While they called the graphics undeniably pretty and loaded with all sorts of eye candy , PlanetXbox has been less than completely pleased with Halo as a complete package in its latest review:

The Xbox commercials are now all over television screens, including Halo's commercial. Within 90 minutes, I caught the Oddworld commercial two or three times and Dead Or Alive 3's commercial once on Fox. Shortly after, I saw the Halo commercial on The WB. Of course it was only a matter of time before these commercials became available online, and well, now they have.

no7orious was kind enough to write not one, but two great reports covering his experience at the Halo launch party. The first report covers the span of the entire launch party, describing who did what, who played what, and what was played. The party started with an on-screen Halo drill sergeant getting people in line:

While perusing through the IGN Xbox forum, I came across a thread that claims Halo got a 9.7 out of 10 score from IGN Xbox. Oddworld apparently got a 7.4, but the real kicker is that Metal Gear Solid 2, Halo's prime competetor for game of the year, got a 9.7, too.

I definitely look forward to reading these reviews when they are made public on Monday.

Another mark goes to HBO for reporting that PCGames.de has posted fifteen new screenshots of Halo available in 640x480 and 768x576 formats.

As noticed by Louis Wu at HBO, there's another GameSpotting article about Halo, this one focusing on multiplayer. The game's been quite popular in their offices:

HBO has launched its Halo Launch Party page. There isn't much information up yet since the party started less than an hour ago, but keep an eye out for updates.

Jeremy has posted pictures of him playing Halo at a local kiosk in the Xbox Addict forums. (Thanks HBO)

Kudos to HBO for noticing GameSpot has added a Halo video review. It's 82 MB large and is available in MPG and WMP format. Alternatively, you can stream the video in Windows Media or Real Player format.

There's a poll at GameSpot, asking in light of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 coming to the PC, which of these other high-profile console games would you most like to see brought to the PC? Of course, Halo is an option. Halo is currently winning with 30% of the votes (nearly 2000).

Despite minor complaints about framerate issues, and the lack of bots, GS liked Halo plenty. Interesting, in fact, that most of the other reviews haven't carped about the missing bots that much.

But aside from that, the review gushes from the get-go and doesn't stop:

HBO's own Louis Wu has posted that IGN's Halo review is out-- although most of us won't be able to see it for awhile. It's at IGN and is Insider Only at the moment.