Raptorv22 wrote in to let us know that the first Halo 2 clan (at least that we knew of) has now opened its doors: the 67th Raptors. Go take a look.

In the forums at HBO and Subnova lately, there's been much attention paid to a special easter egg put in a Halo level by Jaime Case Griesemer for the benefit of his long-time significant other, Meg Pallor Sagi. It has come to be known as The Megg .

Some may remember the questions raised when Halo was first announced for the Xbox, specifically with regards to how chatting would work in Internet play. This, of course, turned out to be a non-issue when Halo shipped without any officially supported Internet play.

However, at the time, there were those of the opinion that any shooter was best played with a mouse and a keyboard, and that having a keyboard gave the added advantage of allowing text chat.

Several major websites reported earlier this month Bungie's revelation that Halo 2 would not be released in time for the 2003 holidays as many had expected. The news even went as far as major mainstream sites such as Reuters and BBC News.

OK, since we hardly ever update around here these days, maybe this will slip by and no one will notice. Maybe not.

Anyway, this has to be about the strangest Halo reference we've ever seen. And before anybody complains, the text and images in this story we're about to link to are of a decidedly sexual, some might say odd-- nature. So be forewarned.

The latest email update from Gamasutra, a site devoted to game development, lists positions for a developer and an 3d environmental artist as open.

c0ld vengeance has given us his plan for how to handle Halo 2 when it comes out, and entitled it Halo 2: A Bachelor's Guide . We might actually try this; although, to be honest, this is only a slightly formalized version of an average weekend.

IGN is reporting that Halo has now been included in the holiday promotional package that comes with every Xbox sold between December 11 and 31 in Germany. Earlier the bundle included Jet Set Radio Future and Sega GT; now it comes with all three games.

Thanks to Acrappa for the heads-up on RHL.

Of course, the other thing that inevitably occurs in the void between releases is boredom, and it leads to things like this, and this, and this, to which Matt responded thusly.

The original organizers of the Halo Winter Season tournament currently run at iGames locations have resigned over philosophical differences with iGames. Jester and Psyrixx have both resigned; Jester posted about it in the HBO forum, and put his letter of resignation up at The Psyjnir Complex. It reads, in part:

The Halo Winter Season's second round of qualifiers is set to begin obn December 14. The first round was on November 2nd, and the third and final qualifier will be held on January 11. Each qualifier consists of a series of four man games of a single game type. The top two teams at each Qualifier will advance to one of eight regional tournaments to begin on February 2nd. Apparently there are going to be some nice prizes for the winners.

A reader over at HBO named gd found some funny and strange sound clips while playing Halo. Get all the info in the HBO forum.

A track from Halo that didn't make it onto the CD (a fact discovered by Bungie fan Micah Allen) has been added to the Outtakes page at Bungie.net. Kudos to Louis Wu at HBO.

Matt has returned to the HBO forum to disabuse the usual suspects of their delusion about release dates from Electronics Boutique.

Okay, okay... despite flat statements to the contrary from the developer (something along the lines of it is not Marathon 4 , if I recall) and the serious mismatches in timelines and terminology, Game Girl Advance has advanced the theory that Halo really is the sequel to Marathon Infinity, citing the use of the Marathon logo and the basic similarities between the two games. You be the judge.