Over at the Halo Wars website, the April Update has been posted – go see how development is going! Thanks, Psychophan7. (Louis Wu 13:34:05 UTC)

TheSquareCoin stopped by last night with a trailer for a new machinima project out of Chairleg Productions – it’s called The Console War, and it’ll kick off this weekend, so grab the trailer (in gorgeous HD) and get fired up! (Louis Wu 13:28:50 UTC)

AcidicReignUK and some friends created a mockumentary for a media studies class – it’s a look at the natural life of the blue elite. Nice work! (They all got A’s.) (Louis Wu 23:24:34 UTC)

ManKitten gets in on the screenshot craze – some pretty nice ones in there!(Louis Wu 22:20:36 UTC)

Injured Knee Productions is running a contest – find Special Ted, win a poster. Confused? Read the details on their site. Thanks, Haloplayer.(Louis Wu 20:32:42 UTC)

Don posted a panorama of a different sort. Go look.(Louis Wu 18:27:55 UTC)

Dennis Powers let us know that Shipwrecked Episode 14 is now up. Johnston and Taylor have attracted attention…(Louis Wu 18:27:04 UTC)

Music4Games has a great interview with Ensemble Studios’ Audio Director and Lead Composer, Stephen Rippy, about the music in Halo Wars. Go read how they’ll incorporate the familiar, while staking out their own territory, in the new game! There are also details (including pictures) of the recording session in Prague, Czech Republic, with the FILMharmonic Orchestra and Choir. Good stuff!(Louis Wu 17:02:04 UTC)

Z let us know that there are a couple of massive montages over at Halo3Forum.com – Calamity 2 from TM22, ST68, iDrako, and Kraynium – almost 18 minutes long, 327 mb, plus a blooper reel (which I didn’t get at all; they didn’t look like bloopers to me, for the most part) and Phurion and Fluxy’s DualTage – 197 mb, 8 minutes, very nice editing. For those of you who like montages – that’s a half-hour’s worth of new content!(Louis Wu 16:57:15 UTC)

nomis78 posted links to another handful of panoramas – the Rat’s Nest one is particularly nice. Take a look!(Louis Wu 16:24:58 UTC)

Sigafoos let us know that The Riot 97 is now up (20 minutes, 8 mb) – there’s a slight drop in audio quality because his mic was misbehaving, but there’s still plenty of community news, challenge info, and (on their video show) an exclusive (until Wednesday) showing of Outpost: Operation Isil Episode 5, from Treeskunk. Go listen – and watch!(Louis Wu 15:50:42 UTC)

A couple of weeks ago, we mentioned a live-action Halo short being made by a third-party group, and using a fan with Nightmare Armor. Devastator (the fan with the armor) let us know that there is now a Flickr stream of images from the shoot, and some information about the film itself – it’s being done by the CollegeHumor crew, and we have a working title – ‘Halo Detective’. Stay tuned for more! (Louis Wu 15:08:15 UTC)

TTL Demag0gue stopped in to let us know that Reclaimer is back with new content, after a three-week hiatus. Episode 41 gives you a taste of where the Reclaimer comes from (and makes nice use of the new Forge filters).(Louis Wu 15:02:33 UTC)

Davis Beutler created a Halo-themed Dock for OSX Leopard. You can see pictures of it in use, and find download links, in his forum post. (We’ve mirrored the actual content, as well.)(Louis Wu 14:59:53 UTC)

Maximum Fear let us know that they’ve announced the winner of their Forge Art Contest. They’ve also included some of the other entries. Great work in there!(Louis Wu 23:41:52 UTC)

Nabsuh pointed out a teaser showing off his combat animation (and sound design) techniques – it’s only a meg, go watch it!(Louis Wu 15:10:10 UTC)

SPU7N1K found that there’s a longer Steve Downes interview (this was an excerpt, apparently), but if you want to hear it, you’ll have to ask for it. Details in his forum post.(Louis Wu 15:06:59 UTC)

BlueNinja put together a new bunch of panoramic shots – some of these are spectacular. Go see!(Louis Wu 15:04:28 UTC)

madhippy6 noticed a very cool time-lapse series of a guy airbrushing a Halo painting. Under a minute and a half – go watch!(Louis Wu 14:50:51 UTC)