Thanks to John Kronk, who points out a pic of the Halo Championship t-shirts currently being raffled off in Japan. As John says,

I want one just for the Engrish.

Me too.

Laughing… out loud.

The daily dose of Fan Fiction reading material:

• The Lone Survivor, part 1, by The Iceman
• A Comedy of Peace, part 2, by Jason Pridgen
• Strange Bedfellows, part 1, by Robo42786 and JayWhit10
• The Long Ride Home, part 6, by Joshua Barreto

Off you go…

Trey Ikon has created a series of pistol concept sketches – the AR sketch isn’t quite finished yet (according to him), but the rest are ready for prime time. You can find them in our Miscellaneous Art section.

New desktop image from Wetslayer – you’ll find it in our Wallpaper section. (We’ve also added the ‘Obey Your Thirst’ shot that Subnova put up a couple of days ago.)

News catch-up… Peter Haughie points out that the latest issue of Xgamer, a UK Xbox mag, has some speculation about a Halo 2 announcement at E3 next month (they state that ‘an inside source has confirmed that Halo 2 exists’):

The timing is everything. Xbox is off to a rip-roaring start but Microsoft needs to keep the momentum going. And what better way to keep the good times rolling than by announcing the follow-up to the game that’s got people pulling Xboxes off the shelves as fast as their hands can move? That announcement will take place at videogaming’s biggest industry event of the year – E3 in Los Angeles, between May 21st and 24th.

The rest of the article is pretty interesting, as well – once it’s off the shelves, we’ll be sure to put it up in our Press Scans section!

Halo-game has mirrored the newest Halo movie teaser from Blackstar productions – we’ve created a mirror list for it; as more come in, we’ll add them. Off to update the movies page… Update: Not to be outdone, today’s other release, The Pillar of Autumn with No Weapons, has also acquired a mirror list. Collect the whole set!

Thanks to Alan Wu, who noticed a third Halo Soundtrack sample at xbox.com. (Windows Media format,64 Kbps, just under a minute.) At this rate, the entire soundtrack will be released before the Soundtrack is available!

These are fantastic.

Today’s Fan Fiction:

• ODST Saga, part 4, by Robo42786
• Fight for Death, part 1, by Jenova
• The Arden Landings, part 1 (rewritten), by MaxThndr

(The rewritten piece is far enough away from the original that we’re going to leave both for now. That may change. 🙂 )

Movie Madness!! Not one, but TWO new movies have been released – Brian Josselyn, of Blackstar Productions, has created his THIRD Halo Movie teaser (this one’s large-format, and very emotional); you can find it at his site, as well as mirrored at mythica.org… and a team composed of Bluespam, Tarrsk, and OSX2000 (all HBO forum visitors) have put together an intriguing piece which shows a pair of players finishing PoA… with no weapons! This one is also at mythica.org, and on hotline, at the Psyjnir Complex, as well. The movie trailer is 16.6 mb, the PoA runthrough is 11 mb. Go pick ’em both up, and watch almost 30 megs of Halo goodness!

Slacking again… we’ve finally caught up on Halo Screenshots – four new collections have been added to the Screenshots Database. (Time to come up with a less awkward navigation system, I think…) The path to completeness continues.

A boatload of movies have just been uploaded to the Psyjnir Complex Hotline server (in Halo -> Movies) – if you’re having trouble finding a film, this isn’t a bad place to start! (We’ll be adding more as time goes on.) Thanks, Psyrixx and *Ar!

Jason Pridgen drops off a new fanfic which takes a… rather different approach to life after Halo. Check out A Comedy of Peace, in our Fan Fiction section.

Ian Barnes, aka PanZer, has been working on a Fan Fiction series for a couple of months now. (Operation: False Prophets just got its ninth installment posted today.) He’s planning on printing the whole thing once it’s finished… and in anticipation, has created cover art. You can find it in our Miscellaneous Art section.

Another pair of desktop images have come in – if you’re tired of the monochrome, staid variety, check these out. You’ll find ’em in our Wallpaper section.

Fan Fiction roundup – some fun stuff in here:

• The Long Ride Home, part 5, by Joshua Barreto
• GODS LOVE A TRYER, part 2, by Dee Pulled by author’s request
• Roughneck Two-Zero, part 6, by Anthony Coronado
• The Renegade Marines, part 14, by Shadow
• Operation False Prophets, part 9, by Ian Barnes

Slowly but surely, working out the backlog…

Heh – da5id noticed that the Bungie Store front page is up again (but requires a login to get past that screen) – shouldn’t be too long before this puppy is open!

We got word yesterday that Xbox Maniacs had put up a Halo review. (It was actually posted in early December, but we missed it.) It’s been added to the Reviews Database.

Subnova picked up an exclusive new desktop image with the help of Bungie – if you’ve finished the game, this is a great one. (If you haven’t, it’s rather spoileriffic.) It’s available in 1024×768 (160k) and 1920×1440 (308k) – and it’s pretty funny. (Visit the Easter Egg page if you don’t get the reference.) We’ll add these to our Wallpaper collection soon – but for now, visit Subnova to grab ’em! (And look around while you’re there, if you haven’t before…) The idea (and coercion of Bungie employees) is courtesy of Mark Levin, while the Photoshop work was done by Deimosâ„¢.