Author: halo@bungie.org

Cinema Blend believes that GTA4 deserves the hype it received – while Halo 3 did not. Go read the rationale.(Louis Wu 14:48:45 UTC)

Magni Harvald noticed a pretty funny vid on YouTube – guy snipes a fusion core (through another target, actually), which slams an opponent into a wall, killing him with a splatter kill… milliseconds before he would have died from a melee attack in the back. Definitely an epic kill-steal!(Louis Wu 14:46:00 UTC)

bigazn13 mentioned a 2v2 Halo 3 tourney in Bonney Lake, WA coming up at the end of May. Check the forum post, or the GAMEBREAKERZ website, for more details. (Louis Wu 14:45:33 UTC)

ZZoMBiE13 answers a question you might never have actually asked (and certainly one you could have lived without the answer to) in today’s Another Halo Comic Strip. Also, there was a request for one of the panels of Thursday’s strip as a desktop image – and ZZoMBiE13 obliged.(Louis Wu 16:22:34 UTC)

Fragg3d stopped by to let us know he’d just released a trailer for an upcoming machinima project called ‘Trust’ – hard to get a sense of what it’s gonna be like, but hey, it’s Saturday. Go watch.(Louis Wu 16:04:48 UTC)

Bungie, faced with a decimation of their writing team this week, punted. They let Stosh and Rocketmoose bring you most of the Weekly Update, and while the results are amusing and entertaining, they might leave you wishing you knew more about what was going on inside Bungie’s studios this week… Well, it’s still pretty funny…

SPARTAN 294 let us know that Arby n the Chief Episode 10 has been posted at Machinima.com. Arbiter and the brute play a little GTA4, Cortana goes on a date, and the Chief gets jealous.(Louis Wu 19:22:17 UTC)

Dennis Powers pointed out that Shipwrecked Episode 16 is now up. That thing looks… mean.(Louis Wu 19:21:46 UTC)

Darkspire Films, too, has a new offering today – ‘Farewell Travis’ looks at what happened to Travis after the last time we saw him. Here’s hoping you never meet the Guardians… thanks, Dan the Stick.(Louis Wu 17:52:05 UTC)

Harabek let us know that there’s a new short from The Guard, set in the PreGame Lobby world, but not part of the regular series. It’s fun!(Louis Wu 17:08:33 UTC)

Smooth Few Films hasn’t created a lot of Halo machinima – but everything they’ve put out has been of outstanding quality (check our news for details), and they’re back with a new piece that rocks. The GunStop Way takes aim at sleazy videogame sales tactics, using sharp humor, polished effects, and good acting. Don’t miss…

It’s Friday, so it’s time for Caption Fun over at Hawty McBloggy’s house. There are results from the last session (a month ago, actually), as well as a new shot just SCREAMING for fun captions. Go try your hand!(Louis Wu 14:19:21 UTC)

Four new pieces in the Fan Fiction section this week – get to reading!(Louis Wu 14:16:17 UTC)

TTL Demag0gue announced that Reclaimer Episode #43 is now up – some history, some teasers, all wrapped in very nice effects. (Louis Wu 14:14:55 UTC)

CGSociety has a short profile on Dana Boadway, a freelance animator who did some cinematics work on Halo 3. I guess I’d always thought the in-game cinematics were scripted, in-engine…apparently not (or not entirely). Interesting stuff!(Louis Wu 14:12:25 UTC)

Over at GlitchBlog.com, you’ll find an interview with High Impact Halo’s Grand Poobah, Ducain. He talks about how he got into the whole ‘running a trick site’ thing, and what warms his cockles. Go read!(Louis Wu 14:07:28 UTC)

Wow, weird. Looks like there were two totally separate advertising award ceremonies this week – and Halo 3 cleaned up at both. Last night, the Art Directors Club held their 87th Annual Awards Gala, and Halo 3 picked up 5 Gold Cubes (for ‘Broadcast/Product Service Promotion/Art Direction’, ‘Broadcast/Online Commercial Webisode’, ‘Broadcast/Online Commercial Webisode’, ‘Integrated Advertising’,…

Yesterday, Bungie.net put up a tribute to Marty O’Donnell, who’s celebrating his <insert really big number here> birthday – there are some fun photoshopped pics in honor of the event. (I have to say, that Herb Alpert album cover is gonna give me nightmares.)(Louis Wu 13:54:55 UTC)

Rokit let us know that there’s an art contest up and running over on the Bungie.net forums – we mentioned this monthly contest back in early March, and it seems like it’s been going strong since. Bungie Store gift certificates as prizes. Go look!(Louis Wu 13:49:29 UTC)

Bungie’s latest Double XP Weekend just started – since Cinco de Mayo is coming up, the theme is Fiesta gaming. Random weapons ftw!(Louis Wu 20:35:55 UTC)