XerxdeeJ posted his weekly mention of Tied The Leader, his gaming blog, on our forum – Halo-related entries include Team Tactics Scorn, a LAN party poll, the new Tom and Jerry, Quitters, and Cheaters (more flying warthogs). Go read!

Whee! Flying warthogs. The Geezer Gamers got into a matchmaking game on Containment last night – and the other team had clearly modded maps. Bad news for them – it’s on film. (9.1 mb, WMP9 format. Unfortunately, it’s on Putfile.) Thanks, Martin.

DarkChief wanted folks to know that his fanfic, First Drop, which was mentioned a couple of days ago but which went offline pretty quickly at that point, is back up, now that HaloTips is back online.

Wow. I simply couldn’t pass this up. Bonekin posted a video entitled “Violence Isn’t The Answer” – it’s a full Rumble Pit Training game of Foundation King, in which Bonekin wins by a healthy margin… without firing a single shot or meleeing a single opponent. Zero kills, zero assists, zero shots fired, playing on a level where the hill doesn’t move, and is normally a grenade death trap… but he took the match by more than a full minute. Pacifism… the choice of a new generation.

trigger119 writes to point out Mental Image, a new machinima created by his friend Vice Ruetoy. It’s in the ‘something the government is giving me is making me crazy’ genre – it’s 44.1 mb, WMP9 format. Voice stuff needs some work. You can post comments to this thread (this was put up yesterday, but the movie was replaced last night with a version with better sound).

Hedfones has written up a pretty complete collection of information about the new maps coming out, combining details from many, many different sources and providing download links in one convenient place – go read his thread over at HaloPlanet!

Socrates points out that the magnet thingy we mentioned yesterday seems to be confined to the east coast of the US – there aren’t any out west yet. Bizarre. Update: (And this will be the last I say about these things) – we got a few emails saying that Socrates was incorrect; that there ARE magnets to be had on the west coast. We have absolutely no idea what the distribution of these really is, and in fact it doesn’t really matter; this is your heads-up that there MIGHT be magnets in your local game store, or there might not be. If so – cool, grab ’em and have fun. If not – sorry. We really don’t need to hear from other locations. Thanks!

Due to a relatively boneheaded move on my part, the new Fan Fiction submission page was set up to eat submissions, rather than post them. With some help from Wado and Mark Lieberg, I was able to track down the cause of the problem – and the latest 4 entries are now up on the Fan Fiction page. Apologies to any authors who submitted stories that subsequently vanished.

Count Zero has taken time out of his busy schedule (of answering emails and sucking his thumb) to compile the next collection of questions and answers for the HBO Mailbag. Remember: the emails are all REAL. We really get this stuff.

A number of new action figure pics have been added to Joyride’s Halo 2 section – mostly stuff coming out later this year. The four that coviehunter noticed specifically were the Prophet, Hunter, Pink Spartan, and Spectre… there are more, scroll through the list!

Computer and Video Games has posted a summary of the five newest maps (along with screenshots); if you haven’t gotten your fill of this sort of info, go read!

Continuing their series of one map preview per week, Bungie has put up an in-depth look at Terminal – its strengths, its weaknesses, the best Starbucks kiosks in the station. Wait – that’s not right. But the rest of it is. Go read! Very cool graphics – screenshots, closeups on scenery items, even a map.

Davidgojr writes to point out that EB Games is giving out free Halo 2 Maptacular Map Pack magnets; he sent along a scan (242k). In his words: “The magnet itself is on the left side of the dotted line. It’s hard to tell from the image but each of the three spartans as well as the rocks and wording are raised, textured areas to give the magnet a sort of 3-D feel to it.” Go get one! Update: OscarGordon writes to say that they’re not just at EB Games – he’s seen them at Gamestop, Gamecrazy – they’re everywhere. Go get ’em!

We got word of a vid called ‘Ultimate Slayer’ – it’s a 7:24 long machinima… of sorts. It’s actually the story of a Team Slayer game in Coagulation. Nice filming, and some funny moments! The actual vid is 113 mb, but it’s stored in zipped format, and the download is only 56 mb. DivX 5 format. Go grab a copy from the Final Supremacy website.

Video Games Live, the upcoming concert tour involving video game music, has announced 17 new dates, with tickets going on sale this Friday. You can find the full press release in our misc section. Looks like I’ll be in Boston on August 22! Update: whee… the PR company has asked for a ‘recall’ on that press release. Sorry about that. Dunno WHERE I’ll be in August, I guess. More when we know it. Update 2: Minor corrections have been made, the press release is back online.

Last week, Stuntmutt commented on the unintended side effects of one of the more powerful weapons in Halo 2. A lot of people were confused. Today’s One One Se7en is another try at the same message.

F13ND, over at Team3D, has written up a pair of articles – an interview with Ogre 1, one of the top pro players, and a series of interviews with 4 top players (the same five questions to each), in preparation for MLG St. Louis. Go read!

J. Paradise over at Daily Game, has written up part 1 of ‘Confessions of a Girl Gamer’, in which she talks about the abuse she takes online due to her gender. Narcogen, over at Rampancy.net, has written a retort – it’s not that he approves of the behavior she deplores, it’s that he doesn’t believe she’s any more abused than male players. Interesting pair of reads.

DSmooth writes to let us know that 2old2play.com’s 3rd weekly podcast episode is available for downloading – in two versions (one with the pg-rated words bleeped). 36-38 mb, depending on rating. The Halo 2 content includes a discussion of upcoming maps. Go listen!