Author: Louis Wu

Rain 501 points out a UK-based Halo 2 4v4 CTF competition, to take place on October 21. MatchBox360 is hosting this; you must be a UK resident to enter, it will be played over XBL. There is no word about prizes.

Eleven new pieces added to the Fan Fiction section today – go read!

You gotta love what gets harped on when Microsoft is involved… there’s a story over at Stuff.co.nz focusing on the fact that the server farm that renders Weta’s special effects is running Linux. Why is this news? Oh, because it means that Linux will play a major role in an upcoming Microsoft movie. Whee… Thanks…

Quikthnkr has put together a rather sizeable machinima – it’s called Death by Misadventure, and it’s just over 25 minutes long. It has a number of things going for it – kickass original music (John Gold’s opening song ‘Randy’ is GREAT, and Katy Mae’s ‘Safe and Sound’ was a snug fit for the end of…

A couple of new vids over at Halo2Forums – ReMoRs3 created a vid using Dest’s Halo 2 Custom Edition mod – it shows Halo-style weapons on Halo 2’s Lockout. It’s just ReMoRs3 running around – there’s nobody to shoot – so you can’t get a great sense for damage adjustments… but you can see the…

IGN has posted a Halo Triple Pack Guide, in honor of the recently released Halo Triple Pack (Halo, Halo 2, and the Multiplayer Map Pack, all bundled nicely). Lots of resources, all gathered in one place… the only real downside is that it’s Insider-only. Give it a look if you have a membership, though! Thanks…

Rodney Campbell points out some coverage of the Australian WCG national final, including pics and vids, over at XboxZone.com.au (Registration is required to download the vids, but the writeup is open for all.) World championships coming next month in Singapore – check out the Aussie competition!

Elnea posted a small sketch yesterday – a Red vs Blue Pirate, of all things. Check it out!

You might remember the Night to Unite auction on eBay last year, to benefit a number of children’s groups – they’re doing it again, and one of the items this year is a 6-foot Master Chief statue. Current bid is $630, but I’m guessing it’ll get quite a bit higher before the auction ends on…

The 117 Words competition came to a close last Friday – and tonight, the winners (and lots and lots of special mentions) have been announced. I must say – this contest was a fun one, not least because I had to do very little work for it… the quality of material this generated from fans…

The Bungie Weekly Update is now up – Frankie’s sick, so Sketch has posted in his stead. A nice summary of the week’s activities, including stuff on the Halo movie, stuff on the DOA connection, more moving-in stuff, a quick update on the (still upcoming) charity auction, a REALLY disturbing ‘Frankie’s Dreams’ pic from AGDTinman……

Last week, In-Fusio got the rights to Halo mobile games and ringtones. Today, Stuntmutt points out the logical end result of this scenario in the most recent One One Se7en.

Fifteen new stories up in the Fan Fiction section – should give you some nice weekend reading!

Today’s the day for Sponsors vs Freeloaders, I think. Last night, the trailer for Silver Stars/Purple Hearts was released – if you haven’t grabbed it yet, hang tight. They’ve also just released Episode 8 of Sponsors vs Freeloaders – and WOW. GREAT cinematography, great effects (the coolest one is something you might not even notice…

Halo Babies has posted its final RvB runner-up strip today – I’m thinking mind-altering substances were involved. Thanks, mrsmiley.

Wow. Dunno if this is gonna hold up, over time… but over at the Gearbox Forums, TheGhost has created a RAR file containing the HaloCE complete tagset – giving you “access to every biped, vehicle, scenery item, sky, SP tag, and ALL SP AND MP SCENARIO FILES.” It’s a huge package – 362 mb compressed,…

Sevenar Productions and Panda Productions (groups that make up a large chunk of the Sponsors vs Freeloaders crew) have teamed up to create a new, fusion machinima; Silver Stars/Purple Hearts is a blend of Halo CE and EA’s The Sims 2, and tells the story of Project ATHENA, a nearly all-woman team of enhanced SPARTANS.…

DOH! This was posted last night, I put it aside to add to the news today… then spaced completely. AutoDr created an energy sword from plexiglass and steel, and man, is it pretty! He’s wondering whether there would be a market for these if he made more… hmm. There’s always the Microsoft IP issue to…

We’ve got two new images for you today from Theo Prins – “Into the Blue” is an interpretation of a Helljumper (funky mask!), and “Master Dodge” came from the ending of the E3 2003 trailer – originally it was going to contain the ghost the MC jumped out of, but Theo changed his mind. (Interesting,…

Narcogen seems to be fed up with the ‘when it’s ready’ line (with reference to when a given Halo will ship) – he wrote a long rant about the subject over at Rampancy.net. The bottom line (which I think most of us can agree with) is that Bungie’s games are “ready when they need to…