Over at MLGPro.com, you can find a blog entry from Karma, discussing Carbon’s success this year – interesting read. There’s also a teaser for Episode 4 of the MLG Pro Circuit show coming up this Saturday.(Louis Wu 17:34:16 UTC)

Over at the Halo CE Chronicles website, the final episode of Static has been posted – Alex gets clear of the Hunter, finally, and a surprise twist makes lots of things clear. It’s double-size – 60 mb in downloadable WMP9 or QT, 36 mb in streaming Flash format. Nice end to the story! (Louis Wu 17:01:36 UTC)

Dojorkan found a pretty fun pic.(Louis Wu 23:07:48 UTC)

Not long ago, we released Pie Chapters 1 and 2, from Machine Enema – both were fantastic examples of Halo machinima. Recently sodaGoD completed Pestilence, set in the same universe as the Pie stories, but on a different tack. As before, cinematography is excellent, storyline is strong, voice acting is top-notch. I loved this film. We’ve got it available in both WMP9 (125 mb) and QuickTime (129 mb) formats – grab a copy and follow Jurnigan’s swath of destruction! Over at GamingTV.org, you can also grab a much higher-bitrate version (320 mb, WMP9 format), and small QT version (mp4, 320×240, 52mb) – thanks, trigger119.(Louis Wu 21:48:57 UTC)

Compton noticed that the XBL Playlist changes we heard about a couple of weeks ago are now in effect – if you log into Xbox Live to play Halo 2, you’ll find a much smaller set of available playlists. Team SWAT is dead… long live Team SWAT. (I’m happy that the last game I played last night was, indeed, Team SWAT. We didn’t win – but it was fun.)(Louis Wu 20:47:41 UTC)

Last week, our forum was awash with complaints that the Halo screenshots released recently looked more like Halo 2 with a spit-shine than ‘next-gen graphics’. The folks voicing their opinions didn’t want to hear that these shots came from an alpha build of Halo 3, or that some of the textures used right now are placeholders, cribbed from Halo 2. They just wanted to know why Bungie would release less-than-perfect examples of what Halo 3 will bring us. Stuntmutt has his own ideas about this – check today’s One One Se7en.(Louis Wu 20:42:50 UTC)

prometheus stopped by to point out a bunch of cool new stuff at the Halouvre – there are some SPECTACULAR new shots in the various galleries. (He also mentioned that they’re coming up on their second anniversary… wow, it really doesn’t seem like that long ago! Happy Birthday, guys!) Check out the links in his forum post.(Louis Wu 18:42:11 UTC)

Koethe, from the MjR37 Team, wrote to say that Episode 2 of their series, Species, is now available for download from Mythica.org. QuickTime format, 14 minutes, 37 mb. Funny stuff, nice use of mods (though I’d have to say, if HaloNinja was anywhere near me, I’d stuff a rocket launcher in his mouth). If you haven’t seen Episode 1, watch that first. Episode 3 is on its way, apparently! (Louis Wu 17:16:52 UTC)

PEZ writes to point out that over at halowiki.net, they’ve started up a new feature – Issue of the Week. This week’s focus is the Halo Turret – go read about it!(Louis Wu 17:06:34 UTC)

At bit-tech.net, there’s an article entitled ‘Goovies: Why games’n’movies don’t mix‘ – and they look at Halo for insight into the future of this genre. Thanks, JPOGDNA.(Louis Wu 16:49:12 UTC)

Issue 73 of the Escapist covers Microsoft, in detail – every major article is about them. Two hit Halo in more than a passing note – The Number of the Beast discusses the I Love Bees campaign, and The Perception Engineers talks about Human Factors psychologists, and how they helped Bungie make Halo more fun. As usual for Escapist articles, they’re well-written and entertaining. Thanks to Wolverine Monkey for letting us know.(Louis Wu 16:40:26 UTC)

I hate it when real life gets in the way of fun. Sorry for the update delays. Last night, KP posted a new Community Spotlight on Bungie.net – this one focused on LordGideon, the guy behind PraetoriaGuard, Halo2Cheaters.com, Halo2Gametypes.com, and the soon-to-be-opened HaloEverywhere. (Okay, so his friends do all the work – he just makes it look pretty. But don’t tell anyone.) Go read about what makes this busy guy tick! Looks like DHalo was the first to tell us about it.(Louis Wu 15:58:33 UTC)