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!

Thirteen new stories added over the weekend to the Fan Fiction section – if you’re in the US and you need a break from fireworks and barbecues today, go read. (If you’re outside the US, you can read too.)

As was noticed in a LOT of threads on our forum, last night a new episode of Robot Chicken, a stop-motion animation show aired on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim, contained Halo action figures. It’s called the Sack, and it will be rebroadcast on Friday, July 8, at midnight and 3 am. First out of the gate was Andrew Nagy (by several hours). Update: Hey – you can even download it now (WMP9 format, 3.2 mb).

Wow. A fitting place to take a break from Halo updates for the July 4 weekend… Dark Helmet released a Halo vid showing some truly amazing hog launching on the level Halo. If there’s demand, I’ll put up a QuickTime version – but for now, it’s 37 mb, WMP9 format. And very, very nicely done.

3Suns points out that there’s quite a bit of St. Louis content available from MLGPro.com’s Video on Demand service – this was, apparently, one of the most exciting tourneys in a long time, and this is your chance to see the action first-hand. (There’s more still coming by next Tuesday.)

Stuntmutt has updated his blog with submitted artwork and strips from One One Se7en fans everywhere. I’m lovin’ the Betrayal strip.

Looks like the Halo CE Chronicles is counting down to season 2 – read this news post for details on website changes. Folks have been waiting for this popular series to restart filming – keep your eyes open!

Noah Gallop and his friends are Halo fans. So much so, in fact, that Noah created a film documenting their wait for Halo 2 last year. It’s a full-length film – 80 minutes long. (The Hi-res WMP9 version is over 400 MB.) As such, it probably has a limited audience… but I think he did a wonderful job capturing the devotion some of us felt towards Halo (and where that devotion came from), and what this did to us in the ramp-up to Halo 2. It’s part documentary, part tribute film, part parody of the silliest parts of fandom. We’re not quite prepared to handle the full release yet – but Noah’s put together a short teaser (2 minutes, about 25 mb) to whet your appetite. (WMP9 format, 24.8 mb | QuickTime format, 25.3 mb). There’s a forum post here – feel free to let us (and Noah) know what you think of the film, and whether you’d be interested in DVD copies. (Noah’s considering this.)

Wow – in the wake of Bungie’s announcement of another auto-update to address cheating, HaloMods has decided to close their forums until it’s released. You can read Grenadiac’s news post here. Thanks, TOMASS.

Red vs Blue posted their Terminal walkthrough last night – this is the first one that contains a second character. (Basically, Burnie needed someone to show what happens when you get hit by a train.) As usual, a great display of all the key points of the map – weapon placement, strategy options, layout. You can grab the WMP9 version off their site (Hi-res is 40.1 mb, Lo-Res is 11.9 mb), or you can grab our QuickTime versions (Hi-Res, 41.8 mb | Lo-Res 14.8 mb). For some strange reason, this is the first walkthrough they’ve released with interlacing problems – the QuickTime is deinterlaced. Minor detail, though – the vid’s great, no matter how you see it! Thanks to MANY – first mention seems to be darthbob.

Wow… this is a little disturbing. A couple of days ago, sh33p asked, on our forum, about the Halo 2 Soundtrack, volume 2 – and when it might be coming out. His guess was that it would be released with the map pack next week – but Excalibur quoted a forum post from Marty himself on the Marty Army forum (not viewable by the public, so there’s no point in linking to it), suggesting that this wouldn’t happen. Since then, that private forum thread has received ANOTHER ominous note:

70 minutes worth in 12 movements (suites if you will). I just hope MS lets it happen…

I wonder how many people would care if it never came out?

(Um, lots.) He hopes MS will let it happen? What does THAT mean? More when we hear about it… but I, for one, would be REALLY sad to find that this product had been cancelled. (No, it’s not time for a mass email campaign – yet.)

The Codex Series has posted not one, but TWO new movies in the last few hours – Episode 15 has finally been released (long wait, but worth it!), and a Behind The Scenes vid is up, as well. Check their news page for both links. Episode 15 is action, action, action – really nice work! Currently only in QuickTime format (88.6 mb), but their standard release stuff is coming later this morning. The behind-the-scenes stuff mixes blooper footage with live-action stuff showing the crew behind the vids. Thanks to The An7i Flag for the heads-up!

Nathan Koga noticed a new page over at Figures.com, devoted to the series 5 and 6 action figures coming soon from Joyride. We already pointed out pics of these figures at Joyride’s own site – but these images are larger, giving you a better look at the figures. Is it just me… or does that center Spartan look like it has the Subnova logo as his emblem patch?

TeamXbox has put up more copies of the last three Bungie-sponsored flythroughs – again, these are the same vids we released a couple of days ago, but we’re always happy to see more copies online – spreading the bandwidth load. These are WMP9 only.