Actually, there are a couple that have popped up recently:

We wish. ;)

According to MacGames.de, via halo.bungie.org, Take Two is slating Oni for release in June and Halo in September, more or less on Bungie's original target date. Just in time for school... so much that semester.

Of course, these are probably estimates to be taken with a grain of salt. Take Two is indeed Bungie's publisher, but the actual schedule depends on Bungie, and not until they give out a firm date can we be sure about this.

Myndreach posted in our forum that The Order of the Sword is now accepting applicants. It looks like there are going to be a lot of these before Halo comes out... we'll have to see which still exist by H-Day.

Nooo... don't get your hopes up just yet. Bungie is probably not going to be taking public beta-testing applications for awhile. However, after a bit of conjecture and questioning about betas in the forum, Matt had this to say:

Well, GameSpot's article from yesterday turned out to be just a blasphemous rumor. Here's the poop straight from Matt Soell of Bungie:

Kudos to Pfor for posting in our pforum about a new, short article at GameSpot. They report confirming that Take Two will be converting Halo to the video-gaming platform. One can just anticipate the beads of sweat breaking out on the competitions' forehead. ;-)

• Forum: Halo Confirmed for PSX2

Kudos to those readers who pointed out the new German Halo preview (several of whom cited halo.bungie.org and Inside Mac Games as their sources) at Gamestar. HBO has posted a translation of the text, but I'm having a bit of difficulty getting over there, so no comment on that part just yet.

Kudos to Freewill, who offered this bit of insight into the BLAM! discovered in the bTV Halo footage at Marathon's Story yesterday:

X-Ray {SoSi} dropped a message in our forum that he and a few others have formed a new clan called Societas Signi. Their site has a nice bit of Flash animation and some of them have apparently been Bungiefen since the days of Marathon.

An interesting observation at Marathon's Story today, concerning Bungie's continuing use of the word BLAM! in Halo. Death alert, scripted event, random motivational message? You decide.