Wortrow celebrated the Halo/Halo 2 transition by eating. Good idea!

Long time coming (as usual) – but there are 32 new images in the Miscellaneous Art section. Renders, sketches, paintings – lots of good stuff! Go look. Wallpaper coming in the next day or so.

The July issue of Wired magazine has a nearly 20-page section on remixes – how creative projects involving the work of others have grown in recent times. They look at everything from music and art (the obvious) to movies (Tarantino, anyone?) to cars and candy. The final piece is a two-page, visual spread, showing the last 100 years or so and some of the remixes that have happened in that time. The final image of the spread is… Red vs Blue. Not bad! (Large chunks of this content are online – including the first half of the 2-page spread. Read them soon, though, because that link won’t work once the August issue hits the stands.)

You knew it was coming, right? Wow – when Stuntmutt first submitted some strips for a pun-filled Halo comic strip in 2003, who knew he’d make it all the way to 343? (And with jokes like this one, it’s STILL a mystery.) Congrats, One One Se7en.

For folks looking for strategy tips for the new maps, you might think that the Strategy pages at Xbox.com (Backwash, Elongation, Gemini, and Relic – no Terminal yet) would be a good place to start – but you’d be wrong. Well, the Relic and Elongation pages have some MINOR info that might be helpful – but mostly, they’re just summaries of the maps. Bummer.

Last Friday, XerxdeeJ added an item called ‘Wish List‘ to his Halo blog, ‘Tied the Leader’ – it looks at add-ons he wishes he could buy for his Xbox… that would go with games he wishes he could buy for it. The piece spawned a pretty sizeable response from 3Suns – who suggests that his playing ability in Halo 2 might be tied to the shortcomings of the controller he’s forced to use. It’s more a discussion of ergonomics than a whine – I’m not sure I agree with him (my thumbs seem to fit the controller better than his do, or something), but it’s a thought-provoking post. Give it a look!

DSmooth points out that 2old2play has posted episode 4 of their podcast news summary, 2old2type, on their website. They discuss everything from the new map pack to nudity in video games – the download is 29 mb, available via BitTorrent. Go listen!

Razgriz points out that Frag Nutz, a Halo 2 clan, has the full collection (Episodes 1-57) of Red vs Blue online for registered user download (with permission from Geoff of RvB). If you’re looking for any of these, swing by! (Check out the rest of the site while you’re there.)

MLGPro’s Dyslexia sat down with Team 3D after MLG St. Louis to talk about their win, and about playing in general. A good read – go check it out! Thanks, 3Suns.

SketchFactor has posted a beautiful preview of Gemini, over at Bungie.net – strategy, map overhead, screenshots of the Marathon Infinity level that inspired it, gameplay tips. You can’t go wrong. Go read it!

Eep – almost forgot. Jillybean updated the Halo Story page with some interesting speculation from the fans. There would have been more, but her dog ate it. Or maybe it was her computer. I can’t remember. Go read what’s there, though.

For folks wondering about whether installs from the Map Pack DVD are tied to a key or serial number of some sort: if you own multiple consoles, you’re okay installing the maps on all of them from a single DVD. It’s way cheaper than buying the DLC for each Xbox you have (I had to buy Sanctuary and Turf 3 times, because my son’s birthday party – a Halo 2 party – was right after the release date).

For anyone having trouble downloading the five new maps on Xbox Live, SketchFactor has reprinted Major Nelson’s Downloadable Content FAQ – go read it at Bungie.net. And yes, we know about the Relic teleporter glitch. (For those who don’t – it’s quite simple to pass through the teleporter, in either direction, by simply crouch-jumping on top of the platforms.) No, it won’t kill matchmaking. It just means there’s one more place to watch at the start of the game.

Apologies to the guys from HaloLive.com.au – we got a couple of notes about their Montage competion yesterday, but the holiday kept them from being posted. They’ve been running a competition for the best Halo 2 montage, and have narrowed it down to the final 5 entries. The Admins Choice award winner has already been selected, but no announcements will be made until the People’s Choice award is decided – you can find download links in the news item; grab ’em and vote!

Terion has been experimenting with Halo/Star Wars crossover art for quite some time – check out her gallery at Sheezy Art. (Sith Elite 3 was noticed by Savage Yoshi, which is where I ran across it.)

If you’re a registered member of the Rooster Teeth website (Red vs Blue or the Strangerhood), and have been since at least June 18, you’re eligible for an online RT tournament (organized by fans, not by the site itself). Details can be found in this RT forum thread – including prizes and rules. Registration has already begun – so if you’re interested, get in gear! Thanks to Laird for the heads-up.

As many have noticed, the 5 new maps are now available for download on Xbox Live (just head to the Content Download section of Xbox Live). If you’re a Live Subscriber, you’ll have to decide whether paying the $12 today is worth getting the maps ahead of the DVD (which will cost $20, but will be usable on multiple Xboxes, and will contain a new documentary and a rendered mini-movie). Oh, the choices!

Our final news post of this Fourth of July holiday is community-related. A few days ago, we mentioned some money problems being experienced by Hollywood Halo, a team of Halo movie makers who were socked with some unreasonable overage fees for one of their popular movies. To show people what happened to them, they put together a vid that explains the problem (in a humorous fashion), and then summarizes their work to date. chubark posted a note on our forum last night, explaining the vid and listing several download links (including a BitTorrent link – the video is 87.1 mb, so the BT link might be your fastest option). We’ve put up a QuickTime version, as well – you can grab it via BitTorrent (we’re seeding it with a very nice chunk of bandwidth), or grab the direct download – if this starts to kill us, we’ll pull it, but leave the BT link. (The QuickTime is 85.7 mb.) For folks who’ve written us with a warning that this whole thing is a scam – I think you’re being overly paranoid. The hosting company is acting pretty unprofessionally – but a typo in their bill does NOT mean that the bill was made up. And with that – I’m off to start cooking! Enjoy the day, see you all tomorrow!

Back in March, Stuntmutt took a swipe at the Halo shotgun in netplay – today he shows the other side of the coin in the current One One Se7en.

Prometheus pointed out that the Halouvre received a sizeable update recently – lots of old art has found a new home, and a bunch of new stuff is posted as well. Go look!