Narcogen, over at Rampancy.net, has written a piece looking at your options in terms of the new Downloadable Content announced yesterday. He suggests that the plan actually borders on common sense. (He means that in a GOOD way.)

On April 9, Xtournaments will be running a Halo2 2v2 tourney in Smithtown, NY – details can be found on this page. (They’re also running Gran Tourismo 4 Time trials for the Red Bull Driver Search on the same day – win a chance to race a real Formula 1 car!) If you live near New York City, check this out.

retsamolah has posted ‘Shameless Self-Promotion’, a montage vid in widescreen. 41.6 mb, QuickTime format. Not quite up to the machine-like standards of some of the pro players… but there are some nice kills. He’s listed a pair of mirrors in this post, and Hawk7886 added a third in this one. Gotta love Dire Straits soundtracks…

Over on the Bungie.net forums, Overswarm has been making a name for himself with a strategy guide, presented in forum posts, called ‘Not So Common Sense’. He came to us with a proposal – that he codify this guide, organize it, and that we give it a permanent home here at HBO. Seemed like a pretty reasonable idea – so look for his articles to begin appearing soon. To whet the appetite, he put together a teaser vid – you can grab a copy in WMP9 (8.2 mb) or QuickTime (7.2 mb) formats. Music is ‘Secret’, by Linkin Park.

Hawaiian Pig has revisited his RvB Set Pieces, with a new batch of 5 shots from recent episodes. Fun!

Phoenix_9286 posted an Informational Announcement for his Last Stand comic series, over on DeviantART. The Elites behind the characters…

Red Vs Blue have released episode 53, “Let’s Come To Order” for sponsors over at their site. Louis would have posted this, but he’s off monkeying around about somewhere.

WOW. If you’re a Halo action figure collector, you want to know about these guys – Out of Reach Constructions, an Australian firm specializing in Halo-themed display structures for your action figures. They ain’t cheap (the two existing structures are A$160 plus shipping and handling, with four new prototypes on the way)… but they’re beautiful. The site contains photos of the various models, plus info about the manufacturing process. I want! Thanks to Halo Planet for the heads-up on this.

William Vitka posted another piece today in his GameCore series about videogame violence – this one is a collection of email feedback he’s received on the rest of the articles. It’s interesting that more than one of the letters involve interaction with Jack Thompson, the lawyer who suggests that videogame violence drives our children to murder – and in each of those cases, polite requests for clarification were met with curses and vulgarity. Says a lot about the guy, doesn’t it? Go read!

Captain Spark has posted another four dozen dialogue snippets – you can grab them en masse on his website, or peruse them individually in our Dialogue Databank. Enjoy!

Clearly, of FAR more importance to anyone visiting this website than news of downloadable content is the fact that Stuntmutt has posted his 300th One One Se7en today. Do him a favor, and go read it. Update: As if it weren’t groanworthy enough…

Don’t forget – it was mentioned in the WWU, but in case you missed it, there are new screenshots available showing the first four levels of DLC in Bungie’s Screenshots section. We’ll be adding them to our own section in the not-too-distant future. I can’t wait to play Needler Warlock…

There’s a Special Edition Weekly What’s Update over at Bungie.net… and it’s focused on the Xbox Expansion Pack (information about which was leaked earlier this week). Some of the info out there was accurate (the fact that the Pack existed, for example) – some wasn’t. The truth: There ARE 9 maps. They WILL be available for purchase on disc, for $20. (Release date is late June.) The first two WILL be available for download, on Xbox Live, for free, in late April. Two more will be available the same day, for download, but won’t be free – they’ll cost $6 for the pair. The last 5 maps will be available for download on June 28 (same day that the disc will be available), for $12. Go read the full Weekly What’s Update for tons of info about the first four maps (including screenshots), as well as a bunch of questions (and answers) about why the release is happening this way. (There’s also an official press release on Xbox.com.) Update: I forgot a critical piece, for those who aren’t going to bother reading the Bungie-written stuff – ALL the maps will be free for download on XBL by the end of the summer. If you don’t want to pay, you can wait and get stuff for nothing. (Well, nothing past the cost of Live in the first place…) Update 2: MS’s PR army sent us a copy of the press release, too. You can see it here.

SS Crow sent us Reticula (Halo Mix), a ‘Techno-Trance-ISH mix of a few Halo 2 voice clips mixed with the power of Electronica!’ It’s 4:32 long, 8.3 mb… give it a listen!

We have a special Guest Calvin and Halo strip today, courtesy of Free at Last (with approval from Blackstar) – a stinging comment about the reaction to this week’s Halo 2 Expansion Pack news leak.

Wishing you could go to E3 this year, but not eligible to get in? Major Nelson mentions an Xbox.com contest; they’re giving away two free trips as an ‘Apprentice’. You must be a US resident, and 21 or older. There are some other rules – so go check ’em out! Thanks, Cybrfrk.

Halo Babies has a new strip today – ‘Very Punny‘ makes a grab for some One One Se7en territory. They’ve also got a news post about Joel ‘Gruntsbane’ Casebeer’s resume going online – with some cool artwork. Check it out!

Clearing out the Wallpaper queue… 19 images built up over a few weeks. A bunch of images from Demonic Spartan (if you like his style, you’ll be in heaven), plus lots of others. This one might be my favorite…

HALOChat has seen a need – and filled it. There’s a new section of the HALOChat website that lists all upcoming tournaments – at the moment, it contains only entries we’ve mentioned in our news, but I’m guessing that as word spreads, it has the potential to become a clearinghouse for Tournament announcements. Give it a looksee – and if you know of a tourney that’s not on the list… let ’em know!

Bluestone repurposed his website as a Halo blog, and has posted images showing his latest work on the (astoundingly long-in-production) Halo Flash Game he started… oh, sometime in 2003. Let him know what you think in his forum thread.