GameSpot is reporting that Dustin "HP Darkman" Langton, winner of the Halo National Championship, has signed a management contract with Major League Gaming and also has an endorsement deal with LASR Accessories.

TankRamp at Battleground:Halo is reporting that XboxConnect, a Windows tunnelling program, will be holding a 100+ participant Halo tournament. More information is available on their site, including sign-ups.

Just like our compatriots over at HBO, Rampancy is sending representatives to the Are You Big Enough LANfest in Andover, Massachusetts, which despite our colleague's impressions, is a location that has nothing to do with anal sex. We should be able to provide an update on the proceedings with some photos sometime during the day.

Sioflake has posted that there are now 21 teams registered for the Myth World Cup 2003. If one more team doesn't register to make up a field of 24, then teams 21, 22 and 23 will have to forego competition in order that a bracket for 20 teams can be made. The site has instructions on how to register a team, the tournament rules, as well as plenty of other information.

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.

Matt Soell at Bungie has put up a short summary of how the Halo Winter Season Tournament is progressing. So far 1,100 gamers have showed up at over 75 iGames centers. The next round begins on December 14. Thanks again to Louis Wu.

I recently participated in the intitial qualifying match for the Halo Winter Season tournament. My team did fairly good, had fun, and dropped out, though we'll be trying again at the next qualifier. I've blogged my report of it, playing Team Slayer, 4 vs. 4 on Hang 'Em High.

It was a tricky scenario. They held the high ground, and had superior marksmenship anyway, so we always came out on the bottom when we tried to knock them off from a distance. When we tried to get close, theyТd have plenty of time to saw us down while we approached. And if we did nothing, they killed us as soon as we spawned.

A classic siege situation, and we were stuck, watching them pull away in score. It wasnТt a matter of superior skill as much as superior strategy, and we lacked the key to take it away from them.

But we figured it out.

Read the full report to get all the goodies.