I missed this yesterday – but 2old2play.com sent some folks to E3 this year, and then submitted their report to Bungie.net – there’s a part 1 and a part 2. (The final picture would suggest that ‘2old2play’ means ‘in your late 20’s’.) Thanks, Stosh. Update: I’ve been corrected – the guy playing in that pic is NOT a member of 2old2play, and in fact wouldn’t have been accepted for membership.

Holy Magillicutty, Batman… here’s your chance to get questions answered. Frankie has started a thread on our forum, offering to answer as many questions as you post (civilly) in this week’s Weekly What’s Update. There’s already a decent quantity up there… but get to thinkin’ – you never know! Update: Thread was locked, by Frankie’s request – I guess he figured 97 responses were enough.

MacSoft has released Halo Updater 1.5.2, which brings the Mac version of Halo into line with HaloPC and HaloCE v1.07 (fixing a network vulnerability). You can grab the updater (3.5 mb) off our server, or from MacUpdate.com. Get back to playing with your PC buddies!

There’s been some awful puns in One One Se7en through the years… but this one takes the Christmas goose.

Ten new pieces for you in the Fan Fiction section today – get to reading!

Doom 3 has a much larger amount of story material than the original Doom. In addition, it’s presented in-game in a much-more-interactive way than Halo’s story is (instead of simply using cutscenes and the occasional scripted encounter, you can find information on viewscreens, dropped PDAs, lab computers, and more). So has Doom surpassed Halo in its storytelling ability? Narcogen takes a close look over at Rampancy.net – you might be surprised by what he found.

The Bridge scene from Pillar of Autumn is now available from the Halo Cutscene Library – go grab it!

Back in January, we mentioned a cash prize given out by Twin Galaxies (a game-ranking site) for a Legendary speedrun of Halo 2. HALOChat wrote to point out that the prize has increased (from $150 to $250), and a new ‘Special Rule’ has been instated – the Envy skull (which gives permanent invisibility) cannot be used. (This would suggest, however, that OTHER skulls CAN be used… hmm. Sputnik, anyone?) You’ll find the bounty on their Rules page – it’s Bounty (105), and I found it on page 10.

JPOGDNA writes to say that new management has taken over on the Halo: Blood Covenant project (a side-scrolling Halo game) – but they’ve hit a snag. They need a new sprite artist (just one), to help with backgrounds, some weapons, character actions and the like. Interested people can send samples of their work to either rleemailcall@yahoo.com or MCJPOGDNA1986@hotmail.com to apply. Give ’em a look!

A number of people pointed out this article at Xbox-Scene, showing pictures of the upcoming Xbox 360 kiosk… you gotta wonder why the picture used is a sideways shot from Lockout. Weird. I think SUPERTOY was first.

Over at Halo Babies, you’ll find a photo diary of Master Chief’s E3 Adventure… that guy can get into a lot of trouble! When you’re done with that… there’s also a new strip for the day. You gotta pick your friends carefully…

Dennis Powers points out that the HaloCE 1.07 hotfix is now in the auto-update – but the dedicated server patch (for servers that didn’t use the installation utility to install the server) can still be found at Gearbox Game Zone. Details (and usage) are on this page.

22 out of 24 Xbox Live global regions have a declared winner in the worldwide Halo 2 contest (last mentioned about a month ago) – you can read the official press release for more details. (Only Japan and the US are still awaiting a national champion.) Finals will be played on Friday, June 10.

There’s a short note over at Bungie.net – apparently, the official Nile Rogers website has announced that Marty has finished mastering the Halo 2 soundtrack. No other info is given – but if you’ll remember, the Weekly What’s Update on May 14 suggested an early July release.

It’s not a Top News Story, for some reason… but the Halo Humpday Challenge has now been written up by Frankie. Polite and genteel – he’s a gracious winner. (I’m not sure what that ‘continued on page 2…’ thing is at the bottom of the second game…) Go read. (As a side note to SketchFactor: when your internet and cable TV both go out, there’s this thing called ‘outside’ – you can go there and find stuff to do. It’s cool.)

Wow. It’s taken an inordinately long time to prepare – and for that I offer abject apologies – but as of today, the Halo Cutscene Library here on HBO begins to be built. (The Halo 2 Cutscene Library has been online for several months now.) Today, we offer you the opening scene from Pillar of Autumn, as well as a film containing all four versions of Sarge’s speech to the marines (depending on difficulty). If you’re on a high-bandwidth connection, you can grab the 640×480 versions, in either QuickTime or WMP9 formats… and for those on slightly slower connections, we’re also offering 320×240 versions (in both formats). At the moment, we’ve got a pair of mirrors for each film, but we’re happy to add any other mirrors; if you’d like to host these yourself, simply send us the link and we’ll add it to the page. Enjoy!

Another movie has passed through the Movie Peer Review Rating System – this one is a filming of Monty Python’s ‘The Argument’ sketch. It’s the work of The7ftman, and what reviewers liked was the editing and environment choices. (Don’t look for a lot of gunplay in this one…) You can grab it in QuickTime (29.4 mb) or WMP9 (29.6 mb) formats.

Early this week, Paradox sent along a couple of pictures of his new work-in-progress, a model of the Halo rocket launcher. We’ve started a gallery for this, and will add pictures as they come in. Looks to be pretty heavy-duty!

Looks like this week’s Halo Humpday Challenge pitted Bungie against 2070Films – Dan Chosich posted links to the games themselves, though we still need to wait for the official Bungie writeup. Bungie blew ’em out for the first two games, but 2070Films won the third game, and the unofficial chaser was pretty darn close. Nice playing, guys!

Dennis Powers, of the Gearbox Game Zone, points out that the HaloCE 1.07 Hot-Fix patch is now available for download on his site. (Gearbox has chosen that site as its primary distribution point for this file.) It’s 4.6 mb, and brings HaloCE back into parity with HaloPC (which was patched a couple of days ago). This patch fixes a vulnerability which could allow a malicious client to hang a server. Go grab it now!