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 as an effect – that’s one of the things that makes it cool). The storyline continues to twist and turn, the acting is great. This series is turning into one of my favorites. The WMP9 version is up now on their website; it’s pretty big (90 mb), partly because the episode is ten and a half minutes long, partly because they’ve tacked the SSPH trailer on to the end of it. Their site is being hit pretty hard, so I’m going to make the QT version available from our server until they get it under control – it’s 88 mb. If what you really wanted was the SSPH trailer alone, in QT format – I’ll put THAT up, temporarily, too (though you really should grab SvF 8, because it rocks). Both of these will eventually be available from the SvF/SSPH sites, and when they are, I’ll pull the temp links. (And likely update this news post.) Go watch!

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, over a gig uncompressed – and that’s AFTER he deleted the tags that already come with the HEK. It’s been up for a day or so, and nobody from Gearbox or Bungie has complained – yet – so if you’re interested in creating new content for HaloCE, this is a resource you shouldn’t pass up. (Thanks, DHalo, for the heads-up.) And while we’re on the topic of cool CE stuff, check out this thread – Kornman and Lightning have managed to get Campaign working in HaloCE, and will be releasing stuff soon. (Thanks, merecatfish.) Could this be enough to turn around the HaloCE community decline?

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. (If you’ve watched any of the last few episodes of Sponsors vs Freeloaders, you’ve met four of these women already.) Cinematic quality is very, very high, as Halo machinima goes; the trailer is 1:45 long, and does an awesome job of drawing you in. Available in WMP9 format (12.3 mb) from the SSPH server, a QuickTime format version should be up by tomorrow … check this one out. You won’t regret it. Update: A mirror of the WMP9 version, as well as a streaming QT version, can be found at machinima.com.

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 worry about. Check ’em out!

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, to me, how close this is to the Return to Sender cutscene – totally different situation, but same dramatic pose; I never noticed before that Bungie did this.) Check ’em out – this guy is GOOD.

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 be ready” = there will ALWAYS be people who want them to ship sooner, and there will ALWAYS be people who want more development time, but Bungie’s done a decent job (in spite of what detractors say) of releasing quality work when it needs to be released. Go read.

The Rockets on Prisoner pre-release schedule continues – yesterday, Best Montage nominees (and the winner) were announced… and today, the first Main Category pre-release was posted – best Documentary. Go grab a copy and check out both the nominees – and the winner!

There’s news all over the net about the Peter Jackson/Halo situation. Tempus Fugit found a small video clip (WMP9, 12 mb) where Jackson, at X05, made a statement about how excited he is, over at Jeuxfrance.com. Spitvalve scanned the front page of the Dominion Post, Wellington’s biggest newspaper, where the Master Chief takes up a HUGE chunk. (There’s an online version as well, at Stuff.co.nz – thanks, Paradice.) And News.com.au has an article that has some quotes Donna Langley, Universal’s production president, discussing how the Halo movie might be easier to bring to the big screen than the Doom movie was. (Thanks, DunnyPanMan.) I always get nervous when ANYTHING gets this much hype – it’s hard to live up to unreasonable hype – but my guess is, things will settle down eventually, and then we’ll see what we see.

Wow. So for those who didn’t notice, the internet broke yesterday. Two of the big boys (Cogent and Level 3) had a falling-out… and much traffic was blocked from getting where it needed to get. If you want to know more about this situation, you can read this Slashdot article (and its comments). Some people STILL can’t get here. Anyway, that’s by way of explanation for why today’s news is coming so late – I couldn’t get here myself until a few minutes ago. So: first up, there’s ANOTHER Halo-based podcast, Halo Nation… they’re already up to episode 3. This episode is just under an hour, and weighs in at 43 mb. Check ’em out!

The Register has a slightly different spin on the ‘Peter Jackson as Exec Producer’ news than other sites have shown so far – they’re wondering if Jackson isn’t just window dressing, ‘more for the poster than the creative input’. While it’s possible that this might have been on Microsoft’s mind, there are a few things to remember: Jackson’s a fan, so it’s unlikely he’ll sit by if a totally crap movie is being made on his watch; with Jackson (and wife Fran Walsh) comes their special effects studios – WETA Workshop and WETA Digital – meaning that the environment, at the very least, will be spectacular; and Bungie themselves are quite excited about Jackson’s involvement – if it were only a publicity stunt, I’ve no doubt that we’d hear grumblings about it from the dev team. The other tidbit of note about this article is that it was written by Tony Smith, a name that longtime Bungie fans might recognize – he’s the man behind the Origin of Species series of maps for Bungie’s earlier game, Marathon, a project that won almost universal acclaim… this is a guy who loved Bungie deeply back in the day. He doesn’t want to see this go wrong, any more than the rest of us do. Thanks to Matt Warner for the heads-up. Update: Reuters has an article on the situation, as well – and it actually includes quotes from Jackson (something most other articles are missing). Jackson says that his excitement let him and his wife to become “creative godfathers” on the film – this would suggest a non-hands-off approach.

“As a gaming fan, I’m excited to bring ‘Halo’s’ premise, action and settings to the screen with all the specificity and reality today’s technology can provide,” Jackson said. “Fran and I are intrigued by the unique challenges this project offers, and we’re delighted to be working again with our friends at Universal, and with our new ones at Fox and Microsoft. I’m a huge fan of the game and look forward to helping it come alive on the cinema screen.”

This doesn’t sound like a guy who’s on board for the poster… thanks, mnemesis.

Halo Underground has posted notes about a couple of FarCry: Instincts maps – Beaver Creek, and now Backwash. There aren’t any screenshots, but there is info in the Backwash post about how to connect and download the map. If you’re playing FarCry – give it a look! Thanks, Rapter Payne.

Okay, this is just scary. Joystiq has a story about a t-shirt design submitted to a T-shirt-selling website that combines Hello Kitty with the Master Chief. (This has been done before, I suppose – there was a SomethingAwful Photoshop Phunnies entry like this, now sadly offline – but this is something you wear.) We’ll see if this one ever gets made… thanks, wheelers.

Chris Hughes is a computer graphics artist who came to Bungie with the Oni team, and stuck around to work on a little game called Halo. He left before Halo 2 development kicked in, and did a bunch of work for Wideload, on Stubbs the Zombie. He’s recently put up a personal website, showing off some of the stuff he’s been a part of… if you’re like me, and love to see behind the curtain, go visit! The site is still under development, but there’s a fun chunk of stuff to sift through already.

What to do when you’re not betraying teammates with a rocket launcher? Check today’s One One Se7en for a suggestion.

Dyslexia, over at MLGPro.com, has written up an endorsement of the upcoming Team Hardcore playlist that Bungie will introduce to XBL Matchmaking later this month. He explains why it’s a good thing, and who will benefit from it, and although I STILL don’t like MLG’s use of the word ‘balanced’ (I think they mean ‘uniform’), it’s a well-written piece with several good points. Thanks, 3Suns.

Reinsoft posted another Halo rap (definitely needs the MPAA Explicit Lyrics rating) on our forum last night – 3.4 mb in downloadable form, or you can stream it from his website. Check it out.

Red vs Blue episode 63 is up now for sponsors – it’ll be up for everyone late Wednesday night. (As Burnie says, it’s either a few days late, or a week and a half early, depending on how you view RvB’s ‘time warp’ database accident of last week.) Tucker gets in a bit of trouble for playing with the wrong toys, Simmons learns to hate value-added communications services, and Tex makes a deal with Andy. Fun stuff all around! Just over 5 minutes long – go grab a copy!

We’ve added yet another Gallery Page – this time for a newcomer to the Halo art scene by the name of Theo Prins. His first piece made it into our last Misc Art update… but since then, he’s been sending quite a bit, and I’m really taken with it. I decided there were enough featured artists that it was time to create an ‘HBO Gallery‘ page, and remove the individual links from the ‘Hot Pages’ list on the right. Hopefully, the fact that the art links are one level down won’t stop people from exploring them! Start, right now, with Theo’s page. There’s some mind-blowing stuff there.