GotFrag has a preview of the Meadowlands competition that kicks off the MLG 2008 Pro Circuit today – go read!(Louis Wu 18:27:00 UTC)

FireDragon04 let us know that Consequences: Hyperions Vengeance Episode 2 has been released – the storyline becomes a little less convoluted. As before – great camerawork, great voiceacting, interesting effects. I’m looking forward to actually figuring out what that hologram is saying!(Louis Wu 18:05:54 UTC)

Yesterday, we mentioned that the Halo 3 marketing campaign was honored at the MI6 Conference – there are a couple of articles discussing that win. GameDaily has one, and Gamasutra has another. Go read!(Louis Wu 16:26:50 UTC)

Next-Gen has posted the 100 best-selling games in the past 12 months (March 1, 2007 – March 1, 2008). Proving that it’s the holiday season that drives all sales for the year, seven of the top 10 sellers were released in the final three months of last year – and Call of Duty 4 has surpassed Halo 3 in total sales at this point. Interesting numbers all around!(Louis Wu 15:49:12 UTC)

Black Six pointed out that Develop 100 has a list of the top 100 most successful game studios in the world (based on 2007 retail revenues in the UK – go figure). Bungie sits at #8. Not bad! (It’s an odd list; it focuses on individual studios, rather than companies. EA, for example, has 9 entries in the top 100 (and two in the top 10). In fact… if you combined entries, Bungie would move up to number 7.)(Louis Wu 15:05:36 UTC)

Hawty McBloggy has taken the responses from last week’s challenge (“come up with a good ending to “You know you play too much Halo when…”) and turned them into a quiz. Go take it!(Louis Wu 14:58:20 UTC)

GamesBond007 noticed a rather odd auction on eBay – it’s a Halo 1 Cortana figure, from Joyride… but it’s red, not purple (and the eyes are yellow). It’s described as a rare prototype – but I don’t know any way to confirm its authenticity. (That doesn’t mean it’s not worth buying; it could very well be real, or it could be a cool-looking fan modification, and either way it would be an interesting buy. I’m just saying that you should go into this understanding that it might not be what it says it is.) Intriguing, no matter what. Go look!(Louis Wu 14:50:24 UTC)

When you’re an artist, you get your own parking space. Even if you have to make it. RVideo discovered one for Chris Barrett on the tarmac outside The Pit. (Louis Wu 14:44:08 UTC)

Harabek let us know that Pre-Game Lobby Episode 2 is out – the lovable collection of Matchmaking misfits are back, and learning skills like trashtalking, genital-building, and custom Achievement creation. Go watch!(Louis Wu 14:32:05 UTC)

GeneticSpartan dropped by to announce a trailer for his new movie, ‘The Prodigious Permutation’. Nice camera work!(Louis Wu 14:18:49 UTC)

Over at Rampancy.net, Jonathan Churchill has posted a transcription of the Halo main theme, in PDF format. (You’ll need to be signed in to download it.)(Louis Wu 14:09:32 UTC)

The Fan Fiction queue was light this week – just three new pieces. Check ’em out!(Louis Wu 14:05:54 UTC)

As a number of people noticed last night, HBO played Bungie in this week’s Halo Humpday Challenge – on the Legendary Map Pack maps. The end result was a draw; we each won one, lost one, and tied one. The overall fun? Win-win. The new maps have had a simply ginormous amount of love and care poured into them – they play really, really well. (Surprisingly – at least to me – of the three, I found Blackout to be the least enjoyable. That’s sort of like saying “out of these three awesome ice cream flavors, I liked this one the least,” though.) I’d like to point out that every single person on the HBO team is involved in some way in the administration of a bungie.org website: mnemesis, Free2BMe (posting here as Ding), and I are all involved in HBO newsposting, Schooly D and retsamolah run HBOL, a competitive league I stay pretty far away from, and goatrope has a long-standing involvement in the administration of irc.bungie.org. No ringers here! Thanks to pete_the_duck for being the first to notice.(Louis Wu 02:11:18 UTC)

The latest Bungie Podcast is also up – one hour, 54 mb of Lars Bakken and Shiska. (More than you can take? Maybe.) Thanks to Psychophan7 for the first heads-up on this, and the Double XP post, as well.(Louis Wu 00:50:26 UTC)

The Living Dead Double XP Weekend has kicked off – though it’s not actually Double XP yet, due to a technical glitch. (It should be by tomorrow, though.) Go shoot some zombies!(Louis Wu 00:45:48 UTC)

Inside Halo 11 is now up at YouTube (and probably soon on Machinima.com) – Dead Pixel answers your questions about machinima and lets you hear some bad, bad singing. Thanks, Adam Kovic.(Louis Wu 21:15:34 UTC)