A lull in the news couldn't have come at a better time. With my midterms wrapping up and Noct taking care of some business of his own, we've both been using every excuse at our disposal to avoid yet more work.

Stomped's John Callaham sends word that a winner has been chosen in their Win the Future contest, netting one worthy individual copies of Diablo II, Team Fortress II, and Halo. The winner, as well as the honorable (and dishonorable?) mentions, have been posted for all to see, so stop by and take a look.

And only a week late this time! Last week's poll, which asked which race prospective Halo players expected to spend most of their netgames playing as, garnered just over four hundred votes and strongly favored our native bodies:

Major kudos to Bungie's Max Hoberman, who heard our pleas for a larger version of the screenshot released yesterday at halo.bungie.org and passed along the original, 640x480 version for those of you seeking a larger version of this great screenshot.

Since JPEG compression never does justice to the smooth gradients in the skies and background, I've posted a JPEG for casual browsers as well as PICT and BMP versions for you Mac and PC purists out there who demand the best. All three can be had below:

And a sweet one at that! Courtesy of halo.bungie.org and Hamish of Marathon's Story comes a new Halo screenshot that would make for a terrific desktop if only the resolution was a bit higher. Actually, even with the blocky up-scaling, it's still passable... the perspective and pose is classic. Definitely one to check out, a dose of light in an otherwise drab Sunday.

Not exactly Halo news, but beggars can't be choosers. Kudos to Merkinjata for pointing out an interesting interview with 3Dfx's Mac liason Bryan Speece. Nothing too interesting to most PC folk, but Mac users might be interested to see what 3Dfx has lined up for their future product lines. Looks like we'll have a great selection of hardware by the time we're all scrambling to make Halo run on our systems...

Scratch that last post, it looks like the gods of webservers and weekends have not looked favorably on Stryker's efforts to launch HaloHQ. The lowdown:

TGIF. And to celebrate the death of another week, Stryker of Halo HQ sends along this PR for your reading pleasure: