Uriel points out that the Leipzig Games Convention website already has a Best of Show page up… and guess what took ‘Best Xbox Game’? Go on… guess.

Hehe – d3fault_dot_xbe has taken one of Roger Wilco’s concept models and begun to insert it into Halo CE. Nice! Heads-up goes to MasterGrief, who found it on the Gearbox forums. Remember – Roger Wilco created those models more than 2 years ago. Wonderful!

Wow. I’ve seen sleazy before, but this is pretty audacious. Some slimeball on eBay was selling a digital copy of Zoe’s farewell wallpaper; he removed Zoe’s signature from it (though not the bungie.net watermark), and was selling it (in DIGITAL FORM, it’s not even a print) as his own work. (He cancelled the auction this morning, ‘because of an error in the listing’ – but it’s still online.) In case it gets pulled, we’ve put up a local, static (no working links) copy here at HBO. Remember that you can get this for free (from the legitimate artist) over at Bungie.net. Make a note of the seller’s name, and be really, really careful what you buy from him. Thanks to Fluffmiester for finding this.

Art Vandelay found a nice thread over at the TeamXbox forums (though it would have been better if he’d actually added a link to the original information) – AcidSnow spent some of his precious playtime in a recent Halo 2 event TESTING the game, rather than just playing. Biggest tidbit: laying a plasma grenade on top of another one actually increases the blast damage (rather than having the second one thrown off when the first one goes, as happens in Halo). Interesting stuff! Go read. Update: More hands-on comments on our own forum, from Tempus Fugit. Remember, when you read his (and others’) comments about ‘roughness’, that everyone’s playing the E3 build – a build finalized over 3 months ago. And remember that the Bungie boys and girls have been working 100+ hour weeks for a while now.

VALENCE has taken Adult Swim soundtracks and Halo CE video and put together a film called Aqua Chiefs Hunger Corps. Decide for yourself whether it works. Video is WMP9 format, 7 minutes long, 9 mb large, hosted by Halomods.

Trigun sends word that a new Halo on Vacation comic is up at The 7th Revolution. Maybe it’s me, but it seems like Halo: Resolution did that joke. A few times.

Dolbex writes from Downpour, the MLGPro tourney happening right now in Seattle. The big news? THey’re currently hosting the World’s First Public Halo 2 Tournament. That’s right – Halo 2 is there, and being played, for money, on the floor. Go read about it on MLGPro.com! If you have a Video On Demand subscription from them ($20 for the 2004 season ticket), you can watch it live!

Devin Olsen points out a movie he and Gil made that’s being hosted by Halomods – tricks and sniper kills. WMP format, just under 2 minutes, 9.3 mb. Take a look.

GhaleonEB pointed out an article in the New York Times (registration required – free) in which the Times suggested that there will be a $5.99 monthly fee to play in Halo 2 tournaments online. Before anyone grabs their pitchfork and heads for Redmond… there is no additional fee to play Halo online; what the NYT is most likely referring to is the Xbox Live service fee ($5.99/month or $49.99/year) – a service wholly separate from Halo 2 (and one that supports many, MANY games beyond just Halo 2). Beyond that one potential misconception, the NYT article is a good read, contrasting marketing of video games vs movies.

Demden, from Halo Orbit, sends word of another shakeycam vid from the Leipzig gaming event, this time filmed (and hosted) by Game7. Again, screen glare is a major problem, but they did a decent job of showing many of the options available in this build (as well as showing off some spectacularly bad gameplay in the second half). WMP9 format, almost 5 minutes long, 27 mb large. Give it a look!

The recent Action Figure Megabattle pics have spawned a NEW type of submission – one I want to discourage, because the potential for total picture overload is super-high… but there were a couple of shots that made me laugh, so I thought I’d share. Nedus took some pics of his own action figures; these aren’t composites, they’re regular photos. (Please – again, we do NOT have the time or space to host hundreds of these – do NOT send us your own posed shots. Really.) Two of ’em – ‘Hold Me‘ and ‘Prepare to Die‘ – got a chuckle out of me. (Hold me might be considered by some to be spoiler-containing. Sort of.)

Ducain continues his ‘I’m-gonna-get-hogs-EVERYWHERE-on-SC’ campaign, with a movie showing how he managed to get three (THREE!) warthogs across the Shaft in Silent Cartographer – along with himself and a marine. WOW. (He started, nicely, with a teaser, letting people guess how he took the pic – but I wasn’t around until the entire shebang was finished.) For those who don’t like WMP9 (linked in the forum post above), I’ve made a QuickTime version as well.

Falcon Zero made another megabattle pic, this time using the New Mombassa map… and if you ask me, he might have gone a little overboard. Just a little.

IGN has posted a writeup from the Leipzig Halo 2 playfest yesterday – there’s nothing really new in it, but it does make you want to play… thanks to LaMuerte for the heads-up.

Frankie’s back, and so is the traditional Bungie Weekly Update – interesting mix; on the one hand, stuff is getting finished at phenomenal paces, on the other, folks are working absurdly long hours and see no end in sight (well, other than the obvious one, of course). Great read, though. So go do it. It’s over at the 7th Revolution this week. Apparently, it’s on our forum, as well, for those not up for registering for another forum.

mnemesis wrote yesterday to point out a small (but powerful) update on the Halo Story Page – the downtime this morning kept it from being posted before now. Go read… but be warned, the theory it discusses is LONG.

You may have noticed that we were hard to reach this morning – the datacenter that HBO is housed in was having some connectivity problems. They seem to be cleared up now, so I can FINALLY add today’s One One Se7en… though it’s possible that puns this bad should be hidden forever. You decide.

focused7 points out a comic at Blackartstudios showing the behind-the-scenes action underlying last week’s Bungie Update. (That reminds me, I’ve forgotten to add that update to our Archive… rectified.)

Plasmanator continues the Action Figure Megabattle series started yesterday by Mintz08 – there was a funny one last night, and a pretty dang impressive one today. Check ’em out!

A couple of months ago, we mentioned a contest being run by Fire Team Charlie, over at Xboxottawa… beat them in a 2v2 match on XBC, win cool schwag. They’ve put up one of their first games, edited in a really humorous manner… worth watching, if you want to enter, or just if you want to watch a couple of clan guys get their butts kicked at CTF. It’s 24 minutes long, and 150 mb large, so it’s for members only… but hey, it’s only $10 to become a member! Thanks to vshields ash for pointing it out.