Ajay pointed out that a recent comic from NEWBS was Halo2-related – if you like it, check out their other stuff!

I usually use this space to take a cheap shot or two at Stuntmutt, but today’s One One Se7en doesn’t deserve any cheap shots – I loved it. Through and through. Go read it.

Eight new stories in the Fan Fiction section today. (I had to delete a few whose authors thought that the ‘Do not use the Poem button for a story simply because you don’t have 750 words’ directive didn’t actually apply to THEM.) Go read.

Doug Griffith let us know about a Halo 1 and 2 tourney in Aurora, Ontario (about 30 miles north of Toronto). $25 pre-registered, $30 at the door. Rules and Prizes aren’t posted yet – event will be held the weekend of August 12-14. If you’re in the area, check back!

XerxdeeJ put up a note on our forum – it’s time for another weekly recap of Tied the Leader, his Halo-related blog. The two most recent, No Games Played and Open Letter to the Sniper, both resonated with me. Go read!

New comic over at Halo Babies – I think Gruntsbane is letting those little tykes grow up.

Jon McFarlane and some friends put together a Halo 2 radio project at University – it’s in MP3 format, just over 7 minutes long, weighs in at 9.7 mb, and follows some of the marines on the Athens before and during its boarding at the start of Halo 2. It’s a pretty interesting concept, and sound effects are done quite nicely – give it a listen!

Captain Spark continues his collection of dialogue snippets with the IWHBYD skull – there’s some hilarious stuff in there. He’s moving his website, so for now, these are only available in our Dialogue Databank.

Razgriz dropped us a note to tell us that FragNutz.org is offering free hosting to anyone interested in setting up a videogame site. More details of this offer can be found on their site. This might be a way to get your Halo site hosted!

Wonga. SketchFactor posted a Banhammer Update a few hours ago, over at Bungie.net (thanks, Dry Ice, for noticing) – in the first 24 hours of AU4.0’s existence, 2550 (wouldn’t it have been nice if it had been 2552, instead?) people have been permanently banned from Halo 2 Matchmaking. Nice! There’s also a mini-faq addressing some of the rumors swirling around – go read.

imSuck put together a music video for the song “Beverly Hills”, by Weezer. It cleared the MPRRS last night – so go ahead and grab a copy! Pretty funny, mostly using footage from the newest netmaps. Nice timing. 32.3 mb in WMP9 format, 30 mb in QuickTime format.

8BitOldie writes to let folks know that the Halo 2 CE mod team is almost ready to release Direct2U, an app that auto-updates team releases to make grabbing new content more painless than ever! Looks pretty cool!

IGN has put up an 11-minute video guide to new map strategies – available only to Insiders, it covers Gemini, Terminal, and Relic. After watching, I’d have to say that unless you’re REALLY a beginner, these aren’t going to help you much. But hey – every little bit helps, right? Thanks, BitMaP.

Cornballer pointed out that Aint-it-Cool News got a shot of the Red vs Blue crew hawking their wares at the San Diego Comic-con – amazing where they show up! (Scroll to the bottom of the page.)

Edwin Davis wrote to say he’s got some Halo screensavers up on his site – these work with MacOSX 10.4 (Tiger). One is our news feed, on your desktop… the other is flying Halo logos! Check ’em out. (These are pretty cool – but be warned, if you’re running a monitor off a PCI card, all you’ll get is a black screen and ‘Quartz Composer’ running around it – I guess these need the video bandwidth of an AGP connection.)

Anton P. Nym sent along a scan of an article from today’s London (Ontario) Free Press, covering the new Map Pack… but it’s online as well. Takes a shot at Nathan ‘Bentllama’ Walpole, a London native… always fun.

zugy posted an update on Project Torlan, the UT2004 Halo total conversion, and it includes a bunch of screenshots. Some of the maps look pretty fun – I especially like the one that looks to be a blend of Hang ’em High and Gephyrophobia. Check it out!

I might have forgotten, if not for prometheus – but Halo was announced to the world 6 years ago today. What a long, strange trip it’s been!

There’s some more info on the Comic-con Elite mentioned yesterday in this thread, including blurry pics and a link to an award the costume won.

Patriarch917 added the lyrics to ‘Hide’, his parody of the Goo Goo Dolls’ ‘Slide’ – we’ve put up a small page containing links to both of his songs, plus their lyrics – as he creates more, we’ll add to it!