Hehe – Vapor wrote up a short little guide for surviving in MLG Custom games (mostly for folks who can’t). A couple of things I wouldn’t have thought of in there (like the fact that even though it takes 4 bursts to the head to take out an opponent with a battle rifle, it STILL only takes 4 bursts if the first three hit the body; only the last needs to hit the head). Go read.

Synide wrote up his experiences at E3 last week over at synide.net (a FANTASTIC read) – and excerpted the plasma fiesta lanfest portion for posting on our own forum. The most interesting part of the excerpt for me – the realization, by someone deeply enmeshed in the competitive scene, that competitive gametypes with people who aren’t part of that culture aren’t nearly as fun. I realize he’ll never convince the hardcore on either side of the issue – but for all the THINKING people, this is something worth reading. There’s also a short, very dark video, showing the end of Round One of the ice-cream-eating contest (and why they all brain-froze before it was over).

MasterGrief pointed out a thread on the Gearbox forums containing a number of Halo-related domain names for sale; prices and an email address for the seller can all be found in the thread. Check it out if you’re looking to start a site!

Mastiha wrote to point out that there’s an article on bandwidth usage for Halo 2 over at XboxZone.com.au; I’m not sure I agree with the numbers (I’ve hosted 16-player games here, and if Remorhaz’s numbers are right, that shouldn’t have been possible), but they’re there for the looking-at.

Whew. Back from LA, still WELL-underslept, but I’ll turn in early tonight and be back to normal by morning. A few things sitting in the in-box; looks like JackBauer’s Pillar of Autumn Space map for HaloCE is available for download – check this Gearbox forum thread for details. (Thanks to several people, including JackBauer himself, for the heads-up.) Update: oops – there were other HaloCE map announcements, I almost missed them – Arteen has released Augury (check this thread for screenies and a download link), and Peter Sakievich has released The Narrows – screenies, description, and a download link can be found at Halomaps.

I dropped a writeup of last night’s E3 Plasma Fiesta LANfest onto our forum – I had a really good time, and saw a LOT of people I either hadn’t seen for a while or had never actually met in person; a perfect ending to a nice E3 week. Here’s hoping some of the other participants join in with their own comments!

Frankie posted this week’s Weekly What’s Update over at Bungie.net – it covers a lot of questions asked recently about the upcoming map pack, banning, and other small questions. Go read.

The webcomic Waffle Hut has another Halo-related strip up right now; it looks at the Halo XBL Auto-update, and what’s changed.

Several people filmed the new maps with hand-held video cameras yesterday; You can find stuff here, here, and here on our forum (I’m sure there are others, but I don’t have time to hunt right now). No time to mirror stuff – here’s hoping bandwidth holds out! (And that’s it for me, for now – offline again for a bit. Here’s hoping the server behaves…)

Today’s One One Se7en looks at clan heirarchies.

I got a chance to play the Stubbs the Zombie demo yesterday – this game is a LOT of fun. There’s a hands-on over at Eurogamer, that points out some of the pieces that are unchanged from its Halo engine roots (thanks, 3Suns), but mostly it feels like its own game completely. This is one to watch.

Major Nelson has put the kibosh on the rumor (we mentioned it yesterday) that Xbox games would have to be recompiled for the Xbox 360. Bottom line: you will not need to buy new copies of any original Xbox games that eventually get certified for use on the 360. Thanks to several people – orion 12 was first.

IGN has a hands-on writeup of the five new maps, which are playable on the E3 flooor – thanks, Capt 0bvious.

A few quick notes before heading out again today – sorry for the briefness. First up – Halo Babies has posted a special E3-related strip today. Poor Cortana!

Mr. Wu is gone. So is the rest of the HBO staff. Doesn’t mean they’re completely ignoring this site while at E3, but they’re going to be very busy trying to squeeze the last drop of info from Sketch and Frankie.

I know you’re jealous, but don’t make a mess of the house, willya? Thanks!

Okay, that’s it for me. Time to pack up and head to the airport – though I won’t be landing in LA for another 8 hours. (Gotta love travel times.) Almost all the rest of the HBO admin staff is already there for E3, so news coverage will be pretty sparse for a bit. We’ll do our best, however – and for a taste of what’s there that might be of interest to Bungie fans, check out this quick forum post from mnemesis.

Well, it’s not working out like I’d expected… but yeah, we’re still tweaking. The Movie Peer Review Rating System hasn’t passed a film since May 8 – but I’ve taken to looking at the ‘near misses’, and I’ve got a pair for you to watch today. Bunker 27 is an upcoming Machinima series which looks to be following in RvB’s footsteps – their trailer is 9.1 mb, 1:41 long, and shows potential. (WMP9 or QuickTime.) The Noobs, Experts, and In Between trailer is a short (sub-one-minute) vid that makes use of Halo Resolution sprites and came off pretty funny to me. (Several of the reviewers thought there was too much text to read.) This one’s 3.7 mb, and also in WMP9 or QuickTime. And we’ll keep working on the MPRRS to make it more consistent. (Let’s be clear – I’m not saying it needs to be ‘dumbed down’; I LIKE the fact that the reviewers take the quality issue seriously. I AM saying, however, that the guidelines we’ve given reviewers are nebulous enough that interpretations vary pretty widely. The Bunker 27 trailer was reviewed by 10 people, and passed by 8 of those. One of the two non-passing scores was dropped in our scoring algorithm – but the other was enough to bring the overall score below passing. I’d like to avoid this sort of situation in the future.)

Yesterday, we pointed out an article that suggested that certain titles in the Xbox collection would be singled out for backwards compatibility – Halo and Halo 2 among them. That article implied that emulation would be involved; code running on the Xbox 360 that handled the calls to the Intel CPU that Xbox games expected to see in the unit. A new article at GamesIndustry.biz, however, says that rather than the box itself emulating Intel hardware, the games will be recompiled to run on the PowerPC chips inside the Xbox 360. Why does this matter to you? In the first case, you’d be able to simply put your existing copies of Halo and Halo 2 into the Xbox 360 – they’d play. In the second case, you’ll be able to PLAY the games on the new machine – but not with your old discs; you’d have to buy the new, recompiled versions. Depending on how many Xbox games are made to be compatible with the new machine (and how many you decided you couldn’t live without), you could be spending a fortune to replace games you already have. If this turns out to be true, the ‘backwards compatibility’ claim goes out the window – yes, you’ll be able to play older games on your new Xbox 360 – but not the versions you have; you STILL have to buy new copies. Here’s hoping GI got it wrong. Thanks, 3Suns. Update: Eep, it looks like 3Suns posted it on the forum as well – so go chime in with your own opinion!

Halo popped up in yet another webcomic yesterday – 6X9 College looked at its ability to suck your concentration right down. Thanks, Elizar.

Captain Spark posted another 30-plus dialogue snippets today, this time all from Sargeant Stacker. You can find them on his website, or in our Dialogue Databank. That man is pretty full of himself! (Stacker, not Spark.)