prometheus wrote up a pretty cool tutorial about how to create a Halo 2 HUDless screenshot; if you’re interested in Halo scenery without all the text and personal info, check this out!

Infernus441 posted on our forum with a series of links to different versions of his Halo 2 Live Experience Calculator – it’s available for PC, Mac, and online (in Perl). Check it out!

New Zealand’s Gameplanet has a news article about the Kiwi representative in the Halo 2 Worldwide Tournament that ended last Friday. Thanks, Google.

Dennis Powers points out two movies at Gearbox Game Zone – the first is called ‘They said it was impossible‘, and it takes a look at HaloCE, and shows what’s been possible with it. (This might have been prettier had it been filmed on a machine with a more powerful graphics card – but the composition is quite nice.) Available in both WMP9 and QuickTime, 25-37 mb. The second is Halo Tron 2.01, a remake of Tron with some help from the Halo engine. Interesting idea! Again, WMP9 and QuickTime formats, 29.7 mb each. Go watch!

Yesterday, Yaksha visited our forums to let us know that Sponsors vs Freeloaders, Episode 7: ‘Flame War – Blood on the Snow’ was available for download at their website. Downloads were painfully slow, though, due to demand… so they put up a smaller version. However, it’s pretty darned impressive at full res, so we’re tossing up a pair of mirrors for the high-res version (76.9 mb, mythica.org | bungie.org), and adding a pair of high-res QuickTime mirrors (68.9 mb, bungie.org | mythica.org). Go grab this; it’s filmed in Halo CE, and it’s really well done. (It helps if you’ve watched previous episodes; the storyline makes very little sense otherwise.) They’ve REALLY gotten away from their silly, mostly-for-a-lark roots; this story turns deadly serious near the end of this episode. Definitely up there with the best of ’em.

MC makes a few cosmetic modifications to a classic weapon to more accurately reflect its purpose in today’s One One Se7en.

Eight new stories for you added over the weekend in the Fan Fiction section… go read!

Tricky writes that Waffle Hut has another Halo-related comic. If the last panel doesn’t mean anything to you, you should check this forum post from last week.

Chris Bryan created a Wearable Master Chief Suit over the course of a year or so. We chronicled the work with pictures – and one of the things this page generated was a whole lot of questions, both for Chris and for us, about HOW this was done. Chris has put together a short tutorial, using the belt as an example – give it a read!

TotalVideoGames.com has a story about Major Nelson playing Halo 2 on an Xbox 360 – and not being able to tell the difference, despite the fact that the 360 is not yet optimized. Nice! Though we heard this from Google News, there was also a post on our forum by altodarknight.

Gamespy has put up their own Map Pack Preview, with info about (and video of) the remaining five maps. The video comes from the same games that IGN and Gamespot put up last week – it seems like in some cases, at least, it’s different segments, and you don’t need to be a subscriber to download. Thanks to Zether and 3Suns for the heads-up.

Slicksnake pointed out an interesting use of Xbox Live; The Sarrow, over on the GameFAQs forum, posted a note stating that he’d be doing readings of the Halo novels on Xbox Live – comments in the thread suggest he’s pretty good at it. Now if only you could get XBL in your car…

A hunt through the Xbox.com site turned up a few articles that we’ve not mentioned – here’s what you can find.

• Summary of the Killtacular Map Pack
• Summary of the Bonus Map Pack
• Comments from fans who played in the Game With Fame series:

  Goldfinger Dan Cody Atreyu 3 Doors Down Molotov

  Incubus Chevelle Willis McGahee Breaking Benjamin

• Spotlights with national winners in the Worldwide Halo 2 Tournament, which wrapped up Friday (there were none with the winners from Australia, Belgium, Ireland, and Japan):

  Billykater, Austria I DaMan I, Canada GermanFreak, Denmark Iw 1K1LL, Finland I Theos I, France Pr0gamer, Germany Runningboy, Hong Kong N3 L3lL1nShOk3r, Italy Oddwing, Korea MexLoco, Mexico

  King Tuur, Netherlands Bob69er nz, New Zealand ZpiKeY, Norway tidusSG, Singapore I Lops I, Spain Shellman, Sweden Otcho Boy, Switzerland I Kobegod I, Taiwan o0 Lethal 0o, United Kingdom | terry15|, US

Will that hold you for a while?

Stephen Loftus has made a bit of progress on his Pillar of Autumn model – you can find the new photos on his model page. this looks pretty impressive!

A few days ago, Halogrid.com released Jump Tactics Spoof: Episode 4 – and at the same time, submitted it to our Movie Peer Review Rating System. The MPRRS reviewers are taking a bit longer than they used to to review films – but last night, they passed this video, enjoying things like the modded content, the lack of a HUD, and the silly humor. It’s not so much of a real jumping vid spoof, as it is just a bunch of folks getting together and doing silly things… but they do a nice job, and it’s put together well. It’s 11:13 long, and weighs in at 73.1 mb (WMP9) or 75.0 mb (QT)… big! Go grab a copy. In addition to the four mirrors listed at Halogrid.com, we can add these two for the WMP9 version: mythica.org | bungie.org. Also, we’ve put up a QuickTime version for those who can’t deal with WMP9 – you can grab it here: bungie.org | mythica.org. Enjoy!

clarksbrother points out an audio interview he did on the Not So Late Show with David Hufford, Group Xbox Manager, about the Xbox 360 – this is relevant to Halo fans because the interview touches on backwards compatibility for Halo and Halo 2, comments about Halo 3 (and when it might, or might not, come out), and some info about the Halo movie script. Nothing that hasn’t been posted here before – but it’s from a voice we haven’t heard much from. 26 minutes long, just under 12 mb, available on the NotSoLateShow.com website, as well as a mirror.

There was an interview with Brian Jarrard in the January 2005 issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly – and Guardians has found a copy of it online. (It went along with the interviews of Tyson Green and Pete Parsons that month.) It’s old info (from December, I think)… but still pretty interesting stuff – and in some cases, things that simply haven’t come up elsewhere. Give it a read!

Oops – I forgot to mention last night’s Weekly What’s Update, posted over at Bungie.net – some basic info about the Halo movie script, the Halo World Championships, and what will (and WON’T) happen when the new maps are released next month. Go read!

For the truly geek-minded among you, there’s a fascinating case study of the Bungie net website, written up by the MSDN Solution Architecture Center. (Yep, I guess I fit in that category…) How the site was developed, what’s behind it, what challenges had to be overcome… for people interested in the backend part of things, this is a great read. Thanks, Matt Stum.

The Codex Series has posted Episode 13 – things aren’t looking too good for the humans. Nice film work, as usual. Go watch!