A bit more info on the New Zealand Halo 2 Battle tourney we mentioned last month – looks like the winners will not only represent NZ in the online Global Halo 2 tournament, but they’ll also compete in the Australasia heats of the World Cyber Games in Sydney, Australia – and if they win, will head to Singapore in November to compete on a world scale (prize purse this time around is half a million dollars, US). Check out this article at Thread for more details.

HaloMaps.org has put up Episode 8, For All Things a First, of the Halo CE Chronicles. The Spartan and the AI continue their search for the drop pod, but meet up with some trouble. Thanks, Dennis Powers.

Burly posted a note on our forum about a Halo1 and 2 montage he’s created; it’s available via BitTorrent. (At the moment, there are only a couple of seeds, so downloads may be slow until this picks up.) It’s six and a half minutes of clan play (you’ll see the same names over and over again) – lots of sniping, plenty of grenades. Minimal (if any) effort put into timing the gameplay with the music; basically, it’s just footage, with a soundtrack. I’m posting this because we’ve been lobbied (by forum and email) to do so, and because the bandwidth cost to us is zero – but once the new movie notification system goes into place, we’ll have to pass on vids like this. (Note: I’m not saying ‘don’t watch this’ – I’m saying ‘this is like 80% of other montages out there’. If you like montages, download this.)

Man… the things that can fill your inbox. You wouldn’t BELIEVE how much mail we got (and even more surprising, the variety of email addresses people thought it would be appropriate to send this news TO) about the Halo 2 add-on rumors circulating around the internet right now. Frankie said last night in his Weekly What’s Update that they’d have an official statement next week, but that some of the info floating around is actually WRONG – so be careful what you believe. You can go read what the big boys think about all this stuff, though – Gamespot and IGN both have articles up, and so do many smaller gaming websites. This news post serves as notice that we’ve acknowledged the rumors exist – and that we’re going to keep mum on the subject until there’s something official from the only people who really know what’s going on… Bungie. You can stop mailing us about this stuff. Thanks!

A small but informative update this week, over on Bungie.Net. An announcement about a big announcement about DLC, specific info on upcoming cheat and bug fixes, some humonguous stats, and a pretty sad Mister Chief. Like that’s any different. Check it out!

Took us long enough – but the first four chapters of Halo 2, in transcript form, are now up on the Halo Story page. (Look down the left navbar for them. Thanks, Apeman and mnemesis!) If anyone feels up to transcribing other levels (and can convince our Story page crew that they’ll do a competent job), feel free to contact them. (Do NOT transcribe stuff without contacting them first; you might find that someone else already did the level you worked so hard on, so that all that work is for naught.) We’re slow… but we’ll get there. Eventually.

More good machinima for you today – Stryke Force Episode 4 has been released. If you haven’t seen this series, grab the earlier episodes first. (If you live in Great Britain, think about picking up Xbox World magazine – the cover discs will be including hi-res (DVD-quality) versions for the forseeable future; Episode 1 is on the April disc.) Ep 4 is called ‘Operation Ninja, and has Murphy and Feenix rushing in to rescue Camz… but running into a bit of trouble on the way. We’ve provided mirrors for this film that haven’t made it onto their Videos page yet – we’re offering both the WMP9 (25.4 mb, mythica.org | bungie.org) and a QuickTime version (22 mb, bungie.org | mythica.org). Grab your favorite flavor! Update: Their video page is updated. Visit for all mirrors.

It’s been a little while since w00tness had Halo content in it… but it does again. Thnaks to Chris Cantrall for noticing. (Comic-Trocity!)

Not too long ago, we got email from Tim Leyk (brother to one of our favorite artists) about a movie a friend of his, Fireb0rn, of RAWR Productions, had put together. It’s the story of a lone Spartan defending Zanzibar against impossible odds; camerawork is great, the musical choice fits perfectly, and the story (though short) will hook you. Everything machinima should be doing. The vid is called 117, and is available in several flavors:

Hi-res, QuickTime (640×480, 31.2 mb): bungie.org | mythica.org
Hi-res, WMP9 (640×480, 31.7 mb): mythica.org | bungie.org
Lo-res, QuickTime (320×240, 11.9 mb):bungie.org | mythica.org
Lo-res, WMP9 (320×240, 13.2 mb): mythica.org | bungie.org

Whew! Enjoy.

Looks to me like Stuntmutt’s got his hands on another game – check out today’s One One Se7en. (Comic-Tacular!)

Captain Spark put up another twenty dialogue snippets yesterday; on his own website, they’re now available for individual download, or you can search for particular text in our Dialogue Databank. (Current volume of Halo 2 dialogue: 853 snippets.)

Xbox.com has posted a page advertising the Ultimate Halo Freak contest. It’s open only to US residents 18 or older – write a snippet, 250 words or less, about why you’re the freakiest of the Halo freaks, and if you win, go home with a bundle of Halo schwag. Sounds easy! Thanks, altodarknight.

Comic Number Two for the day: Halo Babies hits the magical 77 strips with the third in their three-part series about Bungie Fundamentals. You know, I’d completely forgotten about Muro…

Today’s Penny Arcade answers the nasty beatdown the PA boys took from Bungie’s harsh Humpday challengers… sort of. The news writeup is pretty funny, too. Looks like Recoil was the first to find it.

He’s baaack…

Blackstar sent in a new Calvin and Halo for your viewing pleasure – and he brings up a very good point. I’ve wondered myself…

There’s a blow-by-blow writeup of the StK-x6 championship match at the MLG event in Houston last weekend over at the MLGPro.com website. Interesting read! Thanks, 3Suns.

Wow… now I’ve seen everything. There’s an article in the Christian Post about using Halo 2 to get the word out about Christianity.

“Jesus came to this planet to save the planet from a group much worse than the Covenant (the aliens) and from a fate much worse than physical death.”

… I don’t know what to say.

Well, just the song, actually. Back in July, 2003, Eric Vogt set Halo gameplay to Tenacious D’s Wonderboy, a wonderfully overmelodramatic ballad about Wonderboy and Nastyman. (A working link to that movie can be found in our movies section.) Today, markhamx2 posted a note on our forum about a new vid, filmed in Halo 2 on Coagulation this time, set to the same song. They did a great job with it – we’ve put up local mirrors (19.6 mb, mythica.org | bungie.org) for the existing WMP9, so you don’t have to use that Rapidshare link, and re-encoded it to QuickTime, as well (14.6 mb, bungie.org | mythica.org) for those who can’t use Windows Media Player. Always enjoyable to see Halo action wedded to funny songs!

Jillybean took time out from pub-crawling to rummage through the Halo Story Page mailbag – go read what she found.