I was a little hesitant about posting this, since I’m afraid that some of the people who see it from a front-page post won’t bother to learn the context, and Roger Wilco will come off as a much harsher person than he really is… but it’s just too funny to pass up on. Ross Mills posted a note this morning, lamenting the ‘end of the golden age’ of the HBO forum; some people (mostly newcomers) agreed with him, some people (mostly folks who’ve been around for years) suggested that the whole quality thing is cyclical. Roger Wilco chimed in with a pretty positive message, overall… but the opening is… well, harsh. Funny… but harsh. But Funny. Funny enough that it’s worth a front-page mention. If it amuses you, and you don’t recognize the name… search our news for him; you might find a few other things of interest.

Jillybean tosses around popular sci-fi references with abandon as she plucks a few morsels from the cornucopious Halo Story mailbag. (Yes, I know that’s not a word.) The focus today seems to be Forerunner. Go read!

Whee – still ANOTHER movie. This one comes from Fireb0rn (whose last offering was ALSO quite good) – and it has the honor of garnering the highest score of any of the 130+ videos that have so far passed through the Movie Peer Review Rating System. It’s called ‘Talking Smack Over Xbox Live: An Educational Film’, and it is, in the words of its creator, “a rip-off of those classic Leave it to Beaver style 1950’s educational shorts using Halo 2 to tell the story.” Filming is great, filter use is great, voice acting is great, content is pretty darn funny. You can grab a WMP9 version (17.2 mb) or a QuickTime version (17.1 mb). Don’t forget to drink your milk!

Captain Spark has turned in another 33 dialogue snippets, this time a combination of Elites, Grunts, and female marines. You can grab the lot on his website, or search for (and listen to) the ones you want in our Dialogue Databank.

Cortana gets roped into tripe into today’s One One Se7en… gotta watch that.

Another MPRRS release for you today – this one comes from Spuzzum, and is called ‘Sticky Style’. It’s basically a runthrough of Cairo Station (well, the highlights, anyway) – but the timing is amazingly good. (Gameplay’s pretty good, too…) Gameplay is Heroic, because some of the stuff Spuzzum was trying was “a little too suicidal to pull off successfully with a little flair”. Flair, he’s got – in spades. Anyone looking to make montages – you could learn from this guy’s sense of timing. Available in QuickTime (20.6 mb) or WMP9 (18.6 mb).

There’s a Halo 2 Walkthrough posted up on IGN FAQs (among other places) – if you’re having trouble with the game, and our Legendary Walkthrough hasn’t helped, try this!

Peter Moore talked to GameDaily – mostly it’s about Xbox stuff, but Halo gets a few mentions; there’s a discussion about the impetus behind the I Love Bees promotion, and a look at backwards compatibility, with Halo and Halo 2 being the only two named titles at the moment promised to work on the 360. There’s also a clarification of the silly ‘1 billion users’ quote from last week.

Tactic let us know that Outpost Coagulation Episode 7 (Canook and Special forces) has been posted – you can find it at Tree Skunk Productions or mirrored at halomachinima.com (thanks, trigger119). Voice acting continues to improve, a new character (or two) gets introduced, the plotline moves forward. And oh, yeah… the warthog has a hangover. I’ll toss up a QuickTime version in the near future. Update: There’s a QuickTime version here, now (27.1 mb).

SketchFactor has written up a summary of Bungie’s involvement in E3 this year – it’s posted at Bungie.net. If you weren’t there, this will show you what you missed – at least the Bungie-related portion. Go read!

The Halo2CE team continues their recreation of Halo 2 maps in the HaloCE engine – check out this news post for pictures of last night’s test of Warlock. Looks pretty amazingly close! Thanks, $t@nKy.

SketchFactor has posted a fan-written look at E3 over on Bungie.net (with a focus, of course, on Bungie) – a few pics, a mini-interview… go read! Thanks, TheLethalSpartan.

The first movie to make it through the Movie Peer Review Rating System (with a passing score) for almost 2 weeks is ready for release. It was submitted by imSuck, of Halogrid.com, and is called ‘Jump Tactics Spoof Episode 3’ – it’s a spoof of the jumping vids released by serious teams like Jump Tactics and Broncho’s Friends, and it’s pretty funny. This one features guest appearances (heck, they guest-STAR) by Kealii Maluu and Anti Noob (of the REAL Jump Tactics team), and spreads real, killer jumps in amongst humor and silliness. It’s 640×480, 10:29 long, and roughly 50 mb, depending on flavor:

WMP9 (53.2 mb) – bungie.org | mythica.org
QuickTime (49.4 mb) – bungie.org | mythica.org

There’s a slightly higher-res version, hosted at halo2forum.com, linked off the HaloGrid page – but there seems to be something wrong with the encoding – I can’t get it converted to QuickTime. (It plays fine as a WMP9.) It’s 10 mb larger than the version we’re hosting. Go grab a copy (either from there, or from here), and watch today!

There is a rather large collection of new movies available over at movies.gearboxgamezone.com – mostly machinima this time around, and mostly in WMP9 format (though a few have QT options, as well). If you’re jonesing for new video footage (and I can see how you might be, we’ve been pretty barren with respect to new releases recently), swing by and grab some!

Roger Wolfson, HaloPC Testmaster for Bungie, has posted a note on the Bungie forums about a new update for HaloPC (and soon for HaloCE) – 1.07 has been released to address a networking vulnerability. The patch will work as an auto-update for those running 1.06 now (no downloading needed, just connect to the Gamespy lobby), but he’s posted direct links for folks with earlier versions (or who want to update their dedicated servers). The new client will work with 1.06 servers, but the 1.06 client will NOT work with the 1.07 server. The HaloCE patch “will be made available in a couple days”. Thanks to PMSboy for the heads-up.

Last week, we mentioned a quote from Bill Gates that suggested that Halo 3 might be released in the same timeframe as the Playstation 3. We warned, as usual, that it ain’t official until Bungie SAYS it’s official… but it IS hard to contradict the head honcho. Nevertheless, there WAS some backpedaling by Robbie Bach, Chief Xbox Officer – in today’s Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Bach is quoted as saying:

We haven’t announced anything on what Bungie is doing or where we’re going with the future of the ‘Halo’ franchise. With all respect to Bill, I don’t run Bungie’s studio, and neither does he.

Go read the article for even more vagueness. Thanks to Marc Friedrichs of Halo Universe for the heads-up.

Another Halo pro has been profiled over at MLGPro.com – go read why Igamespot’s McGavin is so well known in the competitive community. Thanks, 3Suns.

Dolbex has written up a solid review of the 5 maps coming out next month, complete with pictures (when he could find them on the web). If you’re curious to see what’s coming, and how you’ll be playing it, swing by MLGPro.com and read this!

There’s a line in the upcoming Killtacular documentary that goes something like “If you need to reload when you’re dual-wielding, you’re basically screwed.” Today’s One One Se7en is a perfect illustration of this concept.

There are 15 new items for you in the Fan Fiction section today – stuff from old hands, stuff from newcomers, poems, standalone stories, chapters in ongoing sagas… something for everyone. Go read.