Rocketwidget pointed out a couple of new images; one is a small screenshot that can be seen on the EB Games page devoted to Halo 2 LE (it’s a shot of the MC boarding a ghost being driven by a White Elite), and the second is over at GameWallpapers.com; it’s an ‘Exclusive for Registered Users’ image ($14.95/year), a preview can be seen here. He found both of these over at the Xbox365 forum.

Thanks a million to SketchFactor, who managed to find the pictures of last year’s finalists for the Bungie.net Halo-ween contest (the inspiration for our very own 343 Guilt O’ Lantern contest). You can see these – and maybe get some ideas – in our Guilt O’ Lantern section.

There’s a new video from Ms Man – a whole series of funky glitches and tricks. 12:44 long, 14 mb, WMP9 format. Some really cool stuff in there. You can find a link to it in this forum post – if bandwidth runs out, drop us a note, we’ll put up a copy.

The big news this weekend was a leaked commercial shown at an annual meeting of EB Games Store Managers, and filmed on the sly by one of the participants. Quality is AWFUL, but the content has been enough to galvanize Halo (and general Xbox) forums all over the web. It’s clearly not out there with the blessing of those who made it, so I’m not going to post a link on the front page, but there are literally dozens of posts on our own forum with links to this small video, and other sites have put up mirrors for it; if you want to see this, finding it should be trivial. If you’re one of those who thought that the new alien information in the most recent magazine articles was ‘Spoiler’ material, DO NOT WATCH THIS VIDEO. As far as I know, this was intended to be released to the public sometime in the next few weeks (close to the end of October). This is NOT the video Frankie alluded to in Friday’s Weekly Bungie Update – that is something totally different. If we get more info about this commercial, we’ll be sure to pass it along.

Dang. Fury Three has updated his around-the-net collection of Halo Lego links – there’s a lot of stuff out there! Check ’em out.

Blackstar noticed that his local EB Games was on the list of stores planning to open at midnight on the 9th – but calling the store itself gave him a different answer. Contacting EB Games directly yielded the info that stores can decide whether or not they’ll be open; your best bet is to call your store before heading out there.

IGN has decided to prepare for Halo 2 by posting Halo 2 content every day until release. The first article is ‘Ten Things To Do While Waiting for Halo 2‘. It’s pretty much as silly as it sounds. (There’s also an article about the Halo 2 soundtrack, but most of it is the explanation Marty posted on our forum, and then later again on The Marty Army chapter of the 7th Column.)

ZigZag Master points out that The Art of Halo entry at Random House has been updated; the cover is up, and a description of the contents is now available. It should be out in the next 4 weeks or so.

The dirtyJ (among other people) passed along info about HaloImpulse, a new Halo CE website. There’s lots of content – but what attracted my attention was an interview with Randy Pitchford. Once again, Mr. Pitchford explains where Gearbox sits with regard to support of Halo PC and Halo CE, and where he thinks the games sit in the overall field of PC-based FPS titles. No matter where you stand on the issue, it’s an interesting read. While you’re there, look around the site – there’s some nice stuff there.

To the four thousand people who sent us email about the Slurpee Prophet voice not actually being a prophet… yep, it’s true. Whoever built that site actually took their audio content from OUR Dialogue Databank – that ‘Prophet’ clip is actually a Jackal, slowed down and reversed, and it was submitted by Patrick Naedele back in December 2003. Likewise, the clip you hear for the Master Chief was submitted by Captain Spark in July 03, and the Grunt clip came in in September. The Elite clip actually comes from Bungie.net‘s Dialogue Archive, not ours. (Again – these aren’t SIMILAR clips – they’re the SAME clips.) Yes, I should have noticed the Jackal voice yesterday. Sorry. No, this doesn’t mean that we’ve actually heard a prophet speak. Sorry.

The weekly update isn’t what folks expected – but it will be… just a few days later than we thought. Look for it on Monday. In the meantime, enjoy a rockin’ new screenshot and an entertaining explanation from Frankie on our forum.

MrFluffyPants has turned in a writeup of the Crisp Death lanfest last weekend – you can find it (with pictures and everything) over at the Junkyard. Extra bonus – no pics of me. 🙂

There’s more new wallpaper for you – this time, at the Win It Before You Can Buy It Halo 2 Sweepstakes page at Mountaindew.com. Hit the ‘Downloads’ link at the top of the page, you can grab shots of the Chief, Grunts, Prophets, and Elites – and when you drag them into the display box, they speak. It’s the first time we’re hearing a Prophet voice… First heads-up goes to modified.

Well, the Wallpaper section has now been moved over to nikon, as well; there are still a couple of minor display glitches, but nothing that will really affect your viewing pleasure. This means I can finally start clearing out some of the desktop images sent to us in the past couple of weeks; you’ll find 10 new ones up and posted. There are some really nice ones this time around!

Hehe – rule number one about trolling: know your audience. thunderhawk555 (who’s been around our forum for quite a while, but just today earned his Trolling stripes), posted a note purporting to contain information from the upcoming EGM issue (due out to subscribers soon, and on store shelves by the 14th or so). In it, he discusses a gametype that many people have proposed over the years – and describes how Frankie tells the EGM guys all about it. Folks were drooling… until Frankie himself stepped in and stomped – HARD – on both the rumor, and the fact that it was included in EGM. Hehe – and now it looks like thunderhawk555 was simply parroting information he found on the XBLGamers forum (a host for multiple false rumors) – and passing it off as his own! Moral of the story: if you’re going to make stuff up, make sure you’re doing it in a place where folks can’t fact-check you.

Here’s one I’ve never seen before – a Halo fan has whipped up a watercolor (seems to be inspired by this screenshot), framed it, and put it up on eBay. Starting bid is £5. (The artist is in the UK.) Makes you wonder… you think Microsoft might step in at some point? Comments can be left for the artist in this forum thread.

whoknew spent a couple of weeks modifying his Xbox – nice results!

Glorp. I already pointed out I can be careless with regular updates – I almost forgot today’s One One Se7en. Which would have been really sad, because this one is quite funny.

15 new pieces added to the Fan Fiction database today… see what you can find!

Mothergoat filled us in on the details of the contest mentioned earlier – write up the details of what makes you the biggest Halo fan ever, and you could end up in a big news story on Lawrence.com. The best writeup will winn a copy of Halo 2. Full details can be found on Mothergoat.net.