Doobie has sent word of three new plugins from Project Magma. The plugins include Shadow III, Dol Baran v2, and Ultimate Team Battles. Go check it out.

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.

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.

The Silent Cartographers, a PC Halo mapmaking group, have got their website up now. They have 14 members and list several projects on their project page, including four new maps, one called "Aquaphobia", a clear reference to similarly named levels in Bungie games, such as Phforaphobia in Marathon and Gephyrophobia in PC Halo.

[image:4378 left hspace=5 vspace=5 border=0]Gearbox has put up their own press release officially announcing that PC Halo has gone gold, and there's even more photographic evidence of that fact now-- a picture of the Lead Quality Assurance Tester holding a gold CD.

[image:4336 left hspace=5 vspace=5 border=0]Well, the gold master chiefs, which appeared on the Gearbox site, then disappeared, and then reappeared, were a harbinger of things to come, but the Microsoft press release made it official-- PC Halo has gone Golden Master, ready to head to duplication on its way to store shelves. There's a shot of the master CD over at Gearbox.

[image:4040 left hspace=5 vspace=5 border=0]Randy "DuvalMagic" Pitchford, CEO of Gearbox Software, has posted in the Gearbox PC Halo Forum about the status of PC Halo.

[image:4108 left hspace=5 vspace=5 border=0]In addition to the new releases and new additions, Project Magma has announced two upcoming projects. Both are still early in production and have no release date as yet.

WWIIi is to be a port of the WWII: Recon plugin by Santa's Head to Myth 3. It should be available "in a few months".

Two newcomers to Bungie, Zoe and Claire of the online team, have contributed new themes for Bungie.net's skinnable fansites; Zoe, an artist and designer, created "Euphoria Station", while Claire developed "Shotguns".

Two other themes were created by fans: H2 by Qbix, the creator of the earlier "Legendary" theme, and "Thieves in the Night" by Strykerman.

SketchFactor at Bungie.net has passed along an update from Gearbox Software's Michael Bastien, the producer of PC Halo.

Bastien reports that:

We are definitely on the final stretch to deliver the PC version of Halo to you guys. Mehve was pulled in last week to create art for our setup program and it’s very sweet. So the coolness will start as soon as you insert the disc in your computer. Marty was also involved... but that was, how can I say, more "challenging." Indeed, the setup application is somewhat limited in terms of what it can do with sounds and music. Marty, on the other hand, is not limited in terms of what he can do with sounds and music... I’m sure you guys see the challenge right there! In the end, there will be some audio coolness in the setup as well. Not nearly enough to satisfy Marty but enough to complement the beautiful images.

CobaltNova have delayed the announcement of the winners of the first annual Rockets On Prisoner awards for the best in Halo fan films so they can chime in with a new prize sponsor-- Bungie. Currently there's no detailed information on exactly what Bungie will be providing, but knowing them, it'll probably be something very cool and worthwhile. CobaltNova also said they are looking forward to the 2004 awards, including preparing a panel of celebrity judges and adding a new