oldmano’theC found this puppy somewhere. Gotta watch that viscous toxic slime…

You couldn’t tell by me… but apparently the Halo 2 mp3 released on Bungie.net yesterday wasn’t up to snuff, quality-wise. Marty re-encoded it by hand today, and the new version is available from the Halo 2 info page at Bungie.net. (It’s different, that’s for sure.)

DarkPrimus points out the first of a series of Halo comics – take a look!

Griffon has spent some time creating a pretty spectacular piece of wallpaper from the cover of this month’s Edge magazine. (As far as I know, the back cover hasn’t been shown on the web yet.) It’s available in a variety of sizes, and it’s watermarked with the Edge logo to remind people where it came from originally. If you can afford it… subscribe to this mag; it’s easily one of the best gaming magazines out there. Meanwhile, check out this amazing artwork (and the superb job Griffon did stitching it all together) in our Wallpaper section.

Warbow found a fun piece of audio to go with a cute little film of Frogblast’s… he said it’s dedicated to some recent events on the forum. Timing is quite good. Movie is 38 seconds long, and about 3 mb. Enjoy!

Mojo points out that the bassist for Weezer has been playing Halo quite a bit recently. Even musicians need some carnage now and then!

Two fanfic stories for you today – but one is a monster. You’ll find Hoju’s Halo: The Advocate and el_halo_diablo’s Wings of Death, part 6 in the Fan Fiction section, but you might find The Advocate a bit large in one chunk. (It’s 160K of text.) The databased pages are broken up into sub-32k chunks by necessity, so you can read these if loading the large page is a problem.

Artwork that’ll make your jaw drop, from Daniel Conway. Visit our Miscellaneous Art section for ‘Halo Deep Freeze’. Wow.

Psyjnir.com has overhauled their Comics section; there are now two categories. Funnies is for any Bungie-related comic strips (there’s a size requirement), submissions are accepted. Storyline will house comics telling the (twisted and sick) story of the Psyjnir Complex, every Monday Wednesday, and Friday. Check ’em out!

Jeff Lofland turns in a modified version of a desktop image he sent in earlier – pretty cool! Check it out in our Wallpaper section.

Looking for a large banner for your Halo 2 site? Sullivan just dropped one off – you can find it in our Banners section.

Woohoo! As promised last week, the music from the Halo 2 trailer is available in downloadable .mp3 format from Bungie.net. Go get it! (Marty, you rock.)

Mick points out a new Halo 2 preview (in German) at PC Games Portal. I don’t read German, but a Systran translation suggests there isn’t anything here that wasn’t discussed in Edge or EGM magazines, or on the web. Still, I find it interesting that the preview cycle has already started up. Check it out!

If you’re a regular HBO forum visitor, you’ve probably seen some of the new models being created by Zeinin and Jonas. Zeinin is planning on making a ‘Fall of Reach’ movie; we’re holding off on compiling his work to date because at the moment, he’s cranking it out too fast. (This was posted tonight – recognize that shape?) Jonas, too, is pouring out new models and tweaks; this evening, we got to see how his fighter flies. Once things slow down, we’ll set up a section for all this stuff here. (We’ll add the models of Storm Singer, Roger Wilco, and Warbow… and anyone else who’s created Halo 2 (or mod-Halo) vehicles!)

Blackstar has updated the Work or Die video he posted 2 weeks ago to be a bit more bandwidth-friendly; it’s now 24.4 mb (the screensize was reduced to 480×360 to keep image quality up). If you haven’t downloaded this yet because it was too big, go grab it now… and watch me get killed over and over and over and over and… (The Movies database has been updated with the new info.)

The weekend’s Fan Fiction submissions:

• Shadows of Archon II, part 16 and part 17, by Wado
• THE QUEST FOR FREEDOM Prologue, by ThASuPaMaN8
• Wings of Death, part 5, by el_halo_diablo
• After HALO (k) Prologue, by Kyle

A reminder for all Fan Fiction writers – if you choose a title that’s already in use, I’ll add something to it to make it unique; the ‘read this series’ link requires unique names for series. If you’re not happy about the idea of something being added to your title, spend the 20 seconds to actually do a search for it, and make sure it’s not in use. Thanks.

Ted Timmons dropped off a new desktop for us, because he “thought that your wallpapers on HBO should be updated a bit.” (Guess he missed the nearly 3 dozen Halo 2 desktops submitted in the past month…) You’ll find it in our Wallpaper section.

Hybrid Tech turns in a sketch of a Halo scene (spoilers enclosed). You can find it in our Miscellaneous Art section.

Setsuna Meiou writes:

Its happened again!! The “Covenant Dance” accompanied my New England Patriots on the NFL on CBS pre-game.

Sounds like the NFL has made some sort of licensing deal with Microsoft… nice to see!

For those who would like to get a glimpse of the new story material revealed in the current issue of Edge Magazine, but don’t want to wait until the Edge scans are available (legitimately) on the web, swing on by gamesradar.com – the website of Edge’s parent publisher, Future Publishing. The content is quite intriguing:

“The Covenant is named for the pact binding its two primary races, the Elites and the Prophets,” reveals Griesemer. “The Elites form the backbone of the Covenant military and the Prophets are the Covenantï¾’s political and spiritual leadership. Much of the game will focus on the relationship between these two races and on the hidden motives for their attacks against humanity.”

There are also four scans from the magazine (relatively low quality showing new artwork for Halo 2. Thanks to Jack Smith for the heads-up!