Author: halo@bungie.org

As expected, there was no announcement from Bungie today (that will almost certainly come Wednesday). However, there WERE new releases from Ensemble; the Halo Wars FAQ, the Screenshots section (complete with battlemech-style mystery units that might or might not be the previously-mentioned Cyclops, and a Prophet in the midst of battle (thanks, GatchamanUK), along with…

Dennis Powers, whose updates wait for no entertainment conventions, has released Shipwrecked 36 – military humor.(Louis Wu 21:31:09 UTC)

Looks like the Bungie announcement has been pushed off a bit – if you visit Bungie.net, you’ll see a Superintendent-related countdown page, with a timer that runs out at 10 am PST, Wednesday morning. That doesn’t mean there won’t be cool stuff announced at E3… just that Bungie’s stuff probably won’t be there. Update: Jordan117…

It’s been a while since you’ve heard from him… but Stuntmutt’s still alive. There’s a new One One Se7en up that takes a look at Cold Storage; takes him a couple of panels to warm up, I think.(Louis Wu 15:18:58 UTC)

Congratulations to Triggers Down, winners of MLG Orlando. There are tons of news snippets and pictures at MLGPro.com – but if you want a quick summary of how the top teams did, you could visit the Xbox Users Group – easy-to-read, covers the highlights.(Louis Wu 15:16:37 UTC)

TTL Demag0gue let us know that Reclaimer 65 is now up. The plot thickens!(Louis Wu 14:02:36 UTC)

The rumors continue to fly about what may, or may not, be announced today at the E3 press conference – the latest tidbit was unveiled by Joystiq, who received a listing from a Wal-Mart intranet document. All we have is a name (Halo “Blue”), a category (M-rated shooter), and a date (September 30, which Joystiq…

GeneticSpartan stopped by with news of The Prodigious Permutation, a new machinima project he’s released. Nice piece of work! Great cinematography, great effects, funny story. I’m loving this next generation of Halo machinima! The video, available at FileFront, is in WMP9 format, and weighs in at just under 150 mb.(Louis Wu 13:31:41 UTC)

DHalo noticed an article on Halo Wars over at the 360 Magazine – it contains a nice writeup, and a bunch of new screenshots. (Most of the new ones are concept art shots like this one – but there’s also this shot, which was just added (in a larger format) to the Halo Wars site…

Over at High Impact Halo, slYnki has released a video showing off what might be the first live launch of a Halo 1 grunt – 7 years down the road. It was originally part of a large montage of Halo 1 tricks – I told Ducain that it was cool, but a little long. He…

Gamespot has its own wild rumors about what’s going to be announced this week – their guess involves a squad-based tactical shooter without the Master Chief at all. Hmm… thanks, BlueNinja.(Louis Wu 21:15:32 UTC)

XboxOZ360, an Australian site, has 10 unconfirmed exclusives from E3 ’08 – Bungie’s mysterious Superintendent comes in at number 3, and Halo Chronicles, the Peter Jackson title, is at number 1. Let’s see how right they are!(Louis Wu 21:11:53 UTC)

TrueDarkFusion let us know that ForgeHub has a new edition of Musings of the Truth – he discusses the phenomenon of minigames (created in Forge) and looks at possible reasons for their recent decline. Check it out!(Louis Wu 16:42:17 UTC)

MLG asked their pro players a bunch of questions going into the Orlando competition, and posted the answers throughout Friday and Saturday. They’re not all grouped at this point – but you can read all 8 questions and their answers by following these links: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6…

Self Induced let us know that ScrewAttack has posted a Top 10 OMGWTF Moments in Video Games… and Halo 2’s ending came in at number 5. Ouch!(Louis Wu 20:16:19 UTC)

TheShadyGnome let us know that there’s a new ForgeHub Video Tutorial – this one covers Interlocking Objects and Advanced Floating. If you’re building a Forge creation and professionally smooth looks are important to you (they should be), you need to know how to do this! (Louis Wu 18:55:25 UTC)

Tony “ubald” Marcotte is back with a new Halo render – ‘Spartans’ shows off some new techniques he’s been working on. Nice angle! If you haven’t seen the rest of his Halo work, be sure to peruse his gallery here.(Louis Wu 13:09:02 UTC)

UNSC Trooper let us know that the HBOFF Fic Pick of the Week for July 11 has been posted – this time it was written by Azathoth. Swing by to see a summary of this week’s offerings – and why you should read (or not read) them! (Louis Wu 10:01:32 UTC)

BlackLightProductions stopped into our forum to point out Phil – Day One, the first offering from a new machinima series. I thought it was pretty funny! Give it a look. (BLP warns you in advance that this video contains strong language.)(Louis Wu 09:59:08 UTC)