Overswarm has added a couple of notes to his Not So Common Sense Guide – the first is a status report on the front page, to let people know that he’s not as available as he’s been in the past (so please be patient), and the other is a new Frequently Asked Question, explaining the best way to keep on top of site changes. Here’s hoping this helps.

In late January, Mike Miller began a Legendary Walkthrough of Halo 2, and for the next four months, he’d release a new level, once per week (or so), with hints, multiple plans of attack, and plenty of video examples, to help you get through what (at first) seemed nearly impossible. Today, that guide is finished; Mike’s writeup of The Great Journey, Halo 2’s final level, has been posted. It contains more than a dozen movies, as usual in both QuickTime and WMP9 formats for your viewing convenience, and quite a bit of discussion about tactics and approaches. There are also some very practical—though non-trivial to implement, especially for folks like me, somewhat less coordinated than Mike—ideas for the final battle with Tartarus; give it a read! I’d like to take this opportunity to thank Mike for his work on this project; even when the skills needed were out of my league, the consistent quality of the writing, the thoughtfulness and comprehensiveness of the analyses, the practicality of the video aids – all the pieces he put together were polished, professional, and clean. I’m proud to have been able to help get this guide out to the Halo community, and I know that Mike’s gotten quite a few people through the game on a difficulty level they might not have reached on their own! Update: DOH! I forgot – he also updated a few bits on the intro page (mostly near the bottom). In fact, it’s been updated 4 or 5 times since it was first posted; if you haven’t read it through in a while, it might be worth another look!

Drew Santorello and Mark Werner like to bring their virtual playthings to life; they sent in a few pics of weapons they’ve recreated in real life. Check ’em out!

The third movie to make it through the MPRRS today is the second episode of the Necrosis Clan’s eponymous series. You can grab it from their site (WMP9 format, 3.4 mb) or from ours (WMP9 format or a 4.8 mb QuickTime). Again, dialogue comes from the Dialogue Databank; it will be interesting to see how long they can make that work. Screensize is quite small, so some of the action is a bit difficult to see.

Another vid that made it through our rating system – Foilman’s ‘Final Pass’, a Halo PC montage. The man loves his rockets… This is available in WMP9 format (42.9 mb) or QuickTime format (34.4 mb). There are some rumblings on our forum this morning that the quality level of passed films is dropping a bit; I’d like to remind everyone that the system is still evolving. We just added a number of new reviewers, who may or may not have their ‘reviewing’ legs yet; and regardless of experience, with only 20% of our reviewers weighing in on any particular movie, the consistency of scores is going to drop a bit. We’ll probably compensate by raising the passing bar. Be patient – we’ll get there!

The Movie Peer Review Rating System continues to evolve; we’ve begun to add tips for movie makers, and you can find them on the Submitter FAQ page. A recently-passed vid came from MereCatFish, a member of the HBO Helljumpers clan. It’s basically a collection of stuff that amused him in-game; some of it is great, some is a bit… well, you’d laugh harder if you’d been there, I guess. My favorite part was a single in-game score screen that comes up around 5:11. 14 players, 13 are dead. And one has quit. It’s available in both WMP9 format (26.8 mb) and QuickTime format (21.9 mb) – thanks to Mythica for the hosting. (We’ll be releasing a couple of other vids today, so I thought I’d spread the love.)

B0ggyB sent us a note about his DeviantART site, which has a number of Halo-related items in its gallery:

• Arbiter sketch
• Elite model (made of blue tac)
• Drone variation
• Ze Arbiter

Go check it out!

Area 54, a Halo CE map we mentioned a little bit ago, has been released. You can read about it over at HaloMods, grab a copy from Halo Universe. Thanks, MasterGrief.

To the 42 million people sending us links about the Xbox360 and its leaked specs… thanks, but we’re not an Xbox site, we’re a Halo site. And while it’s likely that one (or more) versions of Halo will eventually RUN on this hardware, we’re not the place to bring you information about its wireless capabilities, or how big the hard drive is. If you really wanna know this stuff, and don’t know where to turn, try googling ‘Xbox360 specs’ or something. Thanks!

Video Gamers League has changed the rules for their tournaments; you can find the updated listing on the Rules page. (Check the Schedule page to see if one of the tourneys is near you.) Thanks, Jeff.

Still steamed about sniper jackals in Halo 2 campaign mode? Stuntmutt is, as evidenced by today’s One One Se7en.

w00tness has posted a new strip. Normally, Duo lets other people discover his work… but he was pretty proud of this one – so let him know what you think.

JSatt has released a standalone (Windows-based) app to organize your custom gametypes – it’s still in beta, but you can find more info and a download link in this forum post.

In the absense of any REAL information about a big-screen Halo movie (all the information ANYBODY has at this point was summed up in a February piece in Variety), How Stuff Works has posted ‘Halo: The Musical‘, a short piece explaining what they DON’T want to see happen. It’s just like a million forum posts out there – except it’s a 2-page article on a popular website. Thanks, Eric Smith.

A few weeks ago, we mentioned some movies made by the Praetoria Guard, a Halo 2 clan. Recently, they submitted their work to the Movie Peer Review Rating Service – not for hosting, but to obtain feedback so that they could make their works better. All four submissions passed, with flying colors – reviewers were (for the most part) happy with editing, voice acting, humor… if you haven’t seen these, give ’em a look! (If you downloaded them in mid-April, when we gave them a passing mention, they haven’t changed; you won’t see anything new.) They’ve got plenty of bandwidth, but if things get tight, we’re happy to help out. The four vids can be grabbed directly from their server:

• Video One – “Introduction”
• Video 1.5 – “Blooper Reel – Just Do It”
• Video Two – “Getting To Know You”
• Video 2.5 – “Blooper Reel 2 – Surprise Guest”

Enjoy!

A new work from Stephen Loftus – he’s put the Halo Covenant Dropship under his microscope, and taken a close look at its capabilities, with plenty of cool in-game visuals. Give it a read! (There’s more stuff in the queue for today, but it’s gonna have to wait – it’s Mother’s Day, after all, so it’s time to go pamper my kids’ mother. Enjoy the day!)

Bitter and dejected, Dev created a new comic strip to pour his unhappiness about Halo 2 into. The first few episodes aren’t very funny – but who knows, maybe it’ll get better?

Last Stand gets another episode – or at least another Informational Announcement. Get to know Inigo Montoya, up close and personal. Sort of.

Sixteen new pieces for you in the Fan Fiction section… they keep coming in! Go read.

Speaking of the MPRRS, two movies that have passed in the last couple of days are now ready for download. Spartan Smasher originally posted his Hpod Shuffle vid in our forum – when it passed our rating system, we put up another pair of links for it. (The originals, plus our mirrors – both WMP9 and QuickTime – can be found in the forum thread.) And VALENCEelectron sent us a trailer for a Halo movie – it uses cutscene video mixed with a soundtrack from the Sky Blue trailer to show you what a Halo big-screen vid could be like. Nice synching, for the most part, though some of the character choices are a bit odd. This is available in both WMP9 (18 mb) and QuickTime (18.4 mb) formats. Enjoy ’em both!