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July 2004

July 2004 Archived News

News July 31 2004

GTA :: Sin City Update
The Halo-based Grand Theft Auto conversion has been renamed to GTA :: Sin City. This information, and a few other tidbits about the past week, are available in the Weekly Update posted on their forum. (Louis Wu 20:08:20 UTC) (permalink)

82 mb of Maw Goodness
The final winning run in our Going Nowhere Fast contest, Trefitch's Maw sprint, is now available via Direct Download from the GNF Status page. If you're not one of the 900 people who have already grabbed this 82 mb file via BitTorrent - now's your chance to get an HTTP download. It's a gorgeous run... check it out! (Again - announcement of the Grand Prize winner should be sometime in the coming week.) (Louis Wu 19:57:05 UTC) (permalink)

Inheritance a Go
Back in May, Kris Kristensen, director/producer of an upcoming film called 'Inheritance', stopped by various Halo-related forums (ours included) to ask folks to sign a petition showing interest in the film. (He appealed to the Halo fanbase because one of the stars of the show is Jen Taylor, the voice of Cortana.) Apparently, the push was successful; a couple of days ago, he posted a note on the HaloPlanet forum stating that the movie will be distributed between November 2004 and February 2005. (The responses he got were split between indifference and titillation about the mention of 'graphic sex' in the Director's Cut version - it's a little disappointing to see no real support for the film itself.) Thanks to TankRamp for the heads-up. (Louis Wu 19:46:16 UTC) (permalink)

Halo 2 Wallpaper all over the net
Shacknews pointed out Halo 2 wallpapers at TeamXbox and IGN Xbox, all based on the recently released super-hi-res Halo ad. (The same sorts of wallpaper has been created by HBO visitors, currently in the woefully backlogged Wallpaper queue - for example, Ducain whipped up a batch a week ago (and another batch a couple of days later)... we'll do our best to get these up and posted soon.) Thanks, Ash. (Louis Wu 18:59:17 UTC) (permalink)

Saturday Storytelling
Seven new stories in the Fan Fiction section today (updates take more work now, because of the new comments section, so it's easier if I do them when the batch size is smaller). Go read! (Louis Wu 17:48:22 UTC) (permalink)

What Works, So Far
Jake 'Evergreen98' Billo has written an article over at the Junkyard looking at the changes in gameplay, from the release version of Halo through the current prereleases of Halo 2. If you read this, and choose to comment on it, remember that 1) the Halo 2 builds we've seen/heard of so far aren't finished, and 2) Halo has been out (and playable) for almost 3 years, while the longest anyone has ever been able to play Halo 2 without signing a Non-Disclosure Agreement is about 3 hours. (Louis Wu 16:28:34 UTC) (permalink)

How Stupid ARE People, Anyway?
Some moron is selling the domain name 'ilovepees.com' on eBay, claiming it is guaranteed to generate 1 million hits in the first week, due to the popularity of the ilovebees.com site. Starting bid is $1,000 and the Buy It Now price is $50,000. Personally, I have to say... if this actually sells, I hold out little hope for the human race as a whole. Thanks to Starman343 for the heads-up. (Louis Wu 15:52:01 UTC) (permalink)

Bungie's Euro Dash
This week, the Bungie Update is not a normal update - it's a special Bungie.net feature that covers the ins and outs of getting a game going in the European market. Typically fun Frankie read. So go read, already. (Louis Wu 01:39:37 UTC) (permalink)

News July 30 2004

Banshee Handling IV
vector40 has written a series of articles on Banshee control - he's now added a fourth segment, but this one is narrated video instead of text. It's rather long (ten and a half minutes), but it covers several key strategy points in a way that simply cannot be duplicated with written words. If you're looking for an edge in your online Banshee battles, this is worth watching. It's 55 mb large, in MPEG-4 format; looks like the encoding is unfriendly to WMP9 on a PC, but QuickTime handles it on both Macs and Windows boxes. Turns out my analysis of our bandwidth situation took into account only files.bungie.org and files2.bungie.org - mythica.org still has a goodly chunk for the rest of the month, so that's where it's being hosted. Grab it today! (Louis Wu 21:04:58 UTC) (permalink)

Movies, movies, movies
It's Friday - I guess it must be Movie day again. Merecatfish has made another PSA for Halo CE - you can snag it off his Halocity site. (WMP9 format, 320x240, 3:51, 5.6 mb) 45 Sion has made a pretty foul-mouthed vid called 'SouthPark MC Class' - WMP9 format, 640x480, 57 seconds, 5.6 mb... thanks, c0ld vengeance. Legend has made a teaser for an upcoming 'Halo Revolutions' film; you can find it on Halo Orbit (thanks, Oliver Sopienski). I'm not sure what it has to do with Revolutions at this point... but the sniping's pretty good. (MPEG1 format, 320x240, 1:10, 18.8 mb) Team EP has put together a teaser for a new map they're building (still in Alpha) - Ndugu has snowboards (with all the grinding and tricks that suggests), plus snowball launchers, pickaxes, and more. WMP9 format, 640x480, 2:29, 9.8 mb. A thread about the release can be found on the Gearbox forums. And [CHP] member Vinx has put together a long (9:25) video of gameplay on the Halo CE map New Mombasa. (It's in WMP9 format, 640x480, and weighs in at 56 mb downloadable.) Thanks to HaloPlanet for these last two. And to people who've submitted movies to US for hosting - please be patient. The Going Nowhere Fast contest releases have hit us pretty hard, bandwidth-wise. We'll be in better shape come August 1. Update: oops, one more from our own forum - scabbronumber1 posted Game Over, a 9.6 mb WMP9 that's 4:01 worth of mostly Blood Gulch tricks and gameplay. (Louis Wu 19:10:08 UTC) (permalink)

Rivalries Rage On
MarkHawk points out a new Subzero Rivalries comic - takes a shot at Halo's AI, I think. (Louis Wu 17:04:01 UTC) (permalink)

The Joy Of Socks.
Stuntmutt proves that even Cortana is not immune to the corrupting influence of One One Se7en. (Louis Wu 16:32:56 UTC) (permalink)

Contact
Halo Babies has posted their 50th strip today - and it's a cliffhanger. There's also some information on meeting these guys at the Halo50k Seattle event, coming up at the end of August. Go visit! (Louis Wu 13:14:53 UTC) (permalink)

Halo Maps up and running
A couple of months ago, we mentioned the UXB web-based Halo server database. This has now moved to a new home at UXB's recently launched Halo Maps website, a home for map downloads and HaloPC/Halo CE information. The site has no ads - just good, solid Halo info. Check it out! (Louis Wu 13:08:13 UTC) (permalink)

Unreal Chief
Strato has found a Master Chief skin for UT2004; you can see pictures and grab a copy (4.8 mb) from FileFront. Nice colors! (Louis Wu 12:59:48 UTC) (permalink)

Fan Fiction Comments are Back
Thanks to Wado, who was the driving force behind the new Comments solution to the Fan Fiction section. Stories will continue to be posted in the usual manner - but comments are now handled on the Fan Fiction Forum. (Each story gets its own thread, and you can either follow the 'Read/Post Comments' link from the story itself, or backtrack from the comments page for a given story - the first post will always have a link to the story it's attached to.) If you want to post comments, you'll need to register on the forum; it's a standard phpBB install, so comments section moderators will now have far more control over abuse than the old system had. You cannot post new topics, and you cannot reply to existing ones unless you're registered. The system went live yesterday, with no fanfare, with just the dozen or so stories posted since the Comments section was taken offline - but it now contains today's Fan Fiction update (another 18 stories). Please read the FAQ and the Guidelines that Wado's been so kind as to write up - and enjoy the new functionality! (Louis Wu 12:45:55 UTC) (permalink)

Another Dew Writeup
Bill Daiber and his crew were another winning team in the Mountain Dew/Halo 2 contest - he's sent us his writeup of the experience, and the pictures that won them their seats, for the fans to read. You'll find the info in our Miscellaneous section. (Louis Wu 12:24:22 UTC) (permalink)

News July 29 2004

No more Halo for Trautmann - really.
A couple of days ago, we posted a note suggesting that Eric Trautmann might not have left the Halo universe entirely. An email from Eric points out that we misinterpreted the blog entry - no matter WHAT happens to his job, he won't be working on Halo. He IS looking forward to the wedding, though. Priorities - it's all about priorities. And he's got good ones. (Louis Wu 12:34:04 UTC) (permalink)

Short People Got No...
Bah. Looks like Warbow got one last Calvin and Halo into the queue before he left for the summer - and I missed it on Tuesday. It's posted now. When you play a game, you should always think the rules through before you start. (Louis Wu 12:27:46 UTC) (permalink)

The Case for Switching
MasterGrief points out an 'Advertisement Campaign for Halo CE' over on the Halomods forum. In actuality, it's a video made by Aztec showing gameplay on Fissure Falls - but who am I to argue? Available in high and low resolutions (bizarrely, the screensize of the 'low-res' version is larger than that of the 'hi-res' version, though it DOES have a lower bitrate). DivX-encoded .avi, 11.2 or 14.7 mb, depending on the version you grab. (Louis Wu 12:17:48 UTC) (permalink)

Keyes - Directly
Direct downloads of the Keyes winning run of our Going Nowhere Fast contest are now available; visit the GNF Status page for your choices. Quick Update on BitTorrent stats for the contest vids in general - 12,000 total downloads have been handled by the network, accounting for 1.2 terabytes over the past couple of weeks. (Our normal bandwidth needs haven't decreased because of this contest - this number is in ADDITION to what we normally handle.) Direct downloads account for another very large chunk of bandwidth - I don't have exact numbers, because I don't have access to all the server logs, but I'm guessing it's on the same order as the BT downloads. For this particular series of downloads, BitTorrent made a HUGE bandwidth requirement tolerable for our network of self-supported servers. (Louis Wu 11:17:40 UTC) (permalink)

News July 28 2004

Halo 2 is in the House
Last week, the Mountain Dew/Halo 2 contest ended, and a few teams got email that they'd won. Two of these teams showed up at Bungie headquarters last Saturday, and now one of the participants has written up his experience. 3 solid hours of Halo 2 netplay on Zanzibar is definitely enough to get a feel for what the game is like - and they liked. Lots and lots of details - some of these came out from folks who played at E3, but face it, it's much harder to nail down details when you've only got 10-15 minutes to play. Lots of stuff, like sniper recoil or shorter melee range, point out tweaks that Bungie has added to make gameplay more balanced; folks who've gotten fat exploiting the old status quo will probably be unhappy, but for the average player, the game just got better. Check it out! Thanks to JNewt for the heads-up. (Louis Wu 17:52:04 UTC) (permalink)

Hi-Res Screenies, collected
Halo Zone has posted a collection of ultra-hi-res screenshots; while most have been available from other sources (the 1920x1080 screen grabs from the Halo ad are new), they haven't all been in one place before. If you want multi-thousand-pixel Halo 2 goodness, and you couldn't be bothered to scour the web for these... visit Halo Zone, and grab them all in one place! Update: Eep - apparently this site attempts to install a suite of spyware when viewing, including Bargain Buddy and Internet Optimizer. If you're viewing it on a Windows box, beware. Sorry about this. Thanks to P78 for the heads-up. Update 2: Problem fixed - ads removed. There should be no more trouble, according to Funkmon. (Thanks, Funkmon!) (Louis Wu 09:55:07 UTC) (permalink)

Halo CE No Leading Patch in Testing
NiTrOuSoXiDe has released a no-leading patch for Halo CE; it's currently in beta-testing. To be used, both the server and the client need to have this installed for it to work (a download link is in that thread). If you're finding that the changes in client-side prediction made in Halo CE made playing more difficult compared to HaloPC... give this a try! Thanks to MasterGrief for pointing out the thread. (Louis Wu 09:31:08 UTC) (permalink)

Putting the 'Oo' In Zoom.
In classic Stuntmutt fashion, today's One One Se7en looks at an unintended consequence of a new Halo 2 feature. (No, it's not bee-related.) If it makes no sense to you... use that mouse button. (Louis Wu 09:21:45 UTC) (permalink)

Mac Halo Timer 1.5 released
The latest version of the Mac Halo Timer, now up to 1.5, has been announced. Lots of new features - if you're running MacOSX 10.3 or higher, and you want to keep track of spawn times for various items, this puppy's for you! (Louis Wu 09:01:23 UTC) (permalink)

GNF Phase 10
The final winning run for our Going Nowhere Fast contest, Trevor Fitch's Maw run, is now available for download via BitTorrent. Once again - it hasn't been mentioned for a bit, so here is a BitTorrent client download link. This run is really efficient - no deaths at all, and some really classy moments. 82 mb, QuickTime format. Go grab it! Now that all 10 winning runs have been released, we're ready to begin consideration of the Grand Prize winner - these 10 runs, plus 20 more, will be analyzed for style and speed, and the run that comes out on top of the heap will garner for its owner a brand-new Limited-Edition Halo Xbox. Expect an announcement sometime next week. (Louis Wu 08:58:14 UTC) (permalink)

The Bee Thing - Again
While I was out last night, a huge thread erupted on our forum, arguing about my choice yesterday to ban the use of the word 'bee' from forum posts. I've been accused of stifling speculation, of favoritism, and of limiting new fans from entering the Halo community (among other sins). In my defense, I'd like to say that I really do believe the ilovebees campaign is Halo 2-related, and that it comes from official sources... but I DON'T believe those sources are inside Bungie. And my biggest problem with the entire phenomenon (at least here at HBO) is that there is ZERO ORGANIZATION. The day this story broke, there were over 800 forum posts on the subject. If someone had filtered them for new and unique information, however, I bet there were fewer than 25... all the rest were simply restating finds that had already been found. (On Bungie.net, the signal-to-noise ratio was even worse; there were 5000 posts that first day or so, and only a tiny fraction contained new information.) Without organization, this puzzle is nothing more than an annoyance. There is some wonderful organization out there - at the NetninjaBeeWiki site, at the unfiction forums, and elsewhere - but NOT HERE. And THAT'S why I asked that discussion be taken elsewhere. It's likely that this puzzle will provide a ton of fodder for the Halo Story page, and that an after-the-fact analysis will show that it was hugely productive in building hype for Halo 2 - but for now, other, non-bee-related material is becoming harder and harder to process because of the roar, and I'm simply not capable of doing it all. (There's a great article on the subject, summing up my personal views pretty well, up over at Gamespot right now. Worth a read.) (Louis Wu 08:48:02 UTC) (permalink)

News July 27 2004

And all was well with the world
Update on this morning's outage at Subnova; looks like a storm took out power for a good chunk of the evening. Things are getting back to normal, so everything that used to be running on halosn (including Fan Fiction) is back up again. (Louis Wu 19:03:05 UTC) (permalink)

More 'cel-shading' stuff
Dang it - I just found the beginning of this news post; I started writing it yesterday morning, but must have gotten distracted. Stupid bees... Captain Spark continues his cel-shading-like manipulation of Halo screenshots; he posted a pair that are actually the same shot, with different coloring. Very cool, if you ask me. (Louis Wu 18:21:02 UTC) (permalink)

keeping track of the details
Last Friday's Weekly Bungie Update has been added to our Archive - the collection (29 in total) is getting hefty, weighing in at 220kb worth of text. That Frankie writes a lot sometimes... (Louis Wu 18:13:11 UTC) (permalink)

CPL coverage from HaloSverige.nu
HaloSverige.nu (a Swedish Halo site) is gearing up for full coverage of next weekend's $50,000 CPL event (in English). Currently, the section holds basic CPL info (maplist, participants, rules, and so on). Check it out! (Louis Wu 17:58:38 UTC) (permalink)

E.T. - Still Around
Nice catch by Ross Mills - a few weeks after we posted a note about Eric Trautmann's leaving behind his involvement in the Halo world, Eric posted ANOTHER note on his blog stating that he might, in fact, remain on in his old capacity.

My job transition may or may not happen, I may or may not stay in this group. Or I may leave. Or I may not. I exist upon a bedrock of stability and security. :P

That was posted 2 weeks ago... Eric's a bit busy with wedding plans at the moment (good luck, Eric!), but it'll be interesting to see if he sticks around; he's been a major player in shaping the public aspects of the Halo universe from the beginning. (Louis Wu 16:00:59 UTC) (permalink)

Forum Improvements
We've moved our forum to a faster machine, which should solve the viewing problems some people have been having since the ilovebees invasion last Friday. The downside: it might take a little while for the DNS change to propagate. Please be patient! (Louis Wu 12:36:04 UTC) (permalink)

Caboose and Grif - together again
Red vs Blue Season 2 DVDs are now on sale; they're not shipping until August 2, but you can plunk down your cash now. You get the full collection of episodes, plus directors commentary, outtakes, deleted scenes, line readings, easter eggs, and 'Never Before Seen Videos', all for $20. Sounds like a deal! First heads-up came from Gentry Geissler. (Louis Wu 12:29:05 UTC) (permalink)

New Action Figure Prototype Pics
Figures.com has put up a gallery of pics of the newest batch of Halo 2 prototypes from Joyride, taken during last weekend's San Diego Comic Con. Some are quite washed out, but you can get a decent sense for what they look like in any case. Thanks to gd for pointing them out (in a totally random post, I might add). (Louis Wu 10:12:25 UTC) (permalink)

Site Section issues
We've known for a while that halosn.bungie.org, one of the mirror sites for our material and the sole server for our Fan Fiction section, was moving - what we didn't count on was losing touch with Deimos Fawkes, its proprietor, in the days leading up to the move. At this point, the machine has stopped serving Halo content, but I have no way of reaching Deimos to find out where to point things... so we've redirected the sections it was serving to other machines, and turned off the Fan Fiction section altogether. Hopefully, we can rectify this problem in the not-too-distant future. Sorry for the inconvenience. (Louis Wu 09:55:59 UTC) (permalink)

News July 26 2004

Now THAT'S a big QuickTime.
Thanks to clarksbrother, for going above and beyond to help provide to Mac users what Windows users got last week. (Thanks, also, to Rufo Sanchez, who tried to do the same, just a little later.) You can now download a 1920x1080 version of the Halo 2 Ad released recently; it's 43 mb, and it plays BEAUTIFULLY on my G5, though I get less than a frame per second off the G3 laptop. Update: SanchezTheLlama has put up a mirror of this file. Grab it from him - he's got a lot of gigs to burn in the next 4 days! (Louis Wu 21:38:05 UTC) (permalink)

Screen Grabs from Hi-Res Trailer at Kikizo
Kikizo.com has put up a bunch of very nice screengrabs from the Ad trailer - they're listed as 800x600, but most of them are 1280x720, with a few that are 800x450. Very nice quality. (Louis Wu 19:13:05 UTC) (permalink)

Two Betrayals - Directly
We've put up direct-download links for Taylor Jones' Two Betrayals run, released last Friday in the continuing Going Nowhere Fast series. You can find the links (and direct download and BitTorrent links for all OTHER runs except the last couple) on the GNF Status Page. (Louis Wu 17:56:01 UTC) (permalink)

And For Those On A Budget...
Today's One One Se7en looks at the gap between bling... and bling. (Louis Wu 17:38:28 UTC) (permalink)

GNF Phase 9
Later than usual, but the ninth segment of the Going Nowhere Fast contest winners is now available via BitTorrent. goatrope's Keyes run isn't always pretty, but it's the fastest we received (and several people tried). Give it a look; at just under 100 mb, you should be able to give the BitTorrent network a run! (Louis Wu 15:42:46 UTC) (permalink)

RvB Set Pieces III
][-][awaiian pig is back with a new batch of Red vs Blue 'set pieces' - this time, with the white 'Director' character on-set. Pretty nice work! (Louis Wu 12:36:23 UTC) (permalink)

Nice combo move
Timboh56 has posted a stop motion movie test with his Halo action figures - just a meg big, but nicely done! (Louis Wu 09:38:38 UTC) (permalink)

Baby Fans Unite
Halo Babies has put up a new fan-created strip. Pottie humor... but then again, it IS Halo BABIES... There is also some new fan wallpaper and a tabloid cover. Go take a look. (Louis Wu 09:29:59 UTC) (permalink)

Halo50k3 - whatta show!
Wow. Halo50k3 ended with a bang - Team FFA took the final 4v4 title by beating Team StK in a nailbiter of a match, 50-49. Dolbex promises that games will be rebroadcast soon - keep your eyes on mlgpro.com! There are more news articles and more pictures to see, right now. And speaking of pictures - Rapture uploaded another massive batch of photos yesterday - including some nice closeups of the Nightmare Armor helmets that each member of the winning team took home. (Nice bonus prize, eh?) Check 'em out! (Louis Wu 09:13:54 UTC) (permalink)

News July 25 2004

Well, no bees are gonna get in here.
We've received more than a few emails about this ilovebees thing, so I'd just like to make something clear in case it wasn't before: We are not part of this event. We don't have any secret information; we're just following along like everyone else. That means we can't confirm or deny your theories about the page; nor can we answer questions that haven't been figured out already by someone else. We also probably aren't going to post that much news about the site, since it looks like it's going to be going on for a while; we may note major confirmed relevations but we won't be posting daily updates or every single new tidbit. Which brings us to my point: You don't really need to email us about your theories or stuff that happens regarding the site. Again, we can't tell you if you're right, we can't give you new information, and we probably aren't going to do anything with your email anyway. You will get much better results by posting to one of the many forums covering the event; a lot more people will see it that way. (Count Zero 16:17:34 UTC) (permalink)

Pretty Pictures
Because of the massive flood of bee-related speculation, our forum has become relatively useless for Halo discussion. (Can you tell that I'm not convinced of the long-term relevance to our community of this whole event|phenomenon|game?) There are interesting posts that are getting buried. Say, for example... this one, from Captain Spark. He took a few more HUDless screenshots of the Spec-Ops Elite skin that Xavier built, and then did some basic image manipulation to them. The end results are pretty cool; I'd put them in the Miscellaneous Art queue, except that 1) he didn't present them that way, 2) they violate the posting rules for that section, and 3) you wouldn't see 'em for a while if I did. So check out the forum post, and enjoy these 'cel-shaded' elites! (Louis Wu 15:13:39 UTC) (permalink)

Halo50k3 Updates
Day One at Halo50k3 has come and gone, and there are all sorts of goodies for you at the MLGPro.com website. The Halo FFA competition was taken by StrangePurple, and the 2v2 matches were dominated by Team StK (half the four-man team took first, the other half took second). MLGPro streamed 250 gigabytes of interview and gameplay to the viewing masses, with 335 people watching during the 2v2 finals. There new articles and new pictures in the gallery. In addition, rapture has added another update to his OWN collection of pictures. If you couldn't make it to Atlanta, at least you can check out the action! And don't forget, there's plenty more to come today. (Louis Wu 10:53:52 UTC) (permalink)

News July 24 2004

Live from the gaming floor
Rapture, at Halo50k3, has been taking boatloads of pictures, including lots and lots and lots of shots of Nightmare Armor guys with all their gear. Warning: it's a pretty simple page, with 80-someodd thumbnails on it, so it might be rough on those with slower connections. Check out all the action! (Given the page name, I'm guessing there'll be more to come.) (Louis Wu 18:35:44 UTC) (permalink)

A Hum Dinger
The whole ilovebees thing went a little nuts yesterday; folks reading all sorts of stuff into whatever they could find. (The main thread on OUR forum has over 350 responses at the moment, with dozens of smaller threads around it. Other forums are just as bad.) Stuntmutt broke from tradition to put out a special Saturday One One Se7en with some thoughts on the subject. (I'm certainly not 'in the know' about all this stuff... but I have to say, it doesn't feel like a Bungie-driven puzzle. My best guess, at this point, is that this is a Microsoft marketing campaign, selling SOMETHING, but not necessarily Halo 2 specifically. One good suggestion has been something related to Xbox Live. We'll find out soon enough, I suppose... but I really am a little nervous that if it turns out that Bungie is not involved (again - I'm not in the know; they MIGHT BE), folks who already felt burned by the Enkidu puzzle will lash out. Just something to keep in mind, as you feverishly look for sevens in the ilovebees.com source code...) (Louis Wu 15:07:34 UTC) (permalink)

The Library, Directly
Standard web downloads are now available from a half-dozen mirrors for Cody Miller's 153 mb, less-than-21 minute Library run for the Going Nowhere Fast contest. You can find them (along with BitTorrent links for the first 8 runs, and direct downloads for all OTHER levels prior to the Library) on the GNF Status page. If you haven't seen it, this is a pretty impressive run; there are a LOT of 'how did he not die?' moments. (Louis Wu 14:51:25 UTC) (permalink)

Halo50k3 - the continuation of a legend
Halo50k3 kicks off today in Atlanta - more than 60 teams competing for their share of more than $10,000 in prize money. HaloTV will be filming the most exciting parts (though the streams will probably be coming from the mlgpro.com website). Good luck to everyone there! Update: Halo503 is live. New pics, live video, and updated news through the day. Check it out! (Louis Wu 13:35:05 UTC) (permalink)

Fan Fic - Stories and an Update
Eleven new stories posted in the Fan Fiction section, including new Enkidu Contest Collection entries. On the front of comments, and how to deal with them, Wado has suggested setting up a new forum for Fan Fiction writers here at HBO - plans are underway. In the meantime (or possibly just as a replacement), a couple of people have suggested The Halo Fiction Source Collection - if you want to write, swing by and see if this fits your needs! (Louis Wu 13:09:06 UTC) (permalink)

Missing the Tinkle
This week the Bungie Weekly Update can be found on Bungie's own Underground forum - improved graphics, squashed bugs, content completion, and icons... it's all there. Go read. (Louis Wu 00:00:28 UTC) (permalink)

News July 23 2004

The Biggest QuickTime
This was finished a little while ago... but I've been dealing with the nightmare that is the HBO forum for a while, and couldn't post. I'd love to be able to offer a massive QuickTime version of the trailer to match the obscene WMP9 copies Microsoft released today... but I can't find any tools that will convert a movie that big. (Small consolation for mac users - the biggest version plays back at a data rate of 9000KB/sec, well above what a majority of PCs can handle; many folks who grabbed the enormous one are watching a pretty jerky video.) The best I could do was a 720x405 version that weighs in at 9.5 mb. You can grab it at the bottomless pit that is Mythica.org, or the twisted joint that is Boomerica. (Didja like how I subtly got a knee joke in there without actually saying knee? Cool, huh? DOH!) (Louis Wu 21:42:59 UTC) (permalink)

Do Covenant Get Tans?
Normally, I'd just tack this on to the other comic roundup... but there's been a lot of news since then, and folks might not look down there. Sector 7 has posted another episode of Marines. You gotta hope they're not really that dumb... (Louis Wu 20:15:35 UTC) (permalink)

Bees... you think Ant Farm was involved?
The really odd thing folks have noticed about the Halo 2 ad looks to be an easter egg or viral marketing ploy of some sort. At the very end of the video, the tiny URL underneath the Xbox logo changes, for a frame or two, from www.xbox.com to www.ilovebees.com. On the surface, this looks like a common website that's been hacked in some way... but investigation shows that some very, very strange stuff is going on. View the source for some clues in the META tags at the top of the page... and view this forum thread for dozens of OTHER oddities. (Louis Wu 17:19:25 UTC) (permalink)

Ridiculously high resolution vids
As many people have figured out, super-high-resolution versions of the Halo 2 movie ad are now popping up all over the net. litereddonut points out a Fileplanet link, Adam Pavlacka (online content producer for GamePro.com) points out a pair of versions - a 1920x1080 (yes, again, the aspect ratio is off), 5.1 surround sound version (50 mb) and a smaller, 852x480, 5 mb version - at Gamepro, and there'll be more links as the day goes on (I doubt i'll keep up). All of these downloads are WMP9 files; that's what Microsoft is distributing. I'm currently working on finding a way to convert these massive things to QuickTime. (Louis Wu 17:15:01 UTC) (permalink)

Hi-Res Halo 2 Ad available
Tocki writes to point out that Halo Orbit is hosting a hi-res version of the trailer (9.8 mb, 640x480 (yeah, that's not the right aspect ratio), WMP9 format) that they found at MyXbox.at. QuickTime coming soon... Update: Here's a 640x360 (aspect-corrected) QuickTime version (and a mirror), 5.8 mb. There MIGHT be higher-res versions coming later... if I can figure out how to work with the truly monstrous files Microsoft has sent me. Update 2: Halo Orbit has put up another mirror of the QuickTime version, for europeans who would rather have this. (Louis Wu 16:02:20 UTC) (permalink)

Mac Halo Frame Rates, from Al Schilling
In an interview at Inside Mac Games, Al Schilling, product manager at MacSoft, takes a break from talking about Close Combat to mention that they've done some testing on the latest build of Halo under MacOSX v10.3.4, and haven't found it to be slower than performance under 10.3.3. (Some forums have seen reports from people who noticed massive framerate drops upon upgrading the operating system.) He did say, however, that he encourages anyone experiencing these problems to send their machine specs to support@macsoftgames.com, so that they can try and determine whether the problem lies in Halo's code, or OSX's. Thanks to JotaRota for pointing this out. (Louis Wu 14:41:10 UTC) (permalink)

Flight of the Marine
No, no, I was right... it's Movie Day. Hehe - if you wondered why folks thinking about entering High Impact Halo's The 3 Towers competition were happy to hear that Dark Helmet was a judge, and couldn't compete... watch this video (15.3 mb, WMV format) showing how it's done, with s7yle. (For you WMP-haters out there, I've ripped a QT version - 16.8 mb.) Thanks to Ash for pointing this puppy out. Update: Gah. Looks like Dark Helmet posted it himself on our forum, last night. Sorry, DH! (Louis Wu 09:51:51 UTC) (permalink)

Movies... or Comics?
Maybe it's not Movie Day at HBO, maybe it's Comic Day. We've got a bunch to tell you about. Mr Smiley mentions a new webcomic, The Grunt Brigade, that he found a few days ago - but it's now on a bigger pipe, so you might actually be able to see the strips this time. Then, this morning, he pointed out that Halo Babies Episode 49 is online - I've needed something like this several times during T&R. Right here at home, we've got Miniature Halo Episode 23 - in which Sarge goes a little wild with an FRG. The latest One One Se7en tells it like it is, with respect to the Bungie Weekly Updates (let's see how Frankie does this evening!). And Halo: Resolution, which has been ramping up to this episode all week, bows out. It's been a good run - 129 episodes, spaced over 10 months - but Fuzzy and DIMagic have decided to call it quits. Give this one a read, and say goodbye. (Louis Wu 09:44:16 UTC) (permalink)

Morning Movie Bonanza
I think it's gonna be Movie Day here at HBO. There are quite a number of new films, available at other websites, ready for your downloading pleasure. RaiL sends word of a video he's made of his clan (Clan IP) showing off their Blood Gulch Multiplayer skillz - you can find a link to the 15.2 mb .mp4 on FileFront. beytah writes to point out Invisible People Suck, a 54.7 mb, 6:56-long QuickTime vid showing gameplay and situations, characterized by the quick-cut style made popular by music videos. And That Weasel lets us know that the next episode of Grunts are People Too!!! (Episode 7 - Mission Im-Chuck-Able) is now up, in both WMP9 and QuickTime6 formats, at the GaPT website, along with three MP3s of Mother's Tooth's original music (check the Episodes 6 and 7 pages for download links). There's more coming in a bit - but this should hold you for now, no? (Louis Wu 09:13:58 UTC) (permalink)

New Mombasa Classic is Out
One of the most hotly-anticipated Halo Custom Edition maps to date, New Mombasa from Mrs Doublefire and crew, is now available for download. It's 9.6 mb of HaloCE goodness, and there are currently 8 EP Gamers servers running this map. (In fact, there are over 30 different servers hosting this map already, with two of them, at this hour, being full - a heartening situation.) Links for downloads, and some direct server IPs, can be found in this Gearbox Forum post from Mrs Doublefire. If you've held off downloading Halo CE, or if you've stayed away from the scene for a bit... now might be a good time to check out what's going on. (For those who've kept up on development of this map; this is New Mombasa Classic - it uses standard HaloPC weapons and vehicles. There is a version that will be integrated tightly with NiTrOuSoXiDe's Halo 2 mod, to provide an experience something like what was seen in the E3 2003 trailer... but this isn't that. It's stuff you're used to, in a gorgeous new setting. Go play.) Thanks to everyone who wrote - it looks like DHalo was first (though there were three within 30 seconds of him - yes, this one was HIGHLY anticipated :) ). (Louis Wu 08:47:59 UTC) (permalink)

GNF Phase 8
The next level in the Going Nowhere Fast competition, Two Betrayals, is now available for download via BitTorrent. Taylor Jones spends a relatively quick 25 minutes whipping through this level - his handling of a rocket launcher is a joy to watch. He gets a vehicle through the broken door in an amazingly no-fuss manner... but my favorite moment comes at around 22:20 - you get a quick glimpse of how tough Legendary can really be. My vote for best death in a run, period. This puppy is is 182 mb - open that BitTorrent client and grab it! (Louis Wu 08:24:50 UTC) (permalink)

That Doesn't Seem Physically Possible.
][-][awaiian pig whipped up another 5 Red vs Blue 'Set Pieces', after the great response he got to his first set. These are bigger, by request. Update: The variants on Megabattles just keep coming. Valence tries out an animated one. (Louis Wu 00:45:22 UTC) (permalink)

News July 22 2004

An Ocean of Green Fizzy Stuff
Slothboy posts his non-winning pics in the Mountain Dew contest (and a link to a thread on Bungie.net that has pics of the winning entries)... all I can say is, these guys drank a LOT of Dew. (Louis Wu 21:43:01 UTC) (permalink)

Calling All Fans - One Last Time
Dan Chosich reminds everyone that today is the last day folks are able to submit content to the Fan Art section of the Making of Halo DVD. If you have content you want the team to consider, send it today or you're out of the running! (Louis Wu 21:07:31 UTC) (permalink)

Halo Delight
ShotgunGoBOOM found a Flash video called 'Halo Delight' on Flashplayer.com. MC gets down to the 80's hiphop sounds of the Sugar Hill Gang. Surreal. (Louis Wu 18:30:01 UTC) (permalink)

Spec-Ops are ALL black now
Update on yesterday's elite skin, from Xavier - he's found a way to make ALL Spec-Ops Elites black (some were coming out with a blue layer over the skin); the downside is that it changes the blue of the regular Blue Elite. Information and the new ppf can be found on the Halo: Modding Evolved forum (and I've added a local copy of the 'fixed' ppf here). (Louis Wu 18:04:34 UTC) (permalink)

Halo50k3 Team Listing
Dolbex writes to point out that all 61 teams registered for this weekend's Halo50k3 event in Atlanta are listed up on the MLGPro.com website. If you aren't sure if your buddies are going, check this out! (Louis Wu 16:29:44 UTC) (permalink)

But that IS a valid reason for upgrading
I think all of us who've suffered over bad internet connections can sympathize with Calvin and Halo today... and I'd like to take this chance to mention that Warbow has chosen to take the rest of the summer off; there won't be any more Warbow-generated Calvin and Halo strips before fall. (It's unclear whether Blackstar will continue posting one per week, on Thursdays, or whether he'll double his output to two per week, to keep up the current schedule, or whether he, too, will take a break, giving Calvin himself a rest for a couple of months. More when we know it.) (Louis Wu 16:26:25 UTC) (permalink)

343GS now available for direct download
A tad later than usual - but never fear, we get to stuff eventually. The Direct Download links for the sixth Going Nowhere Fast video (343 Guilty Spark) are now posted on the Status page. If you aren't one of the 900 or so BitTorrent downloaders, go grab a copy of this 49.4 mb run via http! (Louis Wu 16:20:07 UTC) (permalink)

Administrivia
The Comments function for the Fan Fiction section has been turned off for the time being. Shame how the actions of a few can ruin it for the many. (Before anyone who actually USES that section goes ballistic on the individual who caused most of the trouble, be aware that IGNORING THE SITUATION would have made it stop a lot sooner (and likely wouldn't have gotten someone spoofing ME, which is what set this off).) Stories will still be posted, you just won't be able to comment on them until someone suggests a better way of maintenance. (Louis Wu 15:47:28 UTC) (permalink)

There's that skin again
Captain Spark took a couple of very nice pics of the Xavier/Tina Leyk Elite skin on AotCR today - check 'em out! (Louis Wu 15:03:21 UTC) (permalink)

A Tribute to RvB
Wow - that's unique. ][-][awaiian pig has taken the Megabattle screenshot technique in a new direction - he's reproduced 'set pieces' from Red vs Blue episodes. Don't think I ever would have thought of that one... (Attention to detail is amazing.) (Louis Wu 13:48:46 UTC) (permalink)

Halo 2 Movie Ad now Viewable
So the big news of the morning is that Microsoft has made a small version of the Halo ad currently showing in Loews theatres available to the public. The astoundingly frustrating part of this is that the page is viewable ONLY on a PC - Macs can't even see the teaser. This seems unreasonable, for content that was designed to be advertising in the first place. Even on a PC, the video is only available in a streaming format - and only, in fact, on Internet Explorer. Halo Orbit has made a downloadable version of this footage available - but it's in asf format, and it's a tad funky (the time data is wrong; Windows Media Player thinks it's about 15 seconds shorter than it really is... it'll play the whole thing, but the progress bar gets pinned at the end for the last third of the movie), and this screws up the program I'd normally use to convert this to a mac-friendly format. (It's also not readable as is in the MacOSX version of WMP9.) Because of all this, I grabbed a local copy myself, from the MSN page; you can find it (2.1 mb, QuickTime format) on files.bungie.org. Here's hoping a larger version, more cross-platform-compatible, will be released from on high. (Louis Wu 11:38:25 UTC) (permalink)

News July 21 2004

The Fusion of Art and Technology
WOW. Xavier, a newcomer to HBO, pointed out a new skin he created, based on some fantastic Tina Leyk artwork, posted at HaloMC.com. (There was some trouble earlier getting to that forum, so if you can't see his post, he started from this picture, and ended up with this guy (a second pic is here). A local copy of the ppf is available here (145k). To apply this, grab a copy of Extion's HHHT application (a local copy is here, 532k) and apply this ppf to your copy of bitmaps.map (in the MAPS folder). From here on out, any instance of a Spec-Ops Elite (they occur naturally on Two Betrayals, Keyes, and the Maw, and can be injected into any OTHER level) will now have this skin. I took a couple of pics (one | two) after the cafeteria on the Maw - they're not great, but it was a way to see how easy it was to get this skin into the game. I gotta say... this rocks. All around. (Louis Wu 22:04:10 UTC) (permalink)

Oh 4our Three Eye For The Straight Guy
Looks like the Bravo network is picking up One One Se7en next season. (Louis Wu 17:14:08 UTC) (permalink)

Wrap It Up Part 2: The VERY End
Halo: Resolution posts the second half of its farewell teaser... the marines get a language lesson from a Cov Elite. (Louis Wu 17:11:46 UTC) (permalink)

Huhwha?
TotalVideoGames.com has a story today that Microsoft Game Studios has just confirmed that the Limited Edition version of Halo 2 WILL be sold in Europe. Given that Bungie confirmed this very fact 2 months ago, I'm struck by the alacrity of the Microsoft marketing juggernaut... (Louis Wu 17:08:34 UTC) (permalink)

Happy Happy Carnage Carnage
Today is the 5th anniversary of the MacWorld Trailer, the day that Halo was introduced to the world (and the planet reverberated with the clang of dropping jaws). And yesterday was, incidentally, the 5th anniversary of this domain name (halo.bungie.org) - the website had been up at that point for almost two months, but it had been reachable at blam.bungie.org; we changed names (and post formats) when Halo was officially announced. (Why the 1-day offset? It's hard to tell this far down the road... but I think it's a mistake. :) ) The traditional gift for a 5-year anniversary is wood - I offer you the inside of my skull in celebration. We've come a long way, baby! (Louis Wu 11:06:08 UTC) (permalink)

Fan Fiction - big, but not THAT big
29 new pieces have been added to the Fan Fiction section today. It looked far worse when I stopped by to approve stories - but after I deleted 19 of the 20 copies of Elitehunter676's submission, things weren't quite so bad. (I can only hope it was a fit of epilepsy that caused him to submit 20 times... epilepsy is controllable with medication.) Hidden among today's entries is the first submission for our collection of the Enkidu Fan Fiction Contest entries - Wado's Dark Halo chapter is online. Again - anyone who wants to add their entry to this collection, simply submit it via the normal means, and then send me an email telling me that it's part of the series. (Please tell me the NAME of the story, so I don't have to guess which one's yours.) (Louis Wu 10:41:15 UTC) (permalink)

GNF Phase 7
Cody Miller, who took first place on Truth and Reconciliation, also aced the Library for our Going Nowhere Fast contest. Beating his nearest competitor by 5 minutes (and the third place finisher by almost 25 minutes), he raced through this level of relentless destruction almost without stopping. The video is 153 mb large, and available (for now) via BitTorrent. (And because we haven't mentioned it in a few days, here's a BitTorrent download link - there are still folks who haven't grabbed a client yet.) (Louis Wu 09:59:34 UTC) (permalink)

What happened to his pants?
Tina Leyk got stuck without power this afternoon - so she sat down with her Prisma pencils (and a pen) and sketched out a gorgeous Spec-Ops Elite. Check him out on her Fan Art page! (Louis Wu 01:24:06 UTC) (permalink)

News July 20 2004

All engines full!
Betcha thought I forgot Calvin and Halo, didn'tcha? Calvin sort of wishes his mom forgot HIM... (Louis Wu 17:47:19 UTC) (permalink)

Would You Like Some Cheese With That?
On Sunday, Stuntmutt submitted a pretty funny One One Se7en for c0ld vengeance; today, he's made good on the promise of that strip. Whatever else you might say about him... he follows through. (Louis Wu 11:27:44 UTC) (permalink)

Halogen continues to progress
Dispraiser has posted Weekly Update 3 for Halogen, the C&C Generals total conversion, over on the Junkyard forums. New renders, discussion of vehicles, and a units list... give it a read! (Louis Wu 11:20:34 UTC) (permalink)

Zyos - the man, the myth, the MLG babe sandwich meat
MLGPro.com has interviewed Zyos, one of the top pro Halo gamers on the scene right now, about what it's like to be a pro gamer. In addition, if you live in the Atlanta area, you can stop by the Lennox Mall Gamestop between 5 and 7 pm this Friday, and maybe get the chance to play him. (If you beat him, you get free admission to MLG Atlanta - 50k3, kicking off this weekend.) Go check it out! (Louis Wu 10:56:34 UTC) (permalink)

Halo and the Stars
Walshicus has updated his Halo Stellar Cartography submission to include data about every star on the map. Simply click on the map thumbnail to get started exploring. This, I think, is beginning to qualify as an obsession. (Louis Wu 10:36:10 UTC) (permalink)

Grunts are People Too!!!
That Weasel Television, in conjunction with Mother's Tooth and HaloRules.com, is launching its first all original, all exclusive, Halo series called "Grunts Are People Too!!!" Original music, grunty action, dead grunts. What more could you want? (Some episodes don't seem to be uploaded yet, but give it time.) (Louis Wu 10:15:42 UTC) (permalink)

News July 19 2004

The Progress is the Thing
Hmm. Looks like I forgot to update the Weekly Bungie Updates archive last week - but it's now up-to-date. An awful lot of content in these past two updates... things are really coming along. See, for example, the progress on the lightmap farm - back in february, it was just getting built - now it's a critical piece of the puzzle, so much so that a crash causes a loss of a day. Ouch! (Louis Wu 22:11:34 UTC) (permalink)

The Return of the Ring
Ducain has announced a new contest - The Three Towers. Put stuff on the Blue Beam towers, win cool schwag. How great is that? (Louis Wu 16:09:11 UTC) (permalink)

Dratsabcm Yhgual
If today's One One Se7en makes no sense, you're not reading Bungie's Top Stories closely enough. (Louis Wu 14:53:30 UTC) (permalink)

Wrap It Up Part 1: The End
The cast Halo: Resolution are getting out... maybe. (Louis Wu 14:45:17 UTC) (permalink)

Zanzibar Weekly Update 6
Stefander points out the latest Zanzibar weekly update, over at Halomods - the energy sword is really coming along, and some other guns are being modeled. Take a look! (Louis Wu 12:45:12 UTC) (permalink)

CGN Previews Halo 2
Cyber Gaming Network has posted a Halo 2 preview; it's a solid read, combining info from the E3 demo and recent press without going TOO far out on the speculation limb. (It's an update of a much shorter preview they wrote after E3 2003; the URL hasn't changed.) Give it a read... (Louis Wu 11:52:50 UTC) (permalink)

Halo Skin
aiMutation is a Windows program for modifying the appearance of the AOL Instant Messenger. Recently, a new skin was released with a Halo theme. Thanks to Baldev Patel for the heads-up. (Louis Wu 11:38:43 UTC) (permalink)

A comment about leaks
Many of you probably saw threads on various Halo or Xbox forums this weekend about leaked beta screenshots. Bungie has yet to make a public announcement about this (it's unlikely that they ever will, actually), but there are many clues that suggest that these aren't fakes; that they did, in fact, come from a beta version of Halo 2. I wanted to take a moment to state our official policy on leaks like this, and to explain why I think they're a problem. We will NOT allow links to these pictures to be posted to our forum - as we find them, we'll remove them, and if people persist, they'll be banned. As one of our admins posted last night, if you can't find them for yourself, that's YOUR problem. Many folks are asking what the big deal is - they're just screenshots, and not even very exciting ones... who cares? Putting aside the legal issues (which aren't actually minor), there's a really good reason to keep pics like this away from the public... many casual gamers don't realize that a beta version is NOT a final version. Often, there are elements that have been added specifically for beta testers - debugging information, or extra on-screen displays, so that testers can provide useful feedback to the creation team. (Beta testing isn't a game; that should have been made clear from the recent Bungie.net article. It's pretty serious business.) When beta shots hit the public, though, many people are oblivious to the fact that they're looking at a test image. We've already had folks griping on our forum about how cluttered the HUD looks, and how disappointed they are in Bungie for putting so much crap onscreen. Others read these comments, maybe without even looking at the pictures themselves, and the ideas spread... and before too long, there's buzz about how crappy the interface of Halo 2 is. Only... it's NOT the interface of Halo 2 - it's the interface for BETA TESTERS. Boiled down: the final product can NOT be judged by the appearance of an early beta - but because many people can't make distinctions like that, pictures of early betas do NOT belong in the public eye. (Louis Wu 11:20:13 UTC) (permalink)

Too Much New Stuff
Massive content update over at Halo Babies - new fan art, a new fan STRIP section, and some credit stuff. w00t! (Louis Wu 10:57:52 UTC) (permalink)

Melee Combat at FTC
Brand-new layout at XboxOttawa... and with it comes a new Flash game called Melee Combat. It's a bit hard on your keyboard... Go play. Thanks, Mantis819. (Louis Wu 10:35:16 UTC) (permalink)

MC Shoots Trap
Dark Helmet posted a small video showing his own Marine Launching techniques yesterday, on the High Impact Halo forums - he shows that Marines take no fall damage, no matter HOW FAR they fall (or what hits them)... but more importantly, he's invented a new sport - Halo Trap, using marines as the pidgeons. Hmm... there might be ethical problems with that. To save on DH's bandwidth, we've made both his original WMP9 film (5.2 mb) and a QuickTime conversion (5.6 mb) available from here. Thanks, Ducain, for pointing this out. Update; Dark Helmet clarifies a few points about fall damage and marines. They CAN get killed from it, my mistake. They can take a heck of a lot more punishment than you can, however... (Louis Wu 09:50:59 UTC) (permalink)

MacDev comes into its own
A full-blown website devoted to Mac Halo development has been opened - it existed, in a much simpler and less interactive form, on HaloMods, but it now has a site of its own, and a much more extensive layout. If you're a Mac user interested in modding Halo, check it out! (Thanks, Nick.) (Louis Wu 09:39:44 UTC) (permalink)

A window to other places
c0ld vengeance, with a little help from his friends, has put together a series of Mosaic pictures - 5 can be found in this forum post, and one more in this followup. The software used to make these is linked from here. Intriguing views... (Louis Wu 09:17:12 UTC) (permalink)

GNF Phase 6
It's Monday, so there's lots of action on the Going Nowhere Fast front. The sixth level run - 343 Guilty Spark - is now available for download via BitTorrent, to begin with. It's a 58 mb file; 7:41 to dash from the Pelican dropoff to the final pickup spot, and the first use of the purple boxes as traditional videogame crates - making the Time to Crate value rather high for Halo overall. Watch this run; you'll find some amazing ways to shave a few seconds off here, a few seconds there... Also, since it's been three days since Sean Oehrle's Assault on the Control Room run was made available via BT (an even 1000 downloads, as of right now), we've provided direct download links for this 52 mb film. You'll find them on the Status page. (Thanks, once again, to all the mirror sites for these files; BitTorrent alone has served over 900 GB worth of movies in the past 10 days, but the direct download links have accounded for hundreds of gigabytes more; we couldn't do it without you guys. (Louis Wu 09:11:27 UTC) (permalink)

News July 18 2004

c0ld Comfort
c0ld vengeance has apparently made his opinion about the 2-day European delay for Halo 2 known... and today's One One Se7en addresses his concerns. Sort of. (Louis Wu 10:38:42 UTC) (permalink)

Sunday Stories - and a Solution
Ten new stories for you in the Fan Fiction section... and a special-case instruction. Wado SG asked me how folks could submit their entries to the now-defunct Enkidu Fan Fiction contest and have them all be grouped together; I suggested using the Series Title field. Wado reminded me that this is normally tied to the author's name... so it's not settable on the submission form, as it currently exists. Rather than recode the form to allow for this special case, it would be easier for me if people submitting their Enkidu stories would simply drop me an email with the name of their story - I'll link them all from this end. Again - this is ONLY for this one special case. If you would like to submit your Enkidu entry to the HBO Fan Fiction section, and have it readable with all OTHER submitted entries - send me the name of the story after you submit it. Thanks! (Louis Wu 10:35:51 UTC) (permalink)

If you didn't see it coming...
Sector Seven Halo has put up another installment of its Marines comic. I'm not sure I get it... (Louis Wu 10:22:57 UTC) (permalink)

MegaBattle Redux
The whole MegaBattle concept is being expanded over at the Gearbox Forums - check the top several threads for fantastic examples. A new technique, documented in this thread by king_nothing, allows for some incredible vehicle-in-air shots with multiple players inside. Again - this technique REQUIRES Halo Custom Edition; the detachable camera is not available in the stock Halo PC. C'mon... download it. You know you want to. (And once you do, jump online and look for some of the servers hosting great new maps.) (Louis Wu 10:15:45 UTC) (permalink)

HighLow - an impressive new map
I've run across a really nice Halo Custom Edition map in the last couple of days - this is absolutely worth your time if you've got HCE. (If you DON'T have HCE, and you're using a PC, you really need to ask yourself why not... it's free, the massive download is a one-time deal (an overnighter on dialup, but you only have to do it once), and it opens huge new vistas for online gameplay. (You can grab a copy from one of these links.) It was created by Tarehart, and is called called 'HighLow' - pics and a download link can be found on Gearbox's forum (thanks, rapture). Quite a lot of thought has been put into map flow, entrances and exits, routes to objectives, balance. Check it out! (It should be online on Assault-Server-TWD at some point.) (Louis Wu 10:07:59 UTC) (permalink)

News July 17 2004

Flying Lessons
Ducain continues the abuse of Sarge - his latest foray includes a beautiful hog jump with the MC, Sarge, and no damage. Find it in this forum post - with a QuickTime link in this one. 5 mb or so. (Louis Wu 20:39:31 UTC) (permalink)

Silent Cartographer - Gone in 260 Seconds
The fourth Going Nowhere Fast run, goatrope's zippy Silent Cartographer dash, is now available via direct download from a half-dozen mirrors. If you haven't watched this 33 mb piece... you should grab it now. (Louis Wu 17:44:26 UTC) (permalink)

Marathon, Destiny, and Fate. Whoa.
Finn blames it on the weather. I say he's just coming to his senses. Whatever the reason, the Halo Story Page has been updated for the first time in almost three weeks. Go read. (Louis Wu 17:36:45 UTC) (permalink)

A spiraling Mandelbrot set of complicated terror
Ever wondered what it would be like to do beta-testing full-time for a company like Bungie? It might not be what you think it is. Swing on by Bungie.net for a new Top Story on this very subject... thanks to clarksbrother for the heads-up. (Louis Wu 17:30:49 UTC) (permalink)

Don't marry this guy.
Curt is Not, from the Xboxottawa forums, has put together a musical tribute to Halo, overdubbing his own voice into a recording of Skid Row's I Remember You (6 mb download). It's a bit scary, actually... but quite funny. (Louis Wu 17:24:47 UTC) (permalink)

Shooting MCs in a Barrel
This week's Bungie Update is over at the Penny Arcade forums - it's a bit lighter than last week, but still full of tasty morsels. And... um, somewhat odd Misterchief art. Hmm. Thanks to many, though the first at HBO seems to be Leprechaun. (Louis Wu 03:14:43 UTC) (permalink)

News July 16 2004

HaloPlanet News Roundup
Looks like I missed a bunch of things while I was out of town this week. Thanks To HaloPlanet's newsies for being on the job. Major League Gaming released a vid of the final match between StK and FFA at Midwest Mayhem. 71.2 mb, 640x480, 7:16 of a rough Team Slayer match on Hang 'em High... the game came down to who could hold the high ground; FFA said 'we can'. Registration on the MLG site (free) required. [DD]ZION released the tags for a railgun that can be included in HaloCE maps (pics can be found in this thread). And Icetiger has put up a beta of his newest map - Icetigarus. Pics and download links in this thread. Whew! (Louis Wu 20:26:43 UTC) (permalink)

Man, I'd have to clean it... (just kidding)
Ross Mills points out a winnable Limited Edition Halo Xbox, covered by Gabe's doodling, that will be given away at Penny Arcade's Expo in late August. As though you didn't already have enough reasons to try and get there... Update: DOH! I'm as bad at reading as Ross is. Op-ivy points out that this will be given away at the San Diego Comic-Con, July 22-25, NOT PAX. Sorry. (Louis Wu 19:08:29 UTC) (permalink)

I, Halo
Coolness. If you're planning on seeing 'I, Robot', and your choices of venue include a Loews Cinema... pick that one. You'll get to see a snazzy new Halo 2 trailer. (Thanks to cman for the heads-up on the trailer, and Frankie for clarifying where you can see it.) Update: It's not just I, Robot - it's a number of hot films, including Spider-Man 2, The Village, King Arthur, Catwoman, and Alien vs Predator. You do have to see them in a Loews theatre, though. Thanks, Dark Helmet. Update 2: Whoa. Comments from Mat Noguchi, tools programmer at Bungie:

One thing they didn't mention was the 5 days and 40 GB of raw data I had to render out at least three separate times. Plus the tools I had to write to handle movies bigger than 2 GB.

Random trivia for the hardcore: I rendered the movies at 1280x960, 30 fps. This is the best you will ever see Halo in motion.

Well... if it never makes it to a PC, yeah. :) (You can currently get better framerates than that on Halo PC at 1600x1200 on an X800 or a 6800.) Thanks, Adam Daniel. (Louis Wu 16:29:25 UTC) (permalink)

She Just Needs To Know One Thing...
Stuntmutt finishes up the Female Marine series today with a One One Se7en devoted to my favorite character from Aliens. (Louis Wu 16:22:00 UTC) (permalink)

FWI: Floating While Intoxicated
Halo: Resolution has Sparky with a... pet? (Louis Wu 13:30:12 UTC) (permalink)

Riding that Pelican... finally.
Ducain pointed out a new vid mentioned on the High Impact Halo forums; it came from a post made by Juggertrout a few days ago. He suggested that object overload could be used to empty the Pelican that flies over the first bridge, allowing space for you on board. (This pelican was the object of some serious attempts by Frogblast, back in the day... but he, for the most part, attempted to ride it down from the OUTSIDE.) Madrox provided a video showing the after-the-oo action (overload took him over an hour). To save Madrox's bandwidth, please use our links for the 5 mb video - you can get either the original WMP9 format, or a QuickTime version. (Louis Wu 13:21:22 UTC) (permalink)

Enemy Rundown at Xbox.com
There's an article over on Xbox.com I've never seen before; dunno when it got posted, but Character Close-up: Know Your Enemies is a fun read. (I'm not sure I agree with all the advice - in fact, I think almost every section had something that made me go 'hmm...' but it's a nice complete list.) Spoilers, for those keeping track. Update: There's a Weapons Strategy Guide and a 'Cheats' (more like glitches, actually) page that are new to me, as well. (Louis Wu 12:26:30 UTC) (permalink)

Friday Fiction
28 new Fan Fiction stories since I left for Boston. Go read 'em. (Louis Wu 12:10:38 UTC) (permalink)

Those guys are meanies
Top story at TeamXbox today is a Top Ten Villians article - and Halo's Elites come in at number 2, losing out only to Darth Malak, from KotOR.

Armored beasts that resemble what an Alien mother and a Predator father might pump out is a great pace to start when creating a player character nemesis.

Thanks, CuBaNo. (Louis Wu 11:56:05 UTC) (permalink)

Just Play Games
Hmm... Play video games with band members (I have to say I've never heard of any of them), win prizes. Interesting concept. Details can be found on this page. Thanks to W1ldfire for the heads-up. (Louis Wu 11:22:33 UTC) (permalink)

More time for Dew pics
Bungie mentioned yesterday that the deadline for entries to the Mountain Dew Halo 2 contest has been extended until July 21. (This means that the photoshoot has been rescheduled, as well - to July 24.) Thanks, Mad Cow. (Louis Wu 11:05:08 UTC) (permalink)

It's Quiet...
Halo Babies Episode 48 is out today - go check it out. Looks like MC's been hanging out with Bungie employees... (Louis Wu 09:04:53 UTC) (permalink)

GNF Phase 5
Going Nowhere Fast winner Sean Oehrle's run of Assault on the Control Room is now available for download via BitTorrent. It has been known for some time that by jumping off the first bridge, enemies for MOST of the level will not be spawned (because the trigger to spawn them has been bypassed) - Sean shows a pretty impressive descent and a quick way to the nearest vehicle. The download is 52.2 mb in QuickTime format. (Louis Wu 08:20:45 UTC) (permalink)

News July 15 2004

Truth and Recon via Direct Download
Apologies for the delay - the third release of the Going Nowhere Fast winning runs, Truth and Reconciliation, is now available via direct download. 850 people have already grabbed the vid via BitTorrent (along with 2000 copies of the Pillar of Autumn run and 1000 copies of the Halo run) - but I know there are always those who would rather use their web browser, so for you folks, we have a number of high-capacity download links. You'll find them on the GNF Status page. (Louis Wu 19:51:45 UTC) (permalink)

Ferrex bleeds too, you know
I'm headed up to see Blackstar pretty soon, so before I go, let me toss out today's Calvin and Halo, his comment on some potential pitfalls in upcoming level design. (Louis Wu 16:14:51 UTC) (permalink)

Halo at 1Up
1up.com has added a new Halo 2 preview today - it looks somewhat familiar, but I can't find a record of posting it before, so I'm crossing my fingers. Dan Hsu, of EGM, clearly liked the game. Thanks, Anton. (It's also interesting that Halo AND Halo 2 are on the 1up.com Buzzometer - in 6th and 1st place, respectively. Thanks, Toby.) Update: Free at Last thinks he read it, too - and points out this news post (whose link no longer works). It looks like 1up.com changed their layout completely, and some of the dates might have gotten toasted in the move. (Louis Wu 15:25:30 UTC) (permalink)

Sniper Derby at September Tourney
The Xtournaments Crew points out that they've added a Sniper Derby to their State vs State Nationals event in September. Your team's best sniper will have 1 minute to shoot as many other sniper-equipped players as possible. The event is on Boarding Action, CTF settings (so that the sniper is one color, all targets are another), and nobody but the sniper can shoot. (The targets are all other contestants, so you can be sure they'll be doing their best not to die.) Sounds like fun! (There's no additional cost to enter this derby, and the winner will take home some cash.) If you're signed up for the tournament, you need to leave a post on their forum with the name of your team's sniper. (Louis Wu 14:36:19 UTC) (permalink)

Applegeeks goes Halo
Today's Applegeeks comic is Halo-related; it's the second half of a story they started a couple of days ago. Thanks to Inky and Black Six for pointing it out. (Louis Wu 14:11:39 UTC) (permalink)

New Toys. Happy Happy.
Bungie has posted an article detailing two new figures out from Joyride this month, a Cobalt MC (different from the current Battle-Damage MC at GameStop), available at EB and an Active Camo Elite at Hollywood Video. Looks like Coviehunter made a minor notice of the Elite on our forum today. (mnemesis 05:59:23 UTC) (permalink)

News July 14 2004

Where the hell is your other hand?
Thanks to the very large number of people who pointed out that Halo 2 will be on display, and playable, at this year's Penny Arcade Expo in late August. I wonder how many people have just changed their end-of-summer plans... (Count Zero 23:54:37 UTC) (permalink)

It only SEEMS like they've all been like this.
Over the years, we've reported a lot of Halo news. There are, in fact, as of this post, exactly 10,000 news posts in the database. It's therefore somewhat appropriate that this post is devoted to a pair of comics that have been a staple of the site for the last couple of years - Halo: Resolution and One One Se7en. (Some folks have complained that it seems like ALL we post is strips for these comics... but it just ain't so.) Where Did That Radio Come From? and Sarge's New Men are both great examples of why these strips have been around for so long... and I'd like to take this chance to thank all the readers who've made posting those 10,000 items (and a bunch of other stuff, besides) all worthwhile. 10,000 more? We'll see. :) (Louis Wu 15:36:13 UTC) (permalink)

FTC 13 - by traditional means
Andrew points out that FTC 13 is now available for direct download for the masses, if BitTorrent hasn't been doing it for you. (Louis Wu 15:29:33 UTC) (permalink)

Strangepurple talks to MLG
Dolbex points out an audio interview with Strangepurple, the number 1 ranked player in the MLG league. He's not actually playing right now... interesting. Go listen to why not on the MLG website. (Louis Wu 15:23:53 UTC) (permalink)

Sarge and Ducain - an awesome pair
He's done it again... Ducain posted a teaser pic on our forum last night, asking folks if they could tell what made it special. Juggertrout pointed it out for folks who missed it, and this morning, Ducain posted video of how it was done. And I must say, it's pretty impressive. (I'm shooting for the Understatement of the Week award - you think I've got a shot?) I'm on the road, on a slow laptop, so viewing the WMP files was not an option... so I ripped a couple of QuickTime versions for folks in my boat. (Louis Wu 15:20:23 UTC) (permalink)

As if you didn't know...
Didn't quite get to this in time to add HBO's voice to the mix... but it looks like it doesn't matter that much. Strato mentioned that yesterday, GameFAQs posted a poll: 'Which upcoming big-name Xbox sequel/spinoff are you most looking forward to?' It's over now... but Halo 2 ran away with this one, garnering 22,050 of the 43,426 votes cast. Nearest competitor was Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II, with 8000 votes. Yeah, I think folks want Halo 2... (Louis Wu 13:00:56 UTC) (permalink)

More Megabattle stuff
Okay, last one of these for a while, unless some REALLY killer shots turn up. Falcon Zero posted another pair of shots, Konrad tried his hand on Infinity, and The Ghost reminisced about the way it USED to be. One of these days, we'll have to set up a section for this kind of thing... (Louis Wu 12:53:20 UTC) (permalink)

MLG - Past, Present, Future
There's a great interview with the people behind Major League Gaming over at Bungie.net - how they got started, where Halo fits in, where they're going. If you're at all interested in the competitive Halo scene, you should check this out. First heads-up goes to Kyrceck. (Louis Wu 12:45:37 UTC) (permalink)

Happy Birthday, BOLL!
BOLL turned 22 today. How many people give YOU a present on THEIR birthday? BOLL gives you this cool wallpaper. Enjoy. (Louis Wu 11:44:02 UTC) (permalink)

GNF Phase 4
GNF Phase 4 The fourth winning run, goatrope's amazing 4:18 dash through Silent Cartographer, is now available for download via BItTorrent. (Once again, for those without a BitTorrent client, they can be downloaded here.) The download is 33.6 mb - and the climb from the Silent Cartographer back up to the 'Locked Door' is one of my favorite runs in the contest. Check it out! (Louis Wu 10:52:41 UTC) (permalink)

News July 13 2004

They just keep writin'...
25 new Fan Fiction pieces submitted since the weekend. Go read 'em. (Louis Wu 13:49:14 UTC) (permalink)

E3 pictures surface in Japan
dwchief found a bunch of pics taken at E3 that (as far as I can tell) haven't been mentioned on our forum before. I thought it would be more polite to link you to the original article; it's in Japanese, but the pictures are all down at the bottom. Nice clear shots, for the most part... and there are a few that dwchief didn't link to. Take a look! Update: looks like I'm wrong - Kaboris posted a link to this back on May 14. It was missed, I guess, in the E3 content flood. Sorry, Kaboris! (Louis Wu 12:08:02 UTC) (permalink)

The bar continues to go up
Falcon Zero has tried his hand at HUDless Megabattle pics... some really nice pieces in there. Check 'em out! Update: Hehe - nice one from Mothergoat, as well, using his home-brewed Decoy map. (Louis Wu 11:54:36 UTC) (permalink)

Do NOT get between these guys.
Tina Leyk tried her hand at a Halo 2-themed pic; she started with information in recent magazine articles (the idea that Elites and Brutes aren't the best of friends) and ended up with what I consider to be one of her most stunning pieces to date. Check out 'Elite vs Brute' on her Fan Art page. (Louis Wu 11:10:26 UTC) (permalink)

Miniature Halo Wallpaper Contest Winners
SEspider has announced the winners of his Wallpaper contest on our forum - go read the details and check out the winning desktops. (Louis Wu 10:51:29 UTC) (permalink)

If at first you don't succeed - change the game
We never get the day's Calvin and Halo out before the end of the (UTC) day... so we're doing it right this time. Go read. (New day, same oddball.) (Louis Wu 02:03:46 UTC) (permalink)

Halogen Weekly Update 2.5
Dispraiser has posted another weekly update for Halogen, the C&C Generals Total Conversion, on our forum. New personnel, wraith shells, a grunt model... check it out. (Louis Wu 00:08:35 UTC) (permalink)

News July 12 2004

GTA to HCE coming along
Eep - missed this. Excalibur wrote on Saturday to point out Weekly Update #2 for the Grand Theft Auto :: Codename Halo mod. New billboard, new city grid, new ammo. Check it out! (Louis Wu 17:32:28 UTC) (permalink)

More Deadly Than The Male...
One One Se7en moves from recycling old jokes to recycling existing strip titles. We HAVE stepped up to guns this time around, though. (Louis Wu 16:08:35 UTC) (permalink)

Duty Calls You An Idiot
Halo: Resolution shows you why you should sit down and shut up when you're told to. (Louis Wu 16:00:16 UTC) (permalink)

Screenshot Database updated
On June 30, several sites released a flood of Halo 2 screenshots and renders. These have finally been added to our Screenshots database, bringing the total collection size to a hair under 3000 screens (and the Halo 2-specific material to 200 shots). Wonga! (Louis Wu 10:46:34 UTC) (permalink)

I'll be hiding in the darkness with my beer.
Stefander points out Zanzibar Weekly Update 5, with a progress report on the HCE conversion. There's a movie of the Covenant energy sword in action - looks pretty nice! Go read. (Louis Wu 09:13:55 UTC) (permalink)

TXB Posts Reader-written Halo 2 Preview
TeamXbox has opened a new section of their website, allowing community members to add their own reviews of games. First up is a preview of Halo 2 from TXB reader Gaven Wright. It's an exhaustive piece, pulling together information from many sources (some going back as far as 2002) - some of the info might not be accurate any more, but in general, it's a solid summary of what's out there. Thanks to daedalus for pointing it out. (Louis Wu 08:43:27 UTC) (permalink)

Microsoft's MC Army
Whoa. Dolbex sends word that he's interviewed Sid Garrand, the mastermind behind Nightmare Armor; you can find it over at MLGPro.com. It's a great interview - the best news is that Nightmare Armor has been commissioned by Microsoft to make a number of suits - it looks like there's some serious funding at this stage! w00t! Go read the interview, and look at the cool pics. (Louis Wu 08:33:36 UTC) (permalink)

GNF - Phase Three
As promised, the next installment of Going Nowhere Fast is now available for download via BitTorrent. Cody Miller does a great run in under 25 minutes, taking advantage of a (little-known, apparently) glitch that causes the cutscene to kick in early if certain triggers are avoided. (His method for AVOIDING those triggers is, as far as I can tell, unique.) The run's a monster, due mainly to the extreme length; 181 mb to download. Don't let that stop you, though - it's a lot of fun to watch! Also, in keeping with our pattern of releasing runs for direct download 3 days after the BitTorrent goes up, you'll find download links for gwdpto's Halo run from more than half-a-dozen mirrors on the GNF Status page. (Louis Wu 08:27:28 UTC) (permalink)

FTC13 available for the masses - sort of
Hmm. Fire Team Charlie has put up low-res versions of Episode 13 for download via BitTorrent... but the torrent file links to a zip file that contains BOTH the DivX and QuickTime versions (so you have to download 142 mb worth of content ANYWAY). Oddness. Hopefully, they'll separate these out to two separate torrents soon. Meanwhile, if you don't mind grabbing extra content, go get 'em! Update: There are now separate torrent files for the two different versions on the FTC Downloads page, so you only need to download the 70 mb version you WANT, rather than both. :) This is really one of the most technologically impressive bits of Halo Machinima to be made... you definitely want to check it out. (Louis Wu 08:08:55 UTC) (permalink)

New Fan Art at Halo Babies
Halo Babies puts up a fan-created picture of the MC with his helmet off, as well as a fun sketch of the MC in trouble. (mrsmiley says it's the first no-helmet sketch he's ever seen... I guess he missed Talon's and Covenant's offerings in 2002.) (Louis Wu 07:53:05 UTC) (permalink)

News July 11 2004

nof's LAN, through GT eyes
(GT)Juggler has put together a vid commemorating the recent UCDI LANfest held in northeastern Connecticut a couple of weeks ago. It's 3:12 long, 36.3 mb large, in QuickTime Format. Grab a copy from HaloGT.com. (Louis Wu 19:12:03 UTC) (permalink)

Megabattles. To the max.
Dang. Someone comes up with a new technique, it's really cool. Folks try their hand, it's still cool. Eventually, there are too many examples, and it stops making the front page. And then along comes XLNC. Again. Pwned. (Louis Wu 17:20:44 UTC) (permalink)

Xtournaments Reminders
The Xtournaments Crew want to remind you that the deadline for the $140/team ($35/person) registration fee for the upcoming $15,000 Xtournaments National Tourney is August 1; after that, registration will be closed. Also - iGames centers that have no registered teams by July 17 will NOT host the tourney at all. (You can find out if your local center has enough teams on this page.) If you wanna win, you gotta play! Go sign up now! (Louis Wu 15:26:16 UTC) (permalink)

Gamespy's Halo 2 Summary Complete
Bah. Gamespy put up part 3 of their Halo 2 Roundup a couple of nights ago - I just never got around to posting it. Thanks to the (literally) dozens of people who pointed this out - some politely, some not so politely. Makes me wonder if I should lower the bar, in terms of what's expected of me here... if I'm going to be cursed at for neglecting to post an update about an article riddled with inaccuracies and whacky speculation, maybe it's time to cut back on the posting altogether. Anyway, this piece covers audio, lighting, and some map info. (Louis Wu 14:56:48 UTC) (permalink)

News July 10 2004

GNF - the start of Direct Downloads
In accordance with our plan, we've begun to make the first Going Nowhere Fast speedrun available via direct download. Over 1500 people have already grabbed the file via BitTorrent, so the load shouldn't be too heavy on our download mirrors... but there's still a LOT of bandwidth available, if it comes to that. The biggest surprise (for me, anyway) is the inclusion of archive.org, the folks who are basically attempting to archive the internet. They have an entire media section devoted to speedruns in video games, and have agreed to include the top 10 runs from this contest in their collection. On top of that, we have our normal mirrors (mythica.org, files.bungie.org, that weasel television) as well as ninjasonfire.com... and psyjnir.org is offering the speedruns via Hotline, for folks who don't like BitTorrent OR the web. All download links are being kept track of on the Status page we put up recently. The second level, Halo, will be made available via direct download on Monday. If you haven't gotten this yet, grab it now! (Louis Wu 19:02:12 UTC) (permalink)

Fiction Flood
Eep - busy with other stuff, no Fan Fiction update for 5 days... there are 29 new stories on the page. Sorry for the delay. (Louis Wu 13:57:32 UTC) (permalink)

My tunnel, my home
rockslider points out the final episode (for now) of Frontline with Suzie - a chat with Goldie. Take a look! (Louis Wu 13:50:35 UTC) (permalink)

Freedom Blows
Apparently the Halo community missed last week's Subzero Rivalries, released on July 4th. Good to know traditions carry on... thanks to funkmon for noticing. (Louis Wu 13:30:18 UTC) (permalink)

Mommeee!
He did it again, mommie. Make him stop. Make that bad BOLL man stop. (Move your mouse around if this post confuses you.) (Louis Wu 13:23:09 UTC) (permalink)

10 hours of dedication
Ducain points out a pretty darn cool video over on the HighImpactHalo forums - 4 banshees, 3 hogs... at the bottom of Halo. It's sort of funny... the last step of the video is 'now get yourself down there'. Until Frogblast solved this mystery, this was the HARDEST THING TO DO IN HALO - now it's just one step in a seriously impressive collection of stunts that lead to the finale. 5:22, 19.7 mb, WMP9 format. (Louis Wu 13:17:05 UTC) (permalink)

The Return of Squatting Bear
Many people have already noticed... but I've been pretty busy making the QuickTime versions, so I didn't get around to posting this yet. Fire Team Charlie has released Episode 13 today, for sponsors - and it's enormous. Hi-res versions are in the 150-170 mb range (depending on platform). DivX is up now, QuickTime will be up as soon as Andrew can move the file to his server. Monday and Tuesday, the low-res versions (~70 mb each) will be made available via BitTorrent, and midweek a direct download will be an option. It's 21 minutes long, and an amazing piece of work; if you're a member, go to Xbox Ottawa now and grab it! (Louis Wu 01:48:23 UTC) (permalink)

Dual-SMG-Toting Moms
MASSIVE update this week, on our very own forum - comments from team members who talk a lot, from members who have been conspicuously quiet for months, from weirdos you really didn't NEED to hear from. (Oh, wait, that's just Frankie. Who else would draw a speedo on the OUTSIDE of a suit of armor? Man...) There's some awesome stuff in there - read read read! (Louis Wu 00:00:30 UTC) (permalink)

News July 9 2004

Censorship
One One Se7en predicts another CENSORED experience with tonight's Weekly Update. No crystal ball needed there... (Louis Wu 22:31:22 UTC) (permalink)

Not Exactly Our Greatest Diplomat
Oops - it's been such a busy news day that regular features have slipped off the radar. Today's Halo: Resolution makes you wonder how Keyes got to be bossman. (Louis Wu 22:27:45 UTC) (permalink)

You, Your Crew, Halo 2 - Do the Dew.
Holy Last Minute Coolness, Batman! Bungie and Mountain Dew have teamed up for a fantastic contest; submit the winning photo showing you and your friends playing Halo and drinking Mountain Dew, in the next 5 days, and you could find yourself at Bungie Headquarters for a promotional photo shoot and a Halo 2 LAN party. Yes, you read that right - a Halo 2 LANfest for you and your buds. Go read all the rules - and get cracking; entries that aren't received by Midnight, Eastern Time, this coming Wednesday, are not eligible. (Remember, also, that you need to be able to get yourselves to Redmond, Washington, on July 17; transportation is not included. And you need to be 18 or older.) (Louis Wu 21:41:19 UTC) (permalink)

Art Call
SketchFactor has posted a note over on Bungie.net that artists and content creators might want to look at. The filmmaker behind the upcoming 'Making of Halo 2' documentary is calling for images and movies of fan-created artwork that MIGHT be included on the DVD in a Fan Art showcase. (Be aware that anything already on our site - in the Miscellaneous Art, Wallpaper, Movies, or Miscellaneous sections - has already been combed through; he's looking for unreleased or underexposed material.) Read the news post carefully for details about what's needed, and how to get it to him. And don't dawdle... time's a'wasting! (Louis Wu 20:10:01 UTC) (permalink)

You're not my real dad.
Red vs Blue episode 38, 'K.I.T. B.F.F.', is out now for sponsors (thanks, Brad and others). It's thirteen and a half minutes of hilarity - a truly fitting end to the season. We need the narrator guy from Soap to put together the summary for next season... because, man, it gets messy. (It's huge - 110-130 mb in hi-res, depending on your format choice. Just a warning.) (Louis Wu 15:49:14 UTC) (permalink)

They're gonna start calling him MC Hammer
You gotta love stuff like this. wopkins made a vid of the Master Chief breakdancing. (Guy's pretty coordinated, you ask me. YOU try that in battle armor.) He explains how in this post. The movie's quite small (1.6 mb, WMP9 format), and I've added a QuickTime version for those that need it (same size). (Louis Wu 12:28:31 UTC) (permalink)

Gamespy Roundup, Part 2
Gamespy has posted part 2 of its 'Halo 2 - Everything We Know!' article, with three more pages on dual-wielding and jacking, and destructible environments. (We mentioned Part 1 - the first 4 pages of the article - yesterday.) This one sticks to Halo 2 info, and consequently has less faulty Halo 1 info. (Louis Wu 10:01:25 UTC) (permalink)

Halo 2 in UK pushed back?
Whoa - this comes as news to me... VoodooExtreme is reporting that Microsoft has put out a press release announcing a UK release date for Halo 2 of November 11 - two days past the US date. This directly contradicts the Halo 2 FAQ at Bungie.net, which states clearly "Halo 2 will be released in the U.S. and Europe on November 9th, 2004." (I suppose it's possible that the UK might be considered separate from Europe, in Microsoft's eyes... but that seems odd.) We'll do our best to get confirmation (positive or negative) sometime today, and update this news item. Update: myles leadbeatter points out an article at GamesRadar that purports to explain the reason for the delay; a Tuesday release would require shipping stock to retailers by the end of the previous week, and Microsoft doesn't trust that these retailers would be able to resist the temptation to sell the game early. (Why this doesn't apply to US retailers, I'm sure I don't understand.) We're still waiting for word from Bungie themselves. Update 2: This has now been officially confirmed by Bungie. (Louis Wu 09:45:49 UTC) (permalink)

Aw...
In the past month or two, we've started seeing pictures of a maskless grunt... and suddenly, the lovable creature we all knew and loved (albeit to kill, more often than not) was suddenly the stuff of nightmares. I no longer wanted a Grunt plushy. Tina Leyk has restored my faith in the cuddlyness of grunts - her latest piece can be found in her Fan Art collection (look for the 'added July 9' tag). It's summer, so they're on the beach. Now if only they'd put those guns down... (Louis Wu 08:56:23 UTC) (permalink)

Not Yet September 19
New Halo Babies comic up. Nautical theme. Avast. (Louis Wu 08:43:55 UTC) (permalink)

GNF - Phase Two
As promised, the second Going Nowhere Fast video is now available for download, via BitTorrent. (Once again, if you don't have BitTorrent, the client can be downloaded here.) gwdpto runs through the second level of the game in 15:29 - and while his technique for zipping through the 3 Marine rescue missions at the end might be... a bit unfriendly, there's no denying that it's really, really fast. You got to know when to fight... and when to walk away. RUN away. We'll be updating the Going Nowhere Fast pages with more info in the near future. (Louis Wu 08:31:47 UTC) (permalink)

News July 8 2004

Luckily, he can't do the tooth thing
You know... these Calvin and Halo comics were funnier before I had kids. (Louis Wu 16:40:36 UTC) (permalink)

What the FAQ?
It needs a total overhaul... but all I had time for was a bandaid or two. Our Frequently Asked Questions section has been brought up to date, at least the most-asked questions page. The rest is on The List. (Louis Wu 16:33:17 UTC) (permalink)

Decoy Promo
Mothergoat has whipped up a preview video for his map, Decoy. (We mentioned this map a few days ago.) The movie, a 20.5 mb WMP9 file, is 3:03 of fun gameplay along with descriptions of the modded weapons. Definitely worth watching. Rated R, for r0X0rs. (If you haven't downloaded the map yet, you can grab it from him, as well - 7.5 mb.) (Louis Wu 14:51:24 UTC) (permalink)

Was my wife driving?
Madrox posted a fun little vid called 'Under the Glass', showing some nice vehicle-jamming on AotCR. It's 4.2 mb, in WMP9 format, and I've tossed a QuickTime version up (3.7 mb) for folks who like that better. (Louis Wu 13:48:51 UTC) (permalink)

Streaming Tourney Footage
Dolbex writes to point out that MLG and HaloTV are teaming up to bring Halo50k3 to your home, in realtime... assuming you're one of the lucky 100 (or however many they decide they can handle) connections. Read more details at the MLG site! (Louis Wu 13:14:17 UTC) (permalink)

Those Wacky Bungie Guys
gwdpto copied and pasted every single frame from the recently-released 3D screenshot... and discovered that there are exactly 117 of them. Will those guys NEVER stop? (We won't discuss the absolute insanity in copying and pasting 117 frames of a movie, just to count them...) Update: False alarm. Seems gwdpto can't count. 2 and 2 make 5, using a much better (automated) tool for the job, showed that there are actually 120 frames. Bah. So much for Bungie Day fidelity, Frankie. You couldn't have shaved off three lousy frames? (Louis Wu 11:37:04 UTC) (permalink)

Bungie Day Wrapup
Yesterday was Bungie Day, as we mentioned - and Bungie celebrated with a whole passel of news posts. The only Halo-related ones were already covered here... but the others are fun reading for anyone interested in the company. Frankie posted about a new poll - judge the Bungie guys' cars; there's a contest in the Underground forum where you can win lots of Bungie schwag; Frankie mentioned the opening of a new Bungie-related fansite; and there's a Top Story that looks back at some of the best and worst days experienced by Bungie employees. (Louis Wu 11:17:00 UTC) (permalink)

Halo 2 recap from Gamespy
Gamespy has posted a new article on Halo 2 - it's an overview of the weapons and vehicles we know about. Some of the info is questionable (in describing how the new Ghost takes location-specific damage, the article suggested that you could explode a ghost in Halo 1 multiplayer, 'rendering it unusable for anyone who wanted to take it for a drive'), but in general it's a decent summary of what's been shown so far. (This is the first of a multipart series of articles.) Credit for this news post goes to Google, though milhouse was only a few minutes behind. (Louis Wu 10:59:46 UTC) (permalink)

Halo 2 Wallpaper theme - you decide
Interesting - zoe, the artist responsible for several of Bungie's coolest wallpaper creations, is asking for fan input on her next creation. She's got a quickpoll up in her Seventh Column chapter, asking 'Which paint job would you most like to see in a 3d render of Master Chief for a desktop wallpaper?' (Choices range from jet black to zebra stripe, with a whole lot in between.) If you want to contribute, go vote! (You don't need to be a chapter member to vote, though nothing's stopping you from joining.) Word about this came from MakaVeli4Life1, a moderator over at the Bungie.net forums. (Louis Wu 10:25:45 UTC) (permalink)

Halo 2 LE - for cheap
I'd leave this until the morning, because I'm beat... but it's pretty time-sensitive; there were only 500 to begin with, and 150 are already snapped up. ecost.com is offering the Limited Edition version of Halo 2 for $42.99 - awesome price! Thanks to bentllama, who took time out of his busy pancake-filled schedule to shoot this news along. (Louis Wu 02:29:21 UTC) (permalink)

3D to the max
Holy moley. Bungie has released another 3D screenshot... and this one has a fourth dimension... time. Rotate it, you change the angle of view... but you also change the action. (They blew up a warthog, but good.) I'm way behind on Bungie news today... but this is one you gotta view now. Two versions, 2 mb and 8 mb. Both require QuickTime (for now). Go get it! (Louis Wu 02:16:47 UTC) (permalink)

News July 7 2004

Halathon - Halo to Marathon TC
Eep - a few weeks ago, we got word from Strato about a website devoted to a Marathon Total Conversion - Halo to Marathon. I didn't want to flood their server, so I wrote to ask about it. Word came back that it should be fine - but the whole issue got buried under other stuff. I was reminded this morning by one of the team members - and when I went to look, I discovered that they've actually got an alpha release up right now! Swing by Forge House, and check out Halathon. (The timing is fortuitous - a huge group of new converts to Aleph One have been generated by a recent thread on the Bungie.net forums - and a news post to go along with it.) The weapons are fantastic... (Louis Wu 16:55:50 UTC) (permalink)

Happy Bungie Day!
Following a decades-long - well, maybe decade-long... okay a few years' - tradition, July 7 is once again Bungie Day, a day to bask in the glory of upcoming world domination. SketchFactor has posted a happy little Flash card from MrSmiley commemorating the occasion. Watch it, then go play some Bungie games. Like Halo, maybe. (Louis Wu 16:34:51 UTC) (permalink)

The Problem With A Space Elevator Is...
One One Se7en looks at one of the real downsides of a space elevator (a construct designed to move materials from a planet surface into space, mechanically - there has been speculation that one of these will exist in Halo). I'd recommend making sure your speakers are on... and that you're using a browser OTHER than Firefox/WinXP. (Louis Wu 13:41:15 UTC) (permalink)

ISPS: Inter-Stellar Postal Service
Halo: Resolution looks at a tried and true institution... no matter how high-tech it gets, some things never change. (Louis Wu 13:23:40 UTC) (permalink)

More Megabattle Pics
The technique pioneered by n00bles continues to inspire; J has posted a pair of screens - quite nice! Check 'em out. Update: and ANOTHER one, from n00bles again! This one is from Claustrophobia, a CE-only level. I've got to grab that... (Louis Wu 09:51:49 UTC) (permalink)

GNF - Phase One
As promised, we've put the first winning run from the Going Nowhere Fast contest online. Condorman dashed his way through the Pillar of Autumn in 6 minutes and 8 seconds in Legendary... it's amazing to watch. It's a 480x360 QuickTime movie that weighs in at a bit over 47 mb, and we're serving it via BitTorrent for the time being. Please - once you've grabbed it, leave your BT client open for a while, and share the love! (The ten runs, taken together, will weigh in at a bit over a gigabyte; we can use all the help you can give us, bandwidth-wise.) If you don't have a BitTorrent client, you can find one here. (Louis Wu 08:27:58 UTC) (permalink)

Dual Wielding in Halo
Heh - pretty cool! Veegie and Madrox have begun work on a dual-wielding mod for Halo - there are a couple of short movies available in the Halomods thread (wmp9 format). This looks like it'll be a lot of fun! It's not clear from the thread or either movie whether this is Halo CE or Xbox. Thanks to FOrunnER for the heads-up. (Louis Wu 08:03:55 UTC) (permalink)

News July 6 2004

Updates, updates, everywhere
Several Halo-related mods have put out Weekly Updates recently; you'll find new content for Grand Theft Auto :: Codename Halo (a Halo CE mod), Homefront (a Battlefield: Vietnam mod), and Zanzibar (a Halo CE mod) at the respective links. Thanks to all who wrote in. (Louis Wu 17:13:36 UTC) (permalink)

Baby got Halo
Piles of new fan artwork at Halo Babies - go take a look! Thanks to Big-Ern, of HaloPlanet, for the heads-up. (Louis Wu 16:01:51 UTC) (permalink)

The line between playing and... playing
Hobbes takes a defensible stand in today's Calvin and Halo. (Louis Wu 15:55:49 UTC) (permalink)

Wallpaper contest coming to a close
SEspider wants to remind everyone that the Wallpaper contest he started a couple of weeks ago is ending this Saturday, July 10. If you're planning on getting an entry in... now's the time to do it! (The rules, once again, are here in our forum.) (Louis Wu 14:08:40 UTC) (permalink)

News July 5 2004

Going Somewhere... Finally!
Took us a while... but the first stage of the Going Nowhere Fast contest has been completed. We have a list of winners of each level run, and we'll be contacting them invidivually about prizes. You can read a full status report on where we stand if you're curious about what's coming next. The first actual video release won't be until Wednesday. Once again, we'd like to thank all who participated in this contest - it's been a blast watching the runs. And I'd like to take a moment to thank Brian 'amaroq' Towne, Ross 'c0ld vengeance' Hurrell, and John 'gnawf' Farrell for their help in making this contest a reality. (Louis Wu 21:11:06 UTC) (permalink)

Blood Gulch Bash
We recently discovered a glitch film in our uploads folder; it's called 'Blood Gulch Bash', and it's 4:36 worth of Blood Gulch tricks, some old, some less old, all crammed into an 18.1 mb package. It was made by Paul and KingHalo, over at Halo Secrets... and if you explore their site, you might find other stuff you want to download. In general, the film techniques are quite good. Watch, enjoy, get inspired! (Louis Wu 13:22:28 UTC) (permalink)

Update DB Updated
Last Friday's Weekly Bungie Update has been added to our Updates Archive - i find it amazing that this is the first week in which Bacon is actually mentioned. Go figure. (Louis Wu 12:34:54 UTC) (permalink)

Hold L Trigger, R Trigger, Press Y, Tap Analog Stick...
One One Se7en checks out the ramifications of Halo 2 being a console title. (Louis Wu 12:09:34 UTC) (permalink)

Just Dust And Echoes
Halo: Resolution points out one of the lucky coincidences the Pillar of Autumn happened upon... (Louis Wu 12:06:53 UTC) (permalink)

Monday Musings
14 new Fan Fiction stories released this weekend... go check 'em out! (Louis Wu 09:40:53 UTC) (permalink)

What DOES a Rabid Lilliputian look like?
stan has announced a new contest - come up with a picture of his clan mascot, win free ice cream. Details in this forum post. (Louis Wu 09:23:29 UTC) (permalink)

Goldie does AotCR... Again
Ash and Doggie (his son) managed to entice the Gold Elite at the very end of Assault on the Control Room to follow them all the way back to the start of the level - amazing! Ducain did a fantastic job of condensing the experience down to a 3:37-long, 14.3 mb video (wmp9 format) - you can find a link, and comments, in this thread. For those who can't use WMP9, a QuickTime version has been placed on mythica, as well (13.1 mb). (Louis Wu 08:28:16 UTC) (permalink)

More Megabattle pics
The Megabattle technique pioneered by n00bles last week has been played with by other fans - it looks like fun! BOLL got started recently (that's a 299k JPEG - I'm guessing it's only the beginning), and yesterday VALENCE posted some shots on our forum. If past experience is any indication, I'm guessing that a flood of new visual content will be pouring out of the community soon. Update: Looks like MereCatfish is getting into the act, as well. Very nice set piece on Fissure Falls! (Louis Wu 08:23:56 UTC) (permalink)

Everybody loves eggs
Hehe - Pico has found an egg in the recently-announced SP-to-MP conversion of AotCR, by nukedude... and while it was designed to be unattainable without cheating, nukedude has stated that there IS a way to get it (but he won't tell anyone how). Can YOU find the way? Personally, I'm more interested in the concept of a melee-only weapon in GENERAL - creating a map with ONLY this weapon would enforce the melee-only gametype we try (using the honor system) at local lanfests. (Louis Wu 08:14:48 UTC) (permalink)

Decoy and Kill Valley Winter
Mothergoat has posted another pair of maps, with descriptions, for Halo CE. For the curious, there are also a few screenshots. Nice! (Louis Wu 08:09:44 UTC) (permalink)

The Future of Xbox Live
TeamXbox posted an interview with Andre Vrignaud, Technical Evangelist from the Xbox Live Platform Strategy Team, in which he discussed where he thought Xbox Live was going in the near future. Predictably, Halo 2 plays an important role in their plans. He's pretty optimistic about the Live support the game will have, and about how ready Microsoft will be to handle the traffic that will be generated by this game after November 9. Thanks to daedalus for pointing it out. (Louis Wu 08:00:19 UTC) (permalink)

News July 4 2004

228 years of freedom
There's plenty of stuff backed up, stuff that should get posted... but I'd ask everyone to be patient, and wait a bit. Today I'm spending the day with my family, hanging out and barbecuing in the back yard. (Well, my sister's back yard.) No Halo news - OMG! Enjoy July 4th, we'll be back tomorrow! (Louis Wu 15:14:58 UTC) (permalink)

News July 3 2004

B.net Avatar Contest Results
SketchFactor has announced the winners (and not-so-winners) of the Bungie.net Avatar contest that's been going on this past month. There's some great stuff (and not so great stuff) to be seen - check it out! Thanks to Sep7imus for the heads-up. (Louis Wu 20:12:00 UTC) (permalink)

New Mombasa Pics
Whoa, missed it. Mrs Doublefire updated his long-dormant New Mombasa thread on the Gearbox forum with seven new screens - take a look! (Thanks to HaloPlanet for noticing this.) (Louis Wu 19:24:16 UTC) (permalink)

New Goodies from Joyride
Joyride has updated its site again, with more pictures - the yellow civilian hog mentioned in its printed material now has some information - it'll be limited to 2000 pieces, and will be available in October. Check the Halo 2 page, and click 'Hog'. There are also pictures of the newest Battle-Damaged exclusives in the Halo section (look at the bottom). I can see Cobalt and Maroon being used in upcoming Miniature Halo episodes... We get a lot of mail about Joyride changes (and don't post notes about all of them) - but I think first mention of the yellow hog pic goes to A Halo 2 Logo, and lbm mentioned the new BD pics. Thanks! (Louis Wu 17:39:06 UTC) (permalink)

Halo Custom Edition... in limbo
Ow. A note on our forum points out that Randy Pitchford has made an announcement on the Gearbox forum that there will be no Halo CE updates in the near future - work on the project was contingent on market penetration, and to date, Halo CE adoption has been disappointing. This is definitely a blow to those looking to improve the Custom Edition product... (As far as I can tell, c0ld vengeance had nothing to do with this news post.) Update: STB pointed out a thread that brings ALL of his posts into one place - taken as a whole, it's far more positive than the first post we mentioned. Read the thread. (Louis Wu 17:12:51 UTC) (permalink)

aotcr_b - a multiplayer map
Yesterday, nukedude posted notice that his AotCR to multiplayer map release was out of beta and ready for final release. I visited the download page, but there were no screenshots - so I asked. nuke delivered. Check it out - this is a gorgeous map! (Louis Wu 15:11:18 UTC) (permalink)

Gurgling in the dark
Rockslider posted a new Frontline with Suzie yesterday - this one has Suzie talking to the Flood. Weird - I didn't know they COULD talk! (Louis Wu 15:01:27 UTC) (permalink)

How Animations Happen
Ever wonder about the process it takes to go from an idea to a modeled animation in a game like Halo? Gamepro has put up a short article explaining the steps, from storyboard to finished product. Take a look! (Louis Wu 01:20:53 UTC) (permalink)

Dynasty-style bitch fight
This week's update is over at the newly remodeled HaloPlanet - and there's more and more censored stuff. (Some weird formatting, too.) Lots of cool tidbits that we CAN read, though, like 15,107 FINISHED LINES of combat dialogue... and female marines! Go read. Update: Weird formatting is fixed - thanks, Frankie! (Louis Wu 00:48:36 UTC) (permalink)

News July 2 2004

4th of July Safety Tips
Red vs Blue has decided to put off the release of Episode 38 (the final episode of Season 2) so that they can make it as polished as they want it to be. In its place, they've released a new Public Service announcement to celebrate the Fourth of July - and I gotta say, it made me laugh... a LOT. It's up for sponsors now, and should be up for the general public later this weekend. Grab it, watch it, and HEED ITS WARNINGS! (Louis Wu 21:07:17 UTC) (permalink)

Halo MegaBattles
n00bles, a member of Fungi (the group that made Fissure Fall), has been making a series of battle pictures over at the Gearbox forums - there are shots of Blood Gulch, Sidewinder, and Timberland, as well as custom maps like Fissure Falls. This post explains how he made them. Extremely cool! (Thanks to TURBO for pointing this thread out.) (Louis Wu 19:43:10 UTC) (permalink)

GTA comes to Halo
Excalibur, Team Lead for Grand Theft Auto :: Codename Halo, wanted to point out that work has begun on this project to bring GTA to the Halo engine. The site is hosted by Grenadiac, of Halomods, and is a bit light on content so far - though there are some answers and a bunch of pictures in the FAQ. (Louis Wu 19:36:45 UTC) (permalink)

MLG goes content wild
Dolbex points out a media blitz over at MLGPro.com. Photos from recent events (like a set from Midwest Mayhem last month) can be found in the MLG Gallery, and highlight games from MLG tourneys can be found in the Downloads section. Both of these sections require registration on the site before you have access to the content - and you should be warned, going in, that the videos (40-50 mb each, on average) are gameplay ONLY - no soundtracks, no editing. If this isn't your cup of tea, don't waste your time (or MLG's bandwidth). If you wanna see how the big boys play, though... these are the videos to watch. (If you have trouble accessing them - your browser says it can't find the host - just be patient, and try again tomorrow, dns hasn't propagated yet.) (Louis Wu 19:20:16 UTC) (permalink)

RvB in the NYT
The New York Times has an article from yesterday about Internet TV - streaming video from established sources. The focus is on a guy who streams karaoke from a local bar... but a sidebar contains a 'Streaming Sampler' - video available online - and one of the three examples is Red vs Blue, which "places dialogue over scenes from a multiplayer shooting game." Nice spotting by TURBO. (Louis Wu 17:11:39 UTC) (permalink)

Interviews at teamhalo
teamhalo has opened a Spotlight section - and the first interview is posted; kornman00 talks about reverse-engineering the HEK. (Louis Wu 16:36:52 UTC) (permalink)

Super Master Chief World Advance
One One Se7en proves that Sarge will ALWAYS rock harder than MC. (Louis Wu 16:01:00 UTC) (permalink)

Game Crossovers... over the top
A week ago, Ross Mills challenged our forum to come up with some Halo-related game crossovers - alter a picture of Halo by bringing in elements from another game. There were a number of entries - a couple quite funny - but BOLL, as usual, can't be satisfied with a simple picture - he has to make a PLAYABLE GAME. Starts easy, but it gets hellish around 100. (Louis Wu 15:42:28 UTC) (permalink)

A Call To Arms
Halo: Resolution shows that even if you have manpower, you still get nowhere without brains... (Louis Wu 15:20:24 UTC) (permalink)

Not a bad lobby statue...
CYBRFRK points out the blog of Major Nelson, Director of Programming for Xbox Live - yesterday, he took some pics of a new statue that appeared in the lobby of his building. I supposed that means it's okay for me to put up a pair of pics I took myself of this statue - at E3. (They're 1600x1200, so you get a slightly bigger view.) Pic 1 is 243K, pic 2 is 297K. This puppy stands 4 or 5 feet tall... and is GORGEOUS. Check it out! (Louis Wu 09:52:01 UTC) (permalink)

It's Halo, Baby (er... Babies)
It's Friday, so there's a Halo Babies update... the new strip looks at the kindness of strangers (or of Bungie level designers, depending on your viewpoint), and Gruntsbane has posted a fantastic wallpaper based on some artwork he submitted to us a little bit ago. Go grab it! (Louis Wu 09:26:36 UTC) (permalink)

It's Good To Be The King
Narcogen, at Rampancy.net, points out the next installment in Sparky's Guides - this one is devoted to King of the Hill. Once again, it's a solid read; there are general tips for the gametype, and then specific pointers for each multiplayer level. Check it out! (Louis Wu 01:57:06 UTC) (permalink)

News July 1 2004

The Unbearable Lightness of Text
Wow - 3 days, 22 Fan Fiction pieces. That's more than 7 a day... you should go read some. (Louis Wu 19:20:41 UTC) (permalink)

US and UK upcoming tourneys
Couple of tournaments for you, both sides of the Atlantic: first up, there's a tourney in Tewksbury, MA, on July 10, with a $5 admission and a top prize of a $1350 Dye DM4 paintgun. (Thanks, Pepper4099.) Second, in London, on August 21, there's the Elite Gaming Championships, with a £25 entrance fee and top prizes of £100 gift vouchers. (Thanks, [PU55]dHoLpLayEr.) (Louis Wu 18:07:20 UTC) (permalink)

The problem is the bullets, obviously
Calvin and Halo steps back from comedy for some philosophy today. (Louis Wu 16:26:17 UTC) (permalink)

It's gonna be a rough holiday season...
Gamindustry.biz has a story about how this Christmas is going to be rough on gaming companies, because of the huge amount of competition. Halo 2 is one of the few titles listed as likely being immune to the loss of market share. Makes you wonder why some of these companies don't hold off a couple of months (or release in September)... (Louis Wu 16:18:45 UTC) (permalink)

Xbox SP to MP
Wow - SwampFox has managed to convert Singleplayer to Multiplayer (in this case, the Library) - on XBOX. If you have a modded box, go grab this now. (If you don't, and want to know HOW to mod your box - go there now, anyway. HBO is not the site you want for Xbox moddding info.) Thanks to Darksage for the heads-up. (Louis Wu 13:58:45 UTC) (permalink)

A Halo movie - in German?
Weirdness. Carlo Zottman has discovered a German site that claims to be in negotiations for a Halo movie. Boll Kino-Beteiligungs-GmbH & Co. KG (no relation whatsoever to our resident Flash maniac) has a prospectus on their download page (everything is in German - no English anywhere) that lists, on page 29, movie licenses for existing game properties that are 'currently in negotiation' - and Halo is on the list. If you poke around the site, you'll find links to existing movies they've done... and I must say I'm not sure I'd be happy seeing them do a Halo movie... but this is one rumor that simply won't go away. (Louis Wu 13:34:40 UTC) (permalink)

GNF Clarification
It seems that some folks took our 'Midnight July 1 2004' deadline on the Going Nowhere Fast contest to mean LAST night at midnight. Sorry for any confusion this caused. As long as the entry reaches us before the END of July 1, we'll accept it. (Two large videotapes came in yesterday, and haven't been digitized yet - if you don't see your times up on the leaderboard, realize we're getting a FLOOD of last-minute content, and might be a bit behind posting stuff.) (Louis Wu 11:56:51 UTC) (permalink)

More on that Maskless Grunt
Nice find by munkeypantsman... in one of the new screens released yesterday, there's a cowering grunt covering his face. What nobody else noticed (or at least nobody else MENTIONED) was that this grunt is NOT wearing his rebreather apparatus... but clearly, the shot was taken in an oxygen atmosphere (there's a marine on the LAAG with no helmet or external breathing equipment). Can Grunts breathe oxygen (at least for a little while)... or was this guy doomed even WITHOUT the MC shooting at him? (Louis Wu 11:53:03 UTC) (permalink)

Polygonal Beauty
Hehe - TeamXbox is running a feature called 'Top Ten Xbox Babes'... and Halo's Cortana makes number 9. Not bad for a hologram! Thanks, daedalus. (Louis Wu 11:33:44 UTC) (permalink)

A Plethora of HUDless Screens
Wow. Halo Boy has posted an entire collection of HUDless screenshots - and they're very, very good. The entire set is hosted at Photobucket; if the bandwidth runs out because of this news post, drop us a line, we'll see what we can do about mirroring the files. (Louis Wu 11:27:28 UTC) (permalink)

The Library Gets New Tomes
Saint mentions that the Library has been updated with a bunch of new entries and screens. If you haven't looked over this treasure-trove of Halo information, you really should - it's chock-full of goodies. (Louis Wu 10:51:00 UTC) (permalink)

Blood Gulch - Framed.
w00t! Nesnora, a mod on the Red vs Blue forum and a spectacular artist, is creating 50 first-edition prints of her gorgeous Blood Gulch artwork (which was added to our Wallpaper section a couple of weeks ago). They will be signed and matted, with a pricetag of $30 (if purchased before July 6) or $50 with a brushed steel or stained wood frame. These rock - get one for your wall today! (Thanks to the heads-up from Anim8rJB, who rightly thought it might be of interest to our readers...) Remember - there are only 50 in this first run! (Louis Wu 01:11:54 UTC) (permalink)

Halo 2 Content Flood
As expected, Bungie has released a great collection of new renders, new screenshots, a gorgeous new print art piece by Eddie Smith, and a great background piece on the technology behind the new shots. Go read, download, and otherwise revel in the new content! (Louis Wu 00:55:48 UTC) (permalink)

July 2004

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