DuBbLe continues his X-Plane work – he’s got some shots of a scratchbuilt Sparrowhawk. Not textured yet, but still fun!(Louis Wu 12:53:46 UTC)

Cheesemaster64 found this Halo/Sonic combo by TheWax at DeviantART – wild.(Louis Wu 12:49:44 UTC)

CaptainKirk let us know that he’s writing a Halo Fan Fiction, being released serially on his blog. The preface and Chapter 1 are up now.(Louis Wu 12:47:37 UTC)

Z let us know about a couple of montages they’ve announced over at the360forum.com; both are hosted by Mythica. The first is inX 2Bit’s Best of Both Worlds Volume II Trailer – a melange of Halo 2 and Gears of War. WMP9, 3:39, 76.3 mb. The second is J Mayne’s 1v1 Trailer (edited by Zola) – WMP9, 1:11 long, 20.2 mb. Go watch!(Louis Wu 12:43:03 UTC)

communityhq.org noticed that link4044 is selling his AR model on eBay; nine and a half days left on the auction, current bid is $227.50, and the reserve has not been met. Remember, you can see lots of pictures of this gun on the gallery page we put up for him. Sounds like it’s gonna be out of my price range… but this one is tempting!(Louis Wu 12:33:00 UTC)

The Seven Streak is broken; for three weeks running, we had seven new pieces each Friday in the Fan Fiction section… but today there are 11. It’s a natural!(Louis Wu 12:29:33 UTC)

Bizarre – Escape Station is trying to set up a Halo 3 Tournament, using the beta test. (Since there are no custom games in the upcoming beta, scheduling play is going to be…tough.) Thanks to RevDotNed for the heads-up.(Louis Wu 12:23:13 UTC)

Now that Bungie has made public the fact that there are ‘deployables’ in Halo 3 (we know of the bubble shield, the trip mine, and the portable grav lift, and Bungie’s made it clear that there’s more stuff we’re not being shown yet), folks are having a blast speculating on what happens when you mix these up. Blow up a trip mine inside a bubble shield? Launch one from the portable grav lift (or the Mancannon)? Place a grav lift at the place where Mancannon launchers LAND? The possibilities are endless, and the discussion is fun; try this thread, and this one.(Louis Wu 12:20:16 UTC)

Bryn Casey stopped by to let us know he’d updated the Halo Art page at Yayap.com – we’ve added the 8 new shots to his gallery here, as well. (Scroll down to the bottom; I’ve really got to set up a better navigation system on that page, there are WAY too many pictures now).(Louis Wu 21:04:04 UTC)

We finally got our hands on the actual press pack Certain Affinity sent out yesterday; turns out, we’d already put a good deal of it online with the stuff we stole off the CA website. We’ve added a couple of dozen first-person shots to the collection.(Louis Wu 17:06:13 UTC)

Archie Gates is at it again – if you visit his MySpace page, you’ll find his newest audio creation, ‘ESRB Notice’; it’s streamable for free, or downloadable for a buck. Anyone who has spent ANY time on Xbox Live playing Halo 2 will relate – instantly. Hilarious stuff!(Louis Wu 14:36:13 UTC)

Over at MLGPro.com, there are two new episodes of the Sound Arguments podcast – Episode 10 looks at gametype changes for the 2007 season, and Episode 11 makes predictions about this weekend’s opener in Charlotte. Go listen! Thanks, 3Suns.(Louis Wu 13:34:20 UTC)

The Halo 2 Auto-update, mentioned (and described) in last Friday’s Bungie Weekly Update, is now live, according to sawnose at Bungie. (He quotes the weekly update in the rest of his post; the only new content is the fact that it’s live.) Thanks to The Vector Kid for noticing.(Louis Wu 13:17:44 UTC)

Over at The Age Blogs (commentary from an Australian newspaper) there’s a rant about the two new maps coming next week, and how they’re an example of Microsoft’s money-grubbing policies. The argument is that since the maps will show up in most matchmaking playlists, and if you don’t have them, you won’t be allowed INTO those playlists, they constitute an unfair twisting of the purse strings; you MUST pay an additional $4 to continue to play Halo 2 matchmaking. Heh – when the maps were announced, and it was suggested that they might be for the 360 only, I remember complaining that it was unfair that I would be required to pay an additional $400 to buy a 360, just to continue playing Halo 2 Matchmaking. I’m not sure I could line up against an identical argument, even though the money required has dropped by two orders of magnitude (to $4), without sounding like a hypocrite… but the truth is, $4 just doesn’t seem like a huge price to pay, to me. Make up your own mind – read the article.(Louis Wu 12:57:44 UTC)

Last night, Bungie put up a pretty nice interview with Chris Wood, Certain Affinity’s Art Lead – they discuss the making of the two new maps being released next week. Worth a read – these look to be a blast! Thanks, masterchief2829.(Louis Wu 12:45:45 UTC)

DuBbLe continues his work on his X-Plane Shortsword – it’s now textured, and there’s a short vid. Give it a look!(Louis Wu 12:38:55 UTC)

The Vidoc analyses continue – Advanced Media Network gave it a shot (thanks, sgtsmiles), They drew a counterpoint from Daniel Pervan (thanks, Samir Patel). 1Up created a (30 minute) video analysis (thanks, White Rabbit). Remember – those guys actually PLAYED the version that footage comes from; they might know a thing or two. Computer and Video Games took a short look – 3Suns noticed this on MLGPro.com. And Mr Vociferous raked over the entire thing, frame by frame, at the Halo 3 Data Archive. Coupled with the suite of articles we mentioned yesterday, this should really pretty much cover these 7 minutes of footage. (Louis Wu 12:11:33 UTC)