mrsmiley writes to point out a couple of fan strips and a whole lot of fan artwork over at Halo Babies; go see what you can find.

Looks like a LOT of movies were released yesterday; I’m gonna combine ’em all in one post for efficiency’s sake.

• Boneho Chane and Lockpicker made a movie with action figures (not stop-action) called ‘Chicken on Fire Episode 1’ – 15 mb, QuickTime format.
• toyoungtodie posted a vid called ‘Halo 2 Remix’ on the High Impact Halo forums; it uses stock footage, but it’s nicely put together. Large version (12.2 mb) requires registration at h2hq.cc, smaller version (7 mb) is hosted by Mythica. WMP9 formats. (Thanks, Ducain)
• vshields ash points out another refinement of the hunterapult-across-the-shaft technique; this one uses only a single grenade. 2.2 mb, WMP90 format. Nice work, Wild3.
• scabbronumber1 put up a note about his clan’s newest vid; 8.5 mb, WMP9 format, some really great sniper action.
• And last but CERTAINLY not least, FTC 14 has been released over at Xboxottawa.ca; public version is 39.6 mb, members-only hi-res is 165 mb. 6:03 of pulse-pounding excitement, and a heck of a cliffhanger at the end. Both are DivX-encoded AVIs – I’ll get them some QT versions as soon as I can.

Wow… that’s a lot of video footage!

Wow. I’m not sure how… but it looks like Xboxyde has gotten hold of (a mediocre version of) the very first E3/Zanzibar vid released. This is the vid that the 20 seconds of hi-res gameplay was cut from during E3 itself. This one’s only 320×240, and a bit dark and blurry… but it’s 20 minutes long, and 72 mb large, in DivX-encoded AVI format. The Download page at Xboxyde has a direct link (this one’s hard to get) and a BitTorrent link (a much better bet). Thanks, Carlos Castillo.

11 new stories for you in the Fan Fiction section today… go read!

Recoil found a really nice closeup of the Kubrick Master Chief (from the Tokyo Game Show) on this Italian site. I want one!

Hehe – Devin Olsen decided to try to cross the Shaft gap… without a warthog, and with only two grenades. Oh, yeah… and a Hunter. He made it. Watch the vid and smile. (3.9 mb, WMP9 format, hosting courtesy of Brian’s new Mythica Uploads server. Which, btw, rocks, and now works with b.net forums and HaloPlanet forums. Ka-bam.) Update: QuickTime added – see original forum post.

IGN has put up 4 new vids containing shakeycam (but very high-quality shakeycam) footage of Zanzibar gameplay at the Tokyo Game Show. These show better gameplay than the rather lame Warthog driving footage they posted yesterday. In actuality, there are really only 3 new clips; those marked ‘3’ and ‘4’ are the same clip. (It does end, however, with an awesome energy-sword death; worth watching twice, I guess.) The heads-up for these came from HaloPlanet.

Nice pickup by nash–housewares… in the final TGS picture displayed by Impress, Frankie is playing split-screen… but the screen is split side-to-side, rather than up-and-down! I missed this entirely, but it’s going to come as a welcome change to widescreen tv owners.

Interesting. There’s a forum thread over at Bungie.net in which a fan visited the website of the company that does the sculpture for the Halo 2 action figures for Joyride. In the Halo 2 section, he found a new, never-before-seen creature… is this a mistake? Did the sculpting company put up something they shouldn’t have yet? Is this picture in the wrong section of the website? It’s a mystery… all I can really tell you is that if you really, really don’t want ANY chance of being spoiled for ANY part of the Halo 2 storyline, don’t follow the link. Past that… you got me. (Please don’t post this image in our forum – and if you discuss it, do so with obvious *SP* tags in your subject line. Thanks.) Kudos to Brian Finney for pointing this out to us, and to opsixdelta for finding it.

Arkangel06 got a chance to play the E3 build of Zanzibar, as well as Waterworks and Lockout from the beta; he’s written up his impressions in a long post on our forum. Give it a read!

GhaleonbEB found some nice pics taken at the Tokyo Game Show yesterday; they were linked to on the Gaming Age forums, but they were actually posted on the Japanese site Impress. Great, high-quality shots of Frankie playing Ascension (the new map depicted in yesterday’s screenshots), which show clearly the HUD as it stands in this build, as well as closeups of the Chibi Master Chief (labeled ‘Kubrick’ below the display case; it’s clearly NOT made of Legos, as many are postulating). Check ’em out!

Goatrope continues his quest to blow people away in Vidmaster style… he’s completed 343 Guilty Spark, Legendary Difficulty, taking zero shots, and dying zero times. The movie is 11:44 long, in DivX-encoded AVI format, and 32.6 mb large. Nice humility, even. All I can say is… wow. (I’m really, really impressed that he didn’t instinctively pull his AR’s trigger a few times in the helmetcam room…)

Konrad, a regular at HBO Junkies’ lanfests, has recreated some memorable scenes from events held here over the years, in Megabattle style. (If you’ve forgotten – or never learned – what a Megabattle pic is all about, just search our news.) Now, you might not have any real context for the moments themselves (most people reading this have never been to a lanfest here), but the pics are pretty cool in their own right. Check ’em out!

Brian Towne, of Mythica.org, has made an astoudingly generous offer tonight; if you have a file that you need hosted – an image, a small movie (under 8 mb), whatever – that you want to post on either our forums or the High Impact Halo forums… just upload them onto his new server. There are no limits on quantity; you can upload as many files as you want, and you’ll never be cut off for overuse of bandwidth. However, you can’t cross-post these files on other forums, or on your own personal site; they won’t actually load. You can read the full details in Brian’s forum post; never again will you run into a situation where you have a picture you want to show to the forum but no place to put it!

When the two new screens were released today, there was a bit of talk on our forum about how cool it was that the scope on the sniper showed what you were looking at. BOLL, never one to leave you feeling like you were missing something, decided to give you a chance to try it out – today. Check out this forum post…

David Bikki points out a couple of pages of pictures at eToychest; the first page has as its last image a nice pic of the Halo 2 booth, and the second page has as its FIRST shot an adorable closeup of a chibi Master Chief. Check ’em out!

Everyone’s favorite cue ball has been interviewed over at TeamXbox; Frankie holds forth on online multiplay, decals, and what Bungie ISN’T talking about. (They’re still not talking about it – he’s just reiterating that. That is… oh, never mind. Just go read it.) Thanks, GhaleonEB.

SketchFactor has put up the two new screens released recently, over on Bungie.net… maybe a bit later than, say, us… but their versions are bigger. Go grab the 1600×1200 lovin’ over at B.net. (They DO have watermarks, though. Ha.)

This week’s update DID happen after all… Sketch has posted it for Frankie (who’s in Tokyo, enjoying… something) over at Subnova. It’s the last few tidbits, it seems… plus some fun coverage of the Tokyo Game Show. And some of the worst Mister Chief art to date. Go read. Update: Apparently, in the 2 hours since it went live, Subnova proved unable to handle the load. It seems fine now… but in the meantime, I’ve received word that it’s been mirrored by The Junkyard (thanks, Jake) and akba.info (thanks, akba). Sorry.

Just in time for THIS week’s Update (if there is, in fact, an update this week), we’ve finally managed to put LAST week’s update into the Weekly Update archive. Wow – it makes the ‘all updates’ list pretty large! (If all you want is to read a specific update, you should use the date links at the bottom of the main archive page.)