Got a kid? Do you play Halo with them? Jon Sager does – and gets beat by his 6-year-old daughter. When you’re done laughing, go read his column over at Gamespotting, for some pretty interesting observations about parenting and gaming (and how they relate). Thanks to Team Overkill for the link.

Skavenger_s7 found a pretty interesting little device which will take the four panels of a split screen and send ’em out in different directions – no more cheating by looking at your buddy’s screen in multiplayer! Mirrors and cardboard can bring fair competition back to your lan gatherings…

Strato99| noticed some new Halo 2 material over at the Xbox.com press site – a couple of isolated shots of MC (that is, separated from any background), a nice version of the Halo 2 logo, and the four main screens with no watermarks on them. These aren’t really hi-res or anything… but if you’re building Halo 2 stuff for the web, they just might come in handy.

Take a day off, come back to a flood of submissions. We’ll start with desktops – there are 5 new ones:

• h2_wait.jpg, by Justin
• halo2wal102.jpg, by Chome (3 flavors)
• hippopaper.jpg, by Justin
• MC.is.back.jpg, by Chromejr45
• One.More.Time.jpg, by Dusty Patt

You’ll find ’em all in our Wallpaper section.

The DVD that came with the August issue of the Official Xbox Magazine contained a short movie called ‘Pyramid of Destruction’. Team Overkill converted it to a web-friendly format last month, but we couldn’t bring it to you until the issue was off the shelves. It went off the shelves this week… so here it is, thanks to the hosting of Mythica.org. It’s one minute long, 3.5 mb large, in QT5 format. Enjoy!

Unhappy with the quality of the previously released Halo mini-games, tino built something a bit more extensive. Multiple levels, and (apparently) a multiplayer mode, too! I only tested the first couple of levels… but it’s pretty fun; brings back memories of the early days of gaming. 🙂 It’s Windows-only, and almost 9 mb, zipped – we’ve uploaded it to mythica.org. Watch out – Banshees can fly through walls! (Thanks to Deimosâ„¢, of Subnova, for virus-testing this for us. It’s clean.)

Recently, Dan Chosich released ‘Reminisance’, a dream-sequence film with some very interesting editing. It originally came in just a Windows Media format – but there are now a pair of QuickTime versions available. Dan himself created a 94 mb version, and Brian Josselyn made a 60 mb version. Links to both can be found on the Reminisance mirrors list.

Saturday Morning Fan Fiction:

• The Jump, part 1, by Stefano Scalia
• The Discovery, part 6, by strategyfreak
• The adventures of Mate-rik, part 2, by Leadbutt
• Cry for a Hero, part 1, by el_halo_diablo
• Fafnir, part 3, by KnightmareWolf
• Titan, part 3, by Jaywhit10

Go get ’em!

Whoa. Inbox is FULL of Halo 2 Wallpaper today… Check out these 8 new submissions!

• badday.jpg, by Vinny Mac
• H2.The.battle.Begins.jpg, by Knight Premier
• halo2.jpg, by Kaworu Nagisa
• halo2targetwall.jpg, by Apostle
• Halo2Wallpaper.jpg, by Alex ‘Whistler’ Samouridis
• halo2_desktop.jpg, by author
• hope.jpg, by Dusty Patt
• Improvement1024.jpg, by Allenthar

You’ll find ’em all in our Wallpaper section.

There just never seems to be time to process the Gameplay Tricks queue – I’ve decided to put them up a few at a time, which has to be preferable to waiting until I can process a dozen or so at a stretch. There are only 4 for you right now – but that’s 4 more than you had before. They range from a fun demo of vehicle clipping to a pretty slick Loading Point avoidance… with some cool stuff in between. Visit the Gameplay Tricks section!

Pez Mohr has put up a web interface for his Halo Movie mirror site – and we’ve put an easier name to remember on it. Check it out! (The web part is pretty slow… but the ftp downloads are quite fast. In addition, he’s provided news/movie links from here, to help you decide what version you want to download.)

Alex Cross submits our first Halo 2 Wallpaper. You’ll find it in the Wallpaper section.

Miscellaneous, indeed:

• Mr Bill Jr V pushes the limits of what can legitimately be called Halo misc. art
• Team Overkill pushes some other limits

You can find their work in the Miscellaneous Art section. (We may have to start cracking down.)

A whole passel of Fan Fiction entries this morning:

• The Discovery, chapter 4 and chapter 5, by strategyfreak
• Rise To Honor, part 14, by Shadow
• Falling, by Vector40
• Shadows of Archon, part 2, by Wado

In addition, we received this note – take it as you will. (It’s not fan fiction… but it pertains to it.)

Last night, we announced Chaos on the Ring II, a new movie from ZiDigi Online. Response has been positive… except for some material at the beginning and end of the movie. In response to critics, the team has released a second version – it’s identical to the first, except it’s missing the first 30 seconds, and the last minute. Formats are identical (720×480 and 360×240, QT5), and the new versions weigh in at 39 and 20 mb, respectively. You can find BOTH versions listed on their downloads page – if you don’t mind fluff, get the first version, if you’d rather have a more focused film, get V2. Enjoy!

Asmodeus has turned in the next chapter of his Legendary Walkthrough – The Library, one of the longest levels on Legendary, has now been pinned down. Having trouble with those waves of enemies? Come on by, and snag a few key techniques!

Fan Art continues to pour in:

• Warbow speculates on state-of-the-art camouflage
• Germain Couët looks at localization options

Check our Miscellaneous Art section for details

Another Halo 2 Press Release – this one specifically about Halo 2 (instead of Halo 2 and Project Gotham 2 combined). You can find it at Team Xbox, among other places… more drool material:

“‘Halo 2’ is a lot like ‘Halo’, only it’s ‘Halo’ on fire, going 130 miles per hour through a hospital zone, being chased by helicopters and ninjas,” explained Jason Jones, the head of Bungie Studios, “and the ninjas are all on fire, too.”

That man has a way with words… (thanks to TomeOne for the heads-up.)

For those who can’t wait for the Halo 2 Trailer, GameSpot has put up a synopsis of what you’ll see. You also get a taste of the Halo 2 story – here’s a snippet of it:

As the Master Chief enters the hangar, it is revealed that his spacecraft is orbiting Earth–and that Earth is under heavy fire from Covenant warships. The Covenant are the enemy race from the original Halo game, and it seems that they have found the human homeworld and are seeking to destroy it outright. Therefore, the Master Chief’s new mission is clear: defend Earth and save humankind.

Thanks to Nijhazer for the heads-up.

If you’ve stopped drooling over those Halo 2 shots, come back to some Fan Fiction:

• Shadows of Archon, part 1, by Wado
• The Mis-adventures of master chief, part 4, by el_halo_diablo
• The Angel of Death, by Jason Pridgen
• Perfect Opposition, part 2, by ~ski200~

Get to readin’! There ain’t gonna be any playable Halo 2 demos for quite some time…