Marcus Lai at Gaming Age has put up an Special about how well Halo lived up to the promise of its first tech demo more than three years ago, and the verdict is that it has, and very well indeed:

Maps of Halo's multiplayer levels are up at Truth and Reconciliation. Overhead views of maps, lots of helpful hints. Hurray! Head on over if you've got nothin' else to do like me! There's also some new human vehicle concept art. Thanks HBO for that last tip.

Kudos to Rabbit who pointed out that IMG has interviewed Bungie's Alex Seropian. Seropian discusses the significance of the Oni team's involvement as well as Bungie's transition to console games. Of course, IMG had to inquire about Halo for the Mac:

Jason at Xbox365 has written a short review of the Halo prequel novel, The Fall of Reach by Eric Nylund.

Unfortunately, he seems to be laboring under a serious delusion-- namely, that Bungie's game was based on Nylund's book, rather than the reverse:

Icrontic, the web site that's already taken their Xbox apart in hopes of hacking it up to do neat things, has posted an Xbox vs. GameCube opinion piece. The result? Nintendo by a nose:

One of the things cited as refreshing, if not actually innovative, about Halo is the fact that it doesn't depend on the usual key-door-boss sequence that has plagued the shooter genre since Doom. It seems not everyone feels the same:

Battleground: Halo spotted an interesting tidbit in the latest issue of PC Zone:

Our guess is that Halo for the PC will be out next autumn, probably to coincide with the announcement of Halo 2, which is already being worked on and a cert to arrive on Xbox first yet again.

Before you get all excited, this statement has no credibility. Don't believe it simply because it's in a printed magazine; they're very often wrong.

Voodoo Extreme's poll asking for your pick for console game of the year has ended and Halo absolutely swept the competition with 47% (1928) of the votes.

There is now a new poll asking which game has the best graphics of 2001. Halo is winning with 23% (1098) of the votes, but Return To Castle Wolfenstein is only 88 votes behind. Go vote, and vote often!

Wondering about the Jason Jones Q&A that was expected to be online this week? The bungie.net website has updated with this information:

There is a nifty screenshot over at Marathon Open Source that shows the Warthog from Halo rendered within Marathon. Funny, I don't remember it being those colors.

The Game Of The Year Awards have begun over at GameSpy and they are allowing you and me to vote for our favorite games. As far as this community is concerned, Oni is a candidate in PC action, Myth III in PC strategy, and Halo in Xbox game of the year.

About that Halo PDF guide for IGN Insiders we reported yesterday. Claude Errera let us know that it is indeed the Halo walkthrough at IGN Guides, minus the screenshots.

Master_Chief (where do you suppose he got that name from?) of Xbox Xtreme has written a short but sweet Halo review. It describes Halo as [non-stop] action based around combat, combat and more combat and mind blowing . Overall, Halo scored 9.5 out of 10. (Thanks HBO)

Xbox City has reviewed Halo and found it to be a great game. So great, in fact, that it received the X Factor award; an unexplained title apparently given to the Xbox's best games. Halo scored 4.8 out of 5. (Thanks HBO)

Xbox Gamers's own Akuma has written a Halo review. The game was praised for its immaculate sound and gameplay as well as in all other reviewed criteria. Xbox Gamers scored Halo 9.9 out of 10. (Thanks HBO)