A week ago, I mentioned that the Miscellaneous Art and Wallpaper sections would be updated soon. The Misc Art queue was cleared out a couple of days after that – I’m finally making good on the Wallpaper promise. Go check the Wallpaper section – there are 28 new entries (many with variants – a total of 38 new files).

Coolness. IGN has posted a split-screen coop gameplay vid for Stubbs the Zombie; I see a rocket launcher, I see a jeep. The interface is wonderfully campy – this puppy looks to be FUN! Thanks, Rampancy.net.

DoctorEvol has been working on the LAN Locator system – you can find it linked off the Coconut Lounge, his website. Add in the details of your next lanfest, and folks will be able to search the database for it! (This is only as good as the data it collects – so if you like the idea, use it.)

Webshift loved the I Love Bees game from last summer – but he was unhappy that the story was released in such a way that you occasionally learned things before they made sense, because the releases were character-based, instead of chronologically-based. He took it upon himself to remix the pieces, and we’ll be releasing them over the next few weeks. Chapter 1 is up now – go listen!

Our favorite CBS News gamer, William Vitka, has posted an article about Stubbs the Zombie (good read!) – thanks, 3Suns… and Inside Mac Games gets some info about the Mac port of that game from Glenda Jackson, of Aspyr (thanks, Narcogen).

Video Games Live, the concert tour that was planned for this summer and will now kick off at the end of October, has a ‘Name That Tune‘ game online to show you some of the music they play. (Halo’s main theme, of course, is among the pieces.) Give it a whirl – and check out the tour dates while you’re there!

Today’s Bungie Weekly Update takes a close look at the new office space, with some very nice panoramic shots of the space and a list of nearby eateries (though I’m sure Bentllama is gonna kill Frankie for neglecting the Original Pancake House RIGHT NEXT DOOR). There’s also a pretty awesome Mister Chief Etch-a-Sketch. Go read!

Yesterday, Fireb0rn (creator of the critically-acclaimed Halo vids 117 and Talking Smack over Xbox Live) wrote to say he had a followup to 117 (which was the story of a single Spartan facing nearly insurmountable odds) ready to go, but that it was too big for the MPRRS. I re-encoded it for him, and submitted it this morning… and 7 hours later, it passed with flying colors. (I knew it would; it’s really, really well done.) The man has an eye for camera angles, and tells a mean story. This one’s big; 7 minutes long, 70+ mb (depending on flavor). Grab the one that works best for you. The QuickTime version is 73.2 mb, the WMP9 version is 69.2 mb. Enjoy! Update: there’ve been some reports that the WMP9 version was corrupt in some way; it worked for me here, but enough people had trouble that I re-encoded it. The new version is 76.4 mb, and was added a little after 10 am EST. Hopefully, this solves the original problems!

mejp44 noticed an article at TeamXbox about Wideload’s upcoming Halo-engined game, Stubbs the Zombie – they’ve added split-screen 2-player Coop. Now you can zombify Punchbowl… with a buddy!

Wow, I nearly missed this one – the headline doesn’t change much, so you have to pay close attention to dates. Over at Bungie.net, SketchFactor has posted an update on the Fight the Flood campaign – they’ve sold nearly 11,000 shirts, collecting more than $160,000 for the American Red Cross Katrina relief effort. Wow! Sketch says that while there are still plenty of shirts left, when these are gone, they aren’t printing more – go grab a piece of history, and in the process help out victims of Hurricane Katrina!

Stuntmutt takes issue with text embellishment of gamertags – read today’s One One Se7en for more details.

Over at the San Jose Mercury News, there’s an article looking at Halo 2 on Xbox Live (and Live in general), written by Dean Takahashi (last mentioned here 3 years ago, when his book on the plan behind the Xbox was released). Interesting read.

It’s been a few days since the Fan Fiction section was updated – 11 new pieces for you today. Go read.

The second H=MC2 podcast has been posted – Halo news roundup and commentary, plus an interview with Alex Winn, part of the Codex team. (It’s not a ‘live’ interview; Alex answered a series of pre-planned questions, so there’s no interaction with the hosts of the podcast – but it’s still a good listen; nice questions, nice answers.) The overall podcast is 1:08 long, and weighs in at 31 mb. Thanks to [HC]D-Man for the heads-up.

Just a followup on the second Briar’s Armor eBay auction (it ended yesterday) – the green suit sold for $2,076.99. Not bad!

Today’s Halo Babies comic was the runner-up in their Red vs Blue contest a while back; it was written by PBDemon (and drawn, as usual, by Gruntsbane). Go read!

Once again nearly Halo-free in its content (there is a small mention of some Halo 2 fans near the end), but Frankie’s put up part 2 of his Tokyo Game Show impressions article over at Bungie.net. Go see what’s coming! Thanks, Anton P. Nym.

Elnea‘s created a couple of new art pieces recently – the first was in memory of Subiha and Leigh, Red vs Blue community members killed and injured (respectively) recently, the second a colored (and humorously captioned) version of a sketch posted earlier. Enjoy!

Chris Bryan finished a short (12 second) hallway scene of wholly original work; the render took 37 hours to complete. (‘Wholly original’ means he built the Master Chief model himself; he has no tools for extracting the in-game model.) There’s no sound, but the video is simply gorgeous – amazing lighting… watch it for yourself. QuickTime format (2.3 mb) | WMP9 format (2.8 mb). (Comments can go in this thread he started last night.)

ofthehi77 stopped by to point out a video preview (6.5 mb, QuickTime format) of V.A.L.I.S., an upcoming HaloCE map that he and his brother DocOctavius have been working on – looks pretty fancy! Go watch.