Bunch of new stuff over at Halo Babies – it IS Friday, after all. There’s a new strip, of course (pretty funny, I’d say), a bunch of new artwork, and, in an attempt to clean up their comments section, some pretty stiff rules about abuse. (Given the abuse our Fanfic comments section sees, I can sympathize completely.) Go check it all out!

Eep – been a few days since I remembered to update the Fan Fiction section – now there are 26 stories for you. Go read!

SEspider has fired up another contest in our forum – come up with a Wallpaper using images from Miniature Halo, win some cool action figures. Details are in the post – deadline is July 10. Get cracking!

Wow – this is some amazing cojones – selling cheats for Halo 2 on eBay. (Even better – someone paid over $30 to buy ’em.) In case it gets pulled for the fraud that it is, there’s a local, no-links copy here. Thanks to IXIGhandiIXI for the heads-up.

Sparkypinball put together the first of what looks to be a series of How-To guides for Halo; this one is called ‘Sparky’s Guide to Vehicle Handling‘. It covers such topics as Warthog/Ghost jumps without flipping, the differences between Halo PC Hogs, and how to maximize your forward progress in a Ghost. Nice read!

The MorningStar has written up a guide explaining how to connect your Xbox to the internet for Xbox Live. This gives you plenty of time to absorb the wisdom before Halo 2 is released. (Mind, there’s plenty to do on XBL RIGHT NOW, and this information can be used to get you there… but this is a Halo site, so the info is targeted to Halo.)

moddedcyborg has put together a few 3D screenshots – the kind that need those cheesy red and blue glasses to see properly. Reaction is good, and I’m sure I’ll enjoy ’em as soon as I can find my kids’ copy of Spy Kids 3D…

Dan Chosich posted a short (52 second) but very sweet movie that basically gives an overview of his body of Halo filmmaking. If you’ve never seen Dan’s work, watch this film – it’ll make you want to watch more. If you HAVE seen Dan’s work, check this out for a quick thrill. It’s 15.5 mb in QuickTime format; Dan posted a Junkyard link for the film in his forum post, but we know what HBO approval does to movie links, so we’ve tossed up a couple of mirrors – there’s one on files.bungie.org and another on mythica.org. Enjoy!

Cunbelin has posted the second of his weekly bi-weekly updates on the state of Halo Custom Edition and the Editing Kit, over at Bungie.net. Seems a little rushed, but it points out a few very nice maps, and gives a little background on some upcoming stuff. Thanks to haloguesser for the heads-up.

Teehee… Chilton Webb points out the stuntrider on the far right of this concept art. Who says Bungie’s not expecting you to have fun?

Calvin and Halo shows why it’s not always a good idea to try and outsmart your parents.

Quick note for Red vs Blue Super Sponsors; you should check the Sponsors page for a link to a ‘Subscription Serviecs Manager’ – you need to make sure they have the right address by June 30. They’re printing mailing labels on July 1, and you won’t be able to change things after that.

The recent release of new hi-res screenshots from Bungie finally got me off my duff to update our Screenshots database; it’s finally up-to-date. 193 shots were added today… not a bad day’s work!

mnemesis sent word that he’s updated the Halo Story Page again – it’s a big ‘un. He’s been impressed recently with the quality of submissions… keep it up, folks! Update: And Wado explains WHY the quality is up.

Because of the massive influx of new sites in our Links database, we’ve added a small ‘New’ graphic to indicate when a site’s been added in the last week. (Thanks, Paul!) It seems some of you haven’t noticed that your site was added, and submitted again… maybe this will help.

Blade, at Teamhalo.net, put together a 6:26 long video (WMP9 format) showing gameplay on the upcoming New Mombasa map, using the Halo 2 Mod. (This is a huge team effort from a lot of talented people that mostly hang out on the Gearbox forums – a recent update on the project can be found here.) Blade’s movie is available in both high (640×480, 35.1 mb) and low (320×240, 15.4 mb) versions. His video card doesn’t really do the map the justice it deserves… but you can certainly get a great flavor of its size and scope, as well as how the new weapons work. Registration (free) is required for download.

Wow. Frankie has posted an awesome interview/picture cornucopia over on Bungie.net; a discussion with Jeremy Zoss, Associate Editor of Game Informer magazine (about GI’s visit to Bungie in preparation of last month’s article), and a collection of more than a dozen VERY high resolution images (screenshots and concept art) that were eventually used in the story. If you’ve read the magazine (or our press scan), you’ve seen the pictures… but not like this. Go read! First heads-up seems to be from Wolfy, of Sector 7.

That maskless grunt has been the talk of our forums today. Even Sarge is getting into the act – check out One One Se7en.

Halo: Resolution puts a Spartan in orbit… in a non-regulation orbital device. Good thing that armor can withstand hard vacuum!

Awesome. A week ago, Chilton mentioned a G4TV program in which John Mayer (the musician) was playing Halo with his friends. The thread didn’t go anywhere, because you either have G4 on your cable/satellite system, or you don’t. We got mail from Brian Graham, asking us WHY it didn’t go anywhere, given that anyone could watch this segment. What…? Well, it turns out that a Mayer fan puts up videos like this on his website; this one is available via BitTorrent, as a 63 mb, 640×480 DivX-encoded clip (6:19 long). It’s also available via ftp, if you have trouble with the torrent seed… but that bandwidth is pretty limited, you’re FAR better off trying to BT it. It’s a really fun piece; he spends some of it talking about the video games he grew up in (and, not surprisingly, the music in them), but the last half is all Halo gameplay/player interaction stuff. He’s a pretty funny guy, and this is worth watching.