Congratulations to Carbon, who won the top spot at this weekend’s MLG Nationals in Las Vegas – they have beaten Final Boss in 3 consecutive tournaments, and are now officially on top of the Halo Pro scene. A summary, including game-by-game scores and a prize breakout, can be found at MLGPro.com. Thanks, 3Suns.(Louis Wu 15:38:55 UTC)

Apathy in the UK takes a look at the relative staminas of Gears of War and Halo 2. (Well, sort of.) Thanks, Dervish.(Louis Wu 23:26:00 UTC)

Sigafoos writes to point out The Riot #25 – they’re no longer WikiRiot, but it’s the same team. A brief explanation of the move, plus community news, the Halo 3 stuff from last week, and ‘a call for any community/group/etc that wants to be covered to let us know.’ (The podcast explains more about that.) 32 minutes, 13 mb. Go listen!(Louis Wu 19:46:12 UTC)

A few days ago, Arbiter_347 pointed out a Flash movie with a Halo cameo in it; the movie was HILARIOUS, but the Halo content was so minor that I passed on a news post about it. (It’s a really, really, REALLY well-done movie, though.) However, since then, the vid has been mentioned by others (Grande Carne, later that day, and sorahn, this morning) – so maybe it SHOULD be pointed out on the front page. Well, now it has been.(Louis Wu 15:37:06 UTC)

DanteThePoet wrote a paper for his Strategies in Game Design class – the question was ‘How does gender rhetoric apply to a specific game?’ He picked Halo 2 (you could probably have guessed that by the fact that you’re reading this newspost on HBO), and last night posted the essay itself, in Microsoft Word format. We’ve put up a local mirror, for that time in the future when his college version is gone. Give it a read!(Louis Wu 15:29:41 UTC)

3Suns has been keeping track of all the tournament goodness coming out of the MLGPro.com website – you can find a series of posts on our forum, with links and descriptions.(Louis Wu 15:26:49 UTC)

SEspider took his own crack at modeling one of the critical characters in Ghosts of Onyx (we already mentioned the work Omega did) – it’s modeled in Blender. Once again, if you haven’t read the book, hold off… but otherwise, check this out!(Louis Wu 15:25:07 UTC)

We got word from Haloplayer that Lost: Halostyle Episode 10, “The Ultimatum”, was available at the Injured Knee website. Teh funni continues in this episode, and they’re not 100% certain their bandwidth will hold out, so we’re making local versions available – WMP9 format (52.8 mb) or QuickTime format (49.2 mb). I really like this series – great voice acting, great quality, classy camerawork, and it’s funny. Go watch!(Louis Wu 22:12:51 UTC)

IceWeasel put together another stop-motion vid, ODST vs Heretic Elite… different story, better effects. Pretty funny!(Louis Wu 20:00:29 UTC)

Gamespot has put up an interview with several Bungie employees (Frank O’Connor, Brian Jarrard, and Jaime Griesemer), looking back at Halo and Halo 2, and discussing where the franchise goes from here. It’s a pretty interesting read. For some odd reason, it’s filed under Halo PC, even though it discusses ONLY the Xbox versions. There’s also a short montage, entitled ‘Five Years of Halo’, though I think it should probably be called ‘2 years of Halo’, since the oldest clips come from the Halo 2 launch events. Thanks to Sir Topham Hat for the heads-up.(Louis Wu 17:34:31 UTC)

It took a little over 2 years… but Halo 2 has finally, for the first time since its release, been toppled from the position of Most Played Xbox Live Game this week. Gears of War now sits on top of that hill. It remains to be seen how LONG GoW stays up there… but it’s there now. It’s been a good run for Halo 2! Looks like Brent Horsley was the first to let us know. There’s also a discussion thread on our forum, if you’d like to chime in.(Louis Wu 16:42:48 UTC)

3Suns stopped by to point out that MLG Vidcast 6 is now online; Jason and Trunkers look at the chances of the up-and-coming teams, in terms of which ones have a shot of breaking into the top 3 at Nationals, which start today in Las Vegas. It’s a 10 minute piece – lots of detail. Check it out!(Louis Wu 16:39:06 UTC)

Argodaemon has whipped up a whole bunch of Halo PSP wallpapers – if you’re looking to make your PSP more Halo-like, swing by the Halouvre and see what’s there!(Louis Wu 16:36:46 UTC)

Omega spent some time going through Ghosts of Onyx for written descriptions of some of the new characters we meet in that book – he’s now drawn them, as he believes they appear. Great job – don’t visit if you’re trying to avoid GoO spoilers, but otherwise, check this out!(Louis Wu 16:31:52 UTC)

The Bungie Weekly Update is posted over at Bungie.net – and in keeping with the ‘make your head spin’ motif of the week, it’s full of things that’ll surprise you. Hints about what’s to come (soon), and major changes to the XBL playlists are the biggies. Go read! (Of course, it’s also available in our Weekly Update Archive.)(Louis Wu 02:10:53 UTC)

Red vs Blue Episode 83, ‘In Memoriam‘, is now available for sponsors. Sarge is forced to sit through the lamest funeral service EVAR. Most of us at least have the benefit of being dead when our own services come around… Thanks to halofreak1991 for the heads-up.(Louis Wu 01:05:55 UTC)

weephun noticed an analysis of next-gen games by a market research firm called BrandIntel – they list the top 50 ‘next-gen games’ (new or soon-to-be released titles for the PS3, Wii, and Xbox 360), and Halo 3 makes 4th on the list, behind Gears of War, Zelda: Twilight Princess, and Madden NFL 2007.(Louis Wu 00:57:22 UTC)

The 1Up Show, Episode 56, is now available from the 1Up Show page – it contains 10 minutes of Halo 3 analysis (in-depth looks at the three maps the EGM guys got to play, including strategies and fighting highlights), starting around 26 minutes in. If you want just the Halo portion (there’s tons of other stuff on the 1Up show, including info about the PS3 launch, the Wii, and the Motorstorm demo), you can grab it at GameVideos.com (it’s about a quarter the size of the large 1Up show versions). This finishes up 1Up’s Halo coverage for the week – but there’s another 3 day’s worth of stuff next week!(Louis Wu 00:52:56 UTC)