Hogmasta would like folks to know about his new montage, ‘Away’ – he’s chosen not to submit it to the Movie Peer Review Rating System, so you can find it on Savefile.com. I found the video was timed well to the audio… but the rapid cuts made my head hurt. You may easily disagree. 33.7 mb, WMP9 format.

prometheus writes to point out that the Halouvre has been updated with a bunch of Halo 1 and Halo 2 HUDless shots. Go check ’em out!

Sector 7 is worried you might not understand how to ‘teabag’ – so they’ve made a video (QuickTime, 4.3 mb, live-action) to make it clear.

Treeskunk Productions has posted Episode 6 of Outpost: Coagulation. They’re hosting it themselves, and Halomachinima.com has a mirror as well. 7:07 long, 39.3 mb, WMP9 format. Purple spaghetti? (Nice chase scene.) Update: Dennis Powers has mirrored the film, as well, and created a QuickTime version (43.7 mb), at movies.gearboxgamezone.com.

Bungie has posted another weekly Halo 2 tourney roundup – go see what’s happening near you!

Nirvana is trying to set up a gamertag database that keeps track of gametypes enjoyed – you can see it on his website. There’s a forum post with more information.

Captain Spark posted another batch of dialogue snippets on his website yesterday – they’re now in searchable form in our Dialogue Databank. Elites and Grunts, this time around.

Michael M. was vacationing in Australia, and ran across a hotel that looked familiar.

HunterXL points out a Halo 2 mod from TheTykoMan, part of the 7th Sanctum modding clan. Looks like he’s managed to bring together a LOT of marines and either sword-wielding or beam-rifle-wielding enemies… if you’ve got a modded box, and you want to get into a pretty big battle in single player, check this out! (Pics and a video are linked in the HaloMods forum thread.)

There’s a Team Slayer tournament at Cal Poly Pomona on May 13, sponsored by MLG – more details are in this news post. Thanks, 3Suns.

Another ‘Game with Fame’ opportunity – the band Goldfinger will be online on Sunday, May 1. You can find full details in the official press release.

Today’s Weekly What’s Update is posted over at Bungie.net – and it focuses mostly on the new playlists, due to be in place on Xbox Live late next week. There are a bunch of changes made to decrease the effect ‘griefers’ (folks who play mostly to make OTHERS miserable) have on games, and also some style changes. There’s also info about the stats reset coming soon, as well as questions left over from the recent Auto-Update and the Downloadable Content release this week. And (and this is WHOLLY unnecessary) a Mister-Chief-painted Scion. Well, on second thought… I don’t really like Scions. So… yeah.

Today’s One One Se7en will make more sense… soon.

Some interesting stuff going on in the HaloCE world… Halohoger has released a trailer for his upcoming Area 54 – you can grab it at HaloMods. And jahrain is working on a mod that remakes a village from ‘The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time’ – pics are up on the Gearbox forums. Thanks to MasterGrief for letting us know about both of these.

Mothergoat is trying to compile a list of gamers that enjoy objective games, but aren’t obnoxious Live-users. If you’re interested, read his post, visit his forum, add your name.

Twelve new pieces for you today in the Fan Fiction section – go read!

Matt Scalcione points out that HaloTournies.com is running a free tournament on Monday, May 2. Winning prize is a $35 EBGames gift certificate. More details can be found on the site.

DSmooth writes to point out that 2old2play.com has set up a new service whereby you have access to lots of information if you link your gamertag on the site; a Friends list, wireless Friends list, stats integration, and more! Check out all the details.

Wow. This is a little off-topic… but not really. I’ve spent the morning running some tests with QuickTime 7, and the new H.264 codec. It blows away EVERYTHING I’ve used up to this point – I’m seriously considering making it the new ‘default’ QuickTime codec for HBO-released movies. (QuickTime 7 is a free download for all, though if you use QT6 Pro, you’ll have to pay for a new Pro license.) This is mostly a heads-up.

Lionhead Studios, creators of Black & White and Black and White 2, has put up a page with questions and answers for the developers about the making of B&W 2. If you scroll down to the section entitled ‘Blooming and Trees’, you’ll see that the inspiration for this technique came straight from the original Halo. Nice! Thanks, HookMeUpImLocal.