The darn thing isn't even out yet, and already there are going to be three mirrors (UPDATED):

It seems like GameSpy will be getting the Halo Demo today as well, according to their Halo affiliate, Battleground: Halo. Thanks Rams.

As pointed out by a few disappointed HBO forumgoers, there's a minimum age of 18 for the PC Halo World Championship. Bungie Studios' SketchFactor noted that these aren't Bungie's requirements, but that many states have laws that govern the participation of minors in competitions, and that is the reason for the minimum age. FYI.

SketchFactor posted in a thread on the new Maw forum for Halo PC players about the teamkilling problem; although there are no specifics about patches, he does note that both Bungie and Gearbox are paying attention to players' concerns.

Turns out the shots on the GameGuru Mania review of Halo were new after all, so we archived 'em.

TankRamp posted at BG:H about a new Halo review, this one on a site called Christ Centered Game Reviews. Hell, we didn't even know Christ was a gamer. The only different thing about the review is a rating for "appropriateness", in which Halo gets a B- for "some swearing" and no option to turn off blood.

Well, if you want to be the worldwide Halo champ on Windows, you've got between now and November 15 to register for this tourney, to be held at iGames locations. Prizes are from Gateway, ATI and Alienware.

IGN is claiming that this Friday at 10 AM PST, they will have a 131 Mb Halo PC demo that includes Silent Cartographer and Blood Gulch at IGN Downloads. Thanks Louis Wu at HBO.

Two new reviews of Halo for the PC are up; thanks for the note to Blue's News. The first is at WickedToast; their review hinged mostly on their extreme disappointment at having the clever Covenant units replaced with mindless, ever-advancing, Doom-like Flood.

Representatives from Microsoft, Bungie and Gearbox will participate in an IRC chat in the #CPL channel on October 29 at 5 PM PST to answer questions about Halo PC and the Winter Championship. Thanks to kappa in the HBO forum, via Louis Wu.

[image:6275 left hspace=5 vspace=5 border=0]Bungie.net's Truth and Reconciliation site added seven new screenshots this week, all culled from those sent in by beta testers. We've added them to our screenshot gallery for PC Halo. Thanks Louis Wu at HBO.

Blue's News is reporting that Epic Games has announced Unreal University, where modmakers will get training on the Unreal Engine. Hey, Bungie, you going to let Epic steal all the mindshare in the modmaker education business? Where's Halo University? Sheesh, the sales of sweatshirts and bumper stickers to alumni alone would be a gold mine.

Another review that went by the boards by us this past few days was FiringSquad's review of Halo, which is harsh. They call Halo's graphics "dated" and "blocky", and repeatedly say that such-and-such shortcoming is "a huge mistake" or "inexcusable" or "defies logic". However, let it not be said that we rant whenever anyone criticizes our favorite game; a lot of this review's points are spot-on, and raise questions that are more than fair to ask.

A quick rundown on the pro and con side:

PRO

• AI. "AI is the best in the business."
• Sound. "The music is as moody and powerful as it ever was."
• Campaign. "The singleplayer game is, for all intents and purposes, the best pure action on the PC since Half-Life, and maybe ever." (Ed. note: Sheesh, guys... play Marathon sometime.)

CON

• Weapon balance. "The sniper rifle is abusive. It dominates outdoor matches."
• No co-op. "Gearbox may not have had the full two years to put it in, but Microsoft and Bungie did. It's their fault that it didn’t make it into the game and quite frankly, it’s a huge mistake."
• Multiplayer. No boot/ban facilities; text-only chat in same window as console messages.
• Graphics. Blocky.

Of course, worst of all may be the backhanded compliments:

The abundant use of voices and voice effects is still above and beyond most any other recent game has done. From the friendly, reassuring voice of Cortana, through the chatter of marines ("hey, you stole my kill!") and the surprised yells of grunts, to the frustrated rage of elites - this is the kind of detail and character you'd expect only from a Blizzard game.

Ouch!

The remarks about graphics and co-op especially are worth attention. We've all read articles about how Halo is a "complicated beast", requiring more programmer-hours than other projects to port. I'm sure nobody believes that PC Halo took so long because everybody was on vacation.

However, nearly all these articles give us to believe that what's complicated about Halo-- and difficult to port-- are the rendering routines. When users complain about low framerates even on new machines with decent video cards, they're often told this is just a consequence of just how much work the Halo engine has to do, and the system resources required to do it.

So how then can PC Halo's graphics be blocky and unimpressive compared to other games? Basically, how can the game's engine be so complex that it causes problems for machines that are able to run games with graphics that reviewers apparently believe offer superior graphics to Halo?

Perhaps it's too technical question for there to be a simple answer, but it seems there is a basic contradiction here somewhere.

As for coop.. well, I agree with FiringSquad. The market is hungry for cooperative network play. Playing coop is the most fun I have playing Halo, and also the most fun I had playing Myth, Marathon, and Unreal.

Let's hope there's a patch. Thanks Louis Wu.

Last Wednesday we noted Matt Slagle's review of Halo for the PC platform, which contained a number of not-so-nice things about the game we all know and love, as well as some minor inaccuracies that cast doubt on the amount of due diligence applied by Mr. Slagle in writing the review. Shishka emailed him, as well as many others, and received a reply that the article would be corrected.