on hand in his first US appearance to hawk his incredible, limited edition Marathon Story t-shirts (of which only 49 exist in this universe or any other). Yours truly is the proud owner of one.

Just before adjourning, a special delivery FedEx package arrived with a special surprise for the fans who stayed until the very end. More details on that later.

Lastly, a big hello to everyone I met at the Fest, as well as everyone I didn't get to meet. Hope to see you around the forums or on the Hotline server.