The next “Game With Fame” Challenge on Xbox Live is coming up on April 22 – this Friday. You’ll have the chance to play against Dan Cody, All-American defensive end from the University of Oklahoma. More details can be found in the official press release.

In honor of the Auto-Update that’s shown up today, Stuntmutt looks at some of the improvements to gameplay in today’s One One Se7en.

Whoa… be careful. Frankie writes,

If you have a hacked game save/profile, do NOT sign into Live with it after the update. You’ll be banned. Delete it, or don’t sign into Live.

You’ve been warned! (It’s unclear whether this means JUST the hacked saves that let you cheat, or ALL hacked saves – for now, you’re safer if you remove ALL of them – after backing them up, of course.)

Gotfrag, a site aimed at competitive gaming, has reopened its Halo 2 coverage with new staff and no fewer than 7 new articles. Swing by and read some! (Older Halo 2 material requires a Gotfrag Prime account, but these should be available to everyone.)

• Lil Poison: Superkid or Jedi Knight?
• Check Six: Dedicated to Dominance
• As the Lines Blur: Controller vs Keyboard/Mouse
• Pro Style Playlists in H2: a Possibility, or Wishful Thinking?
• Trick Jumping: An Underrated Edge
• MLG Online League Preview
• Is Professional Gaming Here to Stay?

The Lil Poison article is great! (They’re all well-written, actually, but I loved seeing the info on the 6-year-old wonder.) Thanks, James Schneider.

Yesterday afternoon, I saw a news post on the front page of High Impact Halo which pointed to this forum thread there. choroboy managed to bring a pair of Hunters into the Control Room on Great Journey – and it’s astounding how poorly they do against Tartarus’ hammer. I didn’t post these yesterday, because the movies were hosted on putfile and rapidshare, and i didn’t want to make people suffer unduly… but I’ve localized them, and Ducain was kind enough to add the local links to the thread, so go grab ’em! Getting the Hunters in is pretty darn cool in itself – but the outcome of the Hunter/Tartarus fight is amazing; I’m guessing there’s some special weakness there.

For all the people checking every 10 seconds or so to see if the Auto-Update has been released… word is that you won’t see it BEFORE about 9 am PST (4 pm GMT), and (if the WWU was accurate) maybe not right then, either (since they’re going to try and spread the bandwidth load over time). Patience…

Halogen, the C&C Generals Halo Total Conversion, has put up a trailer for the mod; it’s pretty high-quality. There’s only a little bit of actual game footage… but it’s pretty cool stuff! Comes in multiple flavors (and I sent along some mirror links, to help with the bandwidth) – go grab one and check it out!

Ross Mills pointed out a website called ‘Video Game Pianist‘ – it’s some really nice piano work focused on (wait for it) video game music. There’s a really nice version of the Halo 2 Theme (Mjolnir Mix) – but the only way to get it on the website is to download an entire CD’s worth of video game music (70 mb or so). This may appeal to many of you (almost certainly DOES appeal to many of you)… but it’s overkill for those who just want to hear the Halo piece. We’ve gotten permission from Martin Leung, the Video Game Pianist, to host the theme here; 2.7 mb, MP3 format. If you like what you hear, explore the site!

Wave of Lag pointed out a thread at the Gearbox forums devoted to a new HaloCE map called ‘H2-Prime’… looks pretty fun! Check out the pics (and there are some small vids farther along in the thread).

Art Vandelay recorded some of last week’s Halo Humpday Challenge between High Impact Halo and Bungie, on XBL; I thought the third game was pretty interesting to watch. Remember; you’re seeing this entirely from a single player’s viewpoint, with no editing; It’s not nearly as exciting as it would have been had multiple people recorded the game and then had the final product edited together… but it SHOULD give you a sense for how both teams played. (You’ll see that Sketch’s writeup is… um, less than accurate (It’s HIH that scores first), and there’s a hilarious sequence starting at around 4:20 or so – were I to give it a title, it would probably be ‘Duck Hunt’.) The game was Neutral Flag CTF on Colossus with Snipers, and the vid is 9:05 long, weighing in at 33.3 mb. You can grab it in WMP9 format (mythica.org | bungie.org) or QuickTime format (bungie.org | mythica.org) – nice stuff!

The DJ, of Halo Impulse, sent us more links for the Team GaG vid from yesterday – these have been rar-compressed, but otherwise are unchanged from the versions we posted. We’re lovin’ the community help!
WMP9 Hi-Res | WMP9 Lo-Res | QT Hi-Res | QT Lo-Res
Enjoy!

A small trick movie made its way through our Peer Review process – and passed; we’re gonna let it go this time, because it’s pretty small, and has a neat trick, but we need to remind both submitters and reviewers that this system is NOT for trick vids; there are better places for those. That said, check out Fushiko’s Bomb-sticking vid – WMP9 format, 3.3 mb.

Captain Spark posted another 62 dialogue snippets on his website; we’ve added them to the Dialogue Databank. There’s some good stuff in there – including a Marathon reference (well, a Carlito’s Way reference, I suppose, but it was a Marathon level title), and some pretty funny quotes.

Nirvana has posted a bunch of mirrored movies on his HaloVids site – check this forum post for the list!

There are a couple of important news items over at MLGPro.com for folks who play in their tournaments. The first points out that having the MLG Online League actually start competition the night the auto-update comes out might cause some headaches… so they’ve pushed the leagues back a week for folks to get used to the changes. (Thanks, Clan Fire When Ready.) The second warns anyone heading to MLG Orlando next week to NOT allow the Auto Update onto their Xbox, since the update will NOT be supported at the tournament. (All SUBSEQUENT tourneys will use it – but this one is so close that it seemed unreasonable to expect folks to change their playstyle overnight.) For practicing between Monday and the 23rd, they suggest XBox Connect. Wow… makes me glad I’m not organizing this stuff!

Wow… this is a little weird, I think. ManKitten found an ad in American Funeral Director, a publication for the mortuary industry, promoting a product to help you remember your loved one for the important things in their life… and the example they put together involves Halo 2. Go check out the picture.

Team Tabula Rasa has a new ‘Making of a Spartan‘ column – this one is called ‘The Art of Controller Tossing’. (Well, it’s really about goals, and managing your anger in ways that don’t involve destruction of property… but the subtitle is funnier.) This is all about what the author did to move away from a plateau he’d reached in online play. Thanks to crazyc33 for pointing it out on our forum.

Team GAG created a documentary-type vid called ‘Sex, Drugs, and Halo Pros, Part 1’, an 8-minute condensed view of the team’s road trip from Chicago to Houston to participate in the MLG tournament that took place there in March. Three guys, a car, a video camera, and a pro Halo tourney… it’s a lot of fun to watch. Heads-up for those just looking for gameplay footage; part one covers getting to the tourney itself; there’s very little gameplay at all.) If you visit their website, you’ll find download links for hi-res (640×480, 73.3 mb) and low-res (320×240, 30.6 mb) WMP9 versions of this video. ConorOberst has mirrored the hi-res version – and to that we add our own mirrors (hi-res WMP9, mythica.org | bungie.org, low-res WMP9, bungie.org | mythica.org) and a QuickTime version, as well (hi-res, 59 mb, bungie.org | mythica.org, and low-res, 29 mb, mythica.org | bungie.org). This puppy’s pretty big; if you have bandwidth to spare, put up a copy, and send us a link; we’ll add it to this post! Update: Thanks to Feenix, who’s added all four versions to the collection at That Weasel Television. Update 2: trigger119 writes to say that the two hi-res versions can be found on HaloMachinima.com.

We have two different montages for you today; both are in QuickTime format, both are very high-quality, video-wise, and both are nicely timed by their creators. Both are available (for now) only via BitTorrent. The first is from pushbak, and is called ‘Defense‘. It’s 500×300, 4:08 long, and weighs in at 35.1 mb. The second is from FuzzySmurf, and is called ‘Savior‘. It’s 640×480, 5:07 long, and weighs in at 62.2 mb. That’s 100 MB of montage goodness. If you like montages, check these two out!

3Suns uncovered an article posted a few months ago at HaloMods – it’s a piece on ‘Game-environment creation’, and contains some of the thoughts that should go into level development; it’s a good read for anyone interested in the idea of building a playable level. If someone asks you “why is there a catwalk up there?” and you can’t answer them… maybe it doesn’t belong.