KP might have discovered the next big thing in Halo play – or maybe not. Either way, his narrative is hilarious. Go read.(Louis Wu 12:47:19 UTC)

darthbob noticed that Gamespot has an article about District, the second of two new exclusive maps coming out with Halo 2 Vista next month (the first is Uplift, profiled by GameSpy recently). 6 new screenshots – this level looks to be an amalgam of Turf, Terminal, and Outskirts. Check it out!(Louis Wu 05:21:57 UTC)

Mister Froggy posted Halo, Articulated #29 – Sarge’s true nature comes out.(Louis Wu 05:01:23 UTC)

I posted this last night (Funkmon noticed it) – but somehow, the news post vanished. Thanks to J23 for getting me to look again. Once again – Edgeworks has posted Episode 5 of the Heretic; the Praetor draws suspicion upon himself during the search for the Heretic. Voice acting continues to be superlative, cinematography is fantastic. Grab a copy in either WMP9 or QuickTime formats; this story continues to impress.(Louis Wu 03:53:33 UTC)

The Bungie Weekly Update is now available at Bungie.net – a nice look at the Halo 3 fusion core, some critical information about Halo 2 Matchmaking (be sure you read this before next week!), and some tidbits we’ve come to expect about the Halo 3 dev process. Go read! (As usual, it’s also available in our Weekly Update Archive.)(Louis Wu 03:38:03 UTC)

The title of today’s One One Se7en tells me that not only is Stuntmutt willing to recycle old jokes, but that he’s unsure enough about your quickness, as readers, that he feels the need to EXPLAIN the joke to you. If I were you, I’d feel offended. Maybe even boycott the strip. That’ll teach ‘im. (Clearly, he wasn’t talking to ME.)(Louis Wu 13:49:59 UTC)

In what seems to be becoming a pattern, there are 7 new entries in the Fan Fiction section this week. Go read ’em!(Louis Wu 13:30:51 UTC)

This Spartan Life has posted Module 5 of Episode 4 – Body Count. This time around, it’s a debate between Ann Coulter, queen of neocons, and Tom Anderson, founder of MySpace, over the validity (and usefulness) of the Patriot Act. (The actual topic description is ‘Homeland Security Vs. Civil Liberties’.) We try to stay out of politics here at HBO (there’s a strict ban on political discussion on our forum), but when rocket launchers are involved… well, it can be pretty entertaining. Available (as always) in QuickTime and WMP9 formats.(Louis Wu 06:08:45 UTC)

Archie Gates, the guy behind the Needler songs, has kicked off a new project; he’s writing songs about games, and the first one out of the box is called ‘Achievement Unlocked’. It’s not really Halo-related, but most Halo players will be able to relate – it’s pretty darned funny! It’s available for free, streaming off his MySpace webpage – but if you, like me, have trouble with the stuttering that comes from MySpace streams, it’s downloadable, in high-quality MP3 format, for just a buck. Check it out! Chaos Tangent mentioned it on our forum before I had a chance to post it here…(Louis Wu 05:36:24 UTC)

Bungie’s latest Halo Humpday didn’t go so well for them on the virtual battlefield… but they made up for it in the writeup. (This picture is priceless. Priceless, I tell you.) They played Certain Affinity, and they played on new Certain Affinity-built maps, and they got OWNED. Such is life. (And death. Quite a lot of death, apparently.) Baratos was first on our forum to notice.(Louis Wu 05:19:35 UTC)

Omegga stopped by to point out iMega, a new tool he’s developed for HaloPC dedicated servers. Gives you a lot of the control you get with the HaloCE dedicated server.(Louis Wu 05:09:47 UTC)

Gamerscore Blog has a story about an exclusive sneak peek at a Halo 2 Vista trailer; sign up for Microsoft’s Games for Windows newsletter, get on the 24 hour sneak preview list for the trailer. (You’ll get an email when the trailer is available – no word on when that will be. I didn’t even know there WAS a Halo 2 Vista trailer.) Thanks, rapture.(Louis Wu 05:05:37 UTC)

Eric Nylund will be a guest on tonight’s ‘On the Spot‘, a ‘live interactive weekly show featuring the latest in gaming’ put on by Gamespot. Episode airs less than an hour from when this is being posted – go listen to him discuss Ghosts of Onyx! Thanks, LaSelva Factor.(Louis Wu 22:05:46 UTC)

Andz pointed out an article he’s written for Amped eSports – it can help you pick some of the best pro content to watch, now that MLG has made their VoD service free. (Louis Wu 22:00:47 UTC)

PsychoRaven noticed a new Hired Gun blog – it’s a look at the ‘Tray and Play’ feature of Halo 2 Vista; the ability to play during install. HBO’s take? It’s an interesting feature – and really cool for getting you RIGHT INTO THE GAME as soon as you take the disc out of the box – but after that first day, it’s sort of irrelevant, right? Since there’s no real downside, though, it’s definitely a nice little feature. (Moreso for the developers, as shown by the initial story; for most of us, once the game is installed, we’re done installing it.) Go read!(Louis Wu 20:50:41 UTC)

If you’ve held off buying Ghosts of Onyx because of the form factor (and the $12.95 cover price), TOR has just released the (standard-sized) mass-market paperback. Price differential, at least at Amazon, is miniscule at this point (the original trade paperback is $9.71, while the new mass-market version is $7.99) – but it’ll fit better on your paperback shelf. Thanks, Regicid3 (who found this at TeamXbox). (Louis Wu 18:47:32 UTC)

Music4Games has a really interesting interview with Marty O’Donnell – it’s a postmortem of the Halo 3 announcement trailer music recording session. Lots of pictures, lots of great tidbits. Go read!(Louis Wu 15:25:27 UTC)