Overswarm has submitted a sizeable amount of new content for his Not So Common Sense Halo Strategy Guide:

• Advanced Combat Techniques (main page) gets some basic info about what comes out of guns, and how to use this info.
• A Warthog Guide, discussing the main types of hog available, and what’s important about each.
• A new movie – Advanced Vehicle Techniques – Warthog – intended to supplement the written guide.
• Several new questions added to the FAQ

Go read it all!

MLG posted a roundup of the FFA portion of MLG Orlando yesterday afternoon – congrats to K 2the Arma and Tsquared for taking first and second. (Team StK has changed its name to Team 3D, and none of its members made it past the semi-final round of the FFA tourney… but they’ve got a fourth place seed in today’s pool play.) Thanks to Quinion for the heads-up.

Ender Illes followed up his first post about Luke Timmins’ Halo presentation at the University of Utah with a second one – this one focused on the maps coming out in June. (No, there’s no info about Backwash here – Bungie’s doing a good job of keeping that one out of the public eye. The other four, however, are detailed nicely, though without pictures.) Go read!

Looks like Artpad-based art might be making a comeback on our forum – Evolved posted this image, and this one, recently. (Some visitors might remember the last craze, a few months ago.) Good stuff!

The Bungie Store has put up a new, limited edition (500 copies) print of the very cool Master Chief and Arbiter image created by Craig Mullins (you can find an early version of the picture in our Mullins gallery). 8×10, $25 – just like the last one. Get ’em before they’re gone! Thanks, Desolation33.

A couple of days ago, a rumor started somehow that Bungie was going to reset your XBL Friends list in the near future. Not only is this ridiculous (Bungie has no control over your Friends list; only Xbox Live can do that), Frankie has specifically denied that Bungie has any interest in doing so. Please, for the sanity of everyone on your list, STOP sending messages to them telling them that they’re going to lose your name. (They MIGHT, if you don’t stop messaging them… but it won’t be Bungie’s fault.)

This one’s a bit… different. Many of you probably enjoy the artwork of Tina Leyk; she does some spectacular stuff, and has been inspiring Halo artists for quite some time now. Unfortunately, she’s hit some rather rough times, personally – so we’re hoping the Halo community might be able to help out. I’ve put up a small page where, if you’d like to help her out, you can contribute via Paypal. The account this goes to belongs to her brother, Tim. (Bungie.org plays no role here except facilitator; the money is going straight to the Leyks.) If you’ve enjoyed Tina’s work in the past, and would like to see her in a position to create more, please consider chipping in! Every little bit helps. Thanks!

Wow. Guess yesterday was a vacation day around here… sorry about the lack of news. First up: Red vs Blue released the fourth (and last) of their new map walktrhroughs – the WMP9 versions (high and low res) can both be found on their video downloads page; all are open to the public. We’ve also put up hi-res (15.9 mb) and lo-res (4.1 mb) QuickTime versions, for those that would rather use that. And it seems that the lo-res Sanctuary version I mentioned yesterday never actually got uploaded; it’s there now. Apologies.

The movies continue today… this one comes from Lt Tuma, who’s shown his ability to put existing clips together in the past. He calls this one ‘Halo 3 Trailer’ – the majority is already-released footage, but it is interspersed with plenty of well-chosen recorded pieces, and the audio is FANTASTIC. To me, this is a demonstration that a creative flair can make ANY footage work. (The second half is REALLY well-done.) The film is 480×360, and available in both QuickTime (21 mb, bungie.org | mythica.org) or WMP9 (21.6 mb, mythica.org | bungie.org). Grab the flavor of your choice, and check it out. It’s full of both Halo 1 and Halo 2 spoilers – just so you know.

Rockslider has worked out reproducible ‘Elite Fireworks‘ for the original Halo – this has been seen before, but now there’s a recipe. Fun stuff!

Eep – dontcha hate it when you set something up to make things easier and faster, and it works, and you STILL screw up? On April 20, The7ftman submitted “Star Wars Episode VII The Final Battle”, a trailer for an upcoming movie his clan is working on, to the Movie Peer Review Rating System. 9 hours later, the requisite number of reviewers had seen and rated the film, and the overall score was good enough to pass. Now it’s almost 3 days after THAT, and the film still hasn’t been released. (My fault, entirely.) Pretty short – but then, it’s just a trailer. Available in WMP9 format (10.1 mb) and QuickTime format (9 mb). While we’re on the subject of the MPRRS, I should mention that Cybrfrk has been working on the information available here; he’s updated the “How this tool works” page, the FAQ, and streamlined the front page, maximizing info in minimum space. Poke around – and submit your files! Don’t let my slowness discourage you.

As expected, Red vs Blue has released both a high-res and a low-res version of their Sanctuary Walkthrough for the public, in WMP9 format – we’ve also put up a high-res (12.3 mb) and a low-res (3.2 mb) version in QuickTime. Enjoy.

Ender Illes also attended Luke Timmins’ presentation at the University of Utah, and wrote up a bit more detailed synopsis on our forum. Sounds like a great talk from Luke, and thanks to Ender for the detailed info (at least as much as he was comfortable sharing)! 😉

Over at Red vs Blue, you’ll find (if you’re a sponsor) high and low-res WMP9 versions of their Sanctuary walkthrough. I’d guess later tonight, or maybe tomorrow morning, these will be available to the masses. We’ll have QuickTime versions up sometime tomorrow morning, as well. (No time to work on ’em tonight, sorry.)

The Weekly What’s Update is up over at Bungie.net – info about the upcoming maps, info about why you got banned from XBL this week, info about the leaderboards reset. And oh, yeah, a Mister Chief drawing that makes Leonardo cry. (And I don’t mean the ninja turtle.)

Ooh… cool. Promotheus just pointed out that the new maps are visible on Bungie.net’s stats page, in all their multi-view splendor; you just need to find someone who’s been playing them. Like, say… Shishka. Visit his stats page, click on any game tied to a new map, and bring up the Game Viewer… you’ll see the maps laid out in full. W00T!

{SS}Zag1 attended Luke Timmins’ talk at the University of Utah last night – and posted a brief summary on our forum. Sounds like it would have been a nice thing to see!

Last month’s OXM cover disc contained a pretty entertaining Mockumentary about Conker, the squirrel star of Conker’s Bad Fur Day and and the new Conker, Live and Reloaded. There’s a cameo by Marty O’Donnell, and some other Halo-related content. If you don’t get the magazine, though, you can still watch the movie – it’s up over at Gametrailers.com. Thanks to I)aemonicus for the heads-up.

Shishka has posted yet another 3D screenshot over at Bungie.net – this one is on Turf. Shishka manages to win a Pyrrhic victory by nuking EVERYONE – but oh, it’s so beautiful. (He also made a new forum avatar that would drive me out of my mind, if I read the bungie.net forums for any length of time.)

The Stryke Force team has put up Episode 5: “Guerillas in the Midst”. Twists, turns, and an executioner I’d love to hire. They’ve got the original WMP9 up on their Videos page, and it’s been mirrored at HaloMachinima.com (thanks, trigger119). I’ve also converted it to QuickTime, and made both versions available here: WMP9 (25.9 mb, mythica.org | bungie.org), QuickTime (22.9 mb, bungie.org | mythica.org). Go watch!