Rampancy

Battleground: Halo posted news about a new poll at xbox.ign.com; readers are being asked to rate the 25 hottest games , released or as-yet unreleased. Halo is on the list, along with many other titles for several different platforms, including the PC, Xbox, PlayStation, PlayStation 2, Dreamcast, Nintendo 64, GameBoy Color, GameBoy Advance and GameCube (no mention of the Mac).

The list of nominated games is a little bit varied; how exactly Wario Land on the GameBoy Advance ends up competing on equal terms with the likes of Halo, Half-Life and Unreal Tournament is kind of beyond me. And strangely, Escape from Monkey Island is listed as a PlayStation title. Didn't that start on the Mac and the PC?

Each voter gets to choose three. There's also a form to nominate a game that's not on the list, but that costs you one of your three votes. Halo is currently the only Bungie game nominated. Perhaps that can be rectified.

IGN will begin counting down the top 25 games from the poll results on Nov. 12.

Eric Trautmann answered a few questions over at HBO about the upcoming Halo prequel novel-- among the tidbits was the fact that Cortana will be one of four points of view presented in the book. The identity of at least some of the other three apparently constitutes a spoiler. Oh, yeah... and there might be one or two Marathon references...

The Marius.net website got the scoop on two new Myth TFL maps that have been made available at Grounds For Assault. Conner describes the new maps:

The Ring [of Seventeen] has a Stonehenge feel to, featuring some interesting unit mixes as well as great scenery. And Autumn's Tidings is reminiscient of Torpidinium with a quarry in the middle.

Sounds good, so get downloading.

Chris Butcher has posted a message in the HBO forum explaining that the artificial intelligence in Halo can drive all the vehicles except the warthog . He explains:

if you think about it, it's much harder to write AI that can handle turning angles, sliding around corners, the danger of flipping while cornering at high speeds and things like that. another big problem is that if the jeep comes to a halt somewhere, it may require you to back up and execute a three-point turn or something in order to head in a new direction. that requires significant changes to the movement logic (which ordinarily assumes that a driver can move in any direction at any time).

Butcher goes on to say that it was hysterical watching Ferrex and Ruiner's AI try to operate the Warthog, but overall it wasn't solid enough to rely upon .