Halo CE News Item One: Tallon IV, a map created by the Metroid Online Mapping Team, has been released; you can play as Metroid, complete with built-in arm cannon. Grab it from HaloMaps.org. Halo CE News Item Two: Rob Oplawar has started work on a new Halo CE Campaign level; you can check out the website devoted to it (which includes a movie of his progress so far). Get to reading!(Louis Wu 17:30:18 UTC)

Bungie took note of things that didn’t work in Halo, and came up with alternatives in Halo 2. Stuntmutt comments on one such alternative in today’s One One Se7en. Groan protectors – ON!(Louis Wu 13:00:59 UTC)

16 new pieces (stories and poems) up in the Fan Fiction section today; two would have been deleted, but I thought they might help submitters remember that the formatting pseudocode is case-sensitive. Enjoy!(Louis Wu 12:24:59 UTC)

c0ld vengeance has ANOTHER 3d screenshot for you today; this one shows the 7 Halos from the hologram at the end of Great Journey. The standard QT movie lets you spin around them, while the QTVR version gives you a great view from any angle. QuickTime required, and be patient – this one’s a bit larger than most (5-6 mb, depending on the version you pick). If you choose to see the QTVR version in-browser, the controls will remain greyed-out until the whole file is downloaded, so just hang on.(Louis Wu 11:50:40 UTC)

Just Passing By noticed a small writeup of RvB in the New York Daily News – pretty mainstream stuff!(Louis Wu 04:09:02 UTC)

This week’s Halo Humpday Challenge was against the Cayote Cavegirls – if you don’t know who they are, the writeup starts off with an interview of their lader [sic]. The overall result – a tie, no matter how KP tries to spin it; this brings Bungie’s not-losing streak to 3. (Of course, their winning streak – of one – ended two matches ago, but who’s really counting?) Go read the whole writeup – I missed this when it was posted, but Pazicles picked it up.(Louis Wu 03:51:39 UTC)

Over at Bungie.net, there’s href=”http://www.bungie.net/News/Story.aspx?cid=8539″>a news story about a Wallpaper contest; it’s not specifically geared to Halo, but I’m guessing the majority of the entries will be Halo-related. (Small) cash prizes available for the winners – read the post (and the linked forum thread) for more details.(Louis Wu 03:41:16 UTC)

I don’t normally reiterate stuff that’s written in FAQs around the site, but I’ve been getting an awful lot of mail about this one, so I’m going to make a public statement: we’re really sorry, we don’t have space to announce new Halo websites on our front page. If you just put the finishing touches on a new site, and you want to get the word out… feel free to post a link in our forum, but please don’t ask me to put up a news post, because I hate saying no. As it says in our submissions guidelines, if you have something (less nebulous than ‘a new cool site!’) to share with the Halo community – an article, artwork, whatever – sure, go ahead and send us the link. But if you just want us to announce your site – you need it stress-tested, you lost your forum and need it rebuilt, you’re looking for new members, whatever – our front page isn’t the way to go. Thanks!(Louis Wu 21:50:07 UTC)

Early this week, MMaster stopped by our forum to post a link to a new video he’d created; it’s an exact remake of ‘Move Along’, a video from the All-American Rejects. (This is different from Clan 0kinawa’s remake of that same video.) He submitted the video to the MPRRS, too – and it’s good he did, because MediaGamers is out of bandwidth right now, but the MPRRS reviewers loved it. You can therefore grab a WMP9 version (47.4 mb) or QuickTime version (46.6 mb) from our servers – enjoy!(Louis Wu 16:57:09 UTC)

It’s been a little while (okay, 3 months) since our last 7 on the 7th Contest – but hey, somebody’s got to watch for aliens! So now it’s summer (at least in the northern hemisphere), and thoughts turn to the outdoors – so what better way to give away Bungie shwag than to require creative outdoor art? To win this contest, we need pictures of your lawn, with a Halo theme in it. (Cut the image, take a picture, finish the lawn – nobody’ll ever know.) You have a few other options – go read the full contest rules. And get to planning – we need pictures by a week from Sunday if you want to win stuff! (What can you win, I hear you ask… heh. It’s a surprise. But it’s coming from Bungie, so you know it’s good.) Now get off my lawn!(Louis Wu 16:16:30 UTC)

c0ld vengeance continues with his 3D Screenshots series – this time, it’s Cortana, looking on as the Master Chief sticks a Brute. Sweet! Available both as a QuickTime rotating vid, or a QTVR file. Take a look!(Louis Wu 15:38:42 UTC)

Podtacular has some new updates – Episode 70 is up (looks at community desires for Halo 3, and other games Halo fans play), Pod TV Episode 3 is up (Humpday highlights), and a new official comic called Weekly Porridge is online. (Apparently, it’s been around for a while; there are a bunch of episodes up already, though some don’t seem to be linked any more.) What are you waiting for?(Louis Wu 13:21:23 UTC)

XerxdeeJ stopped by to point out that Tied the Leader has been updated – there’s a readers poll on sportsmanship, a treatise on teamwork (and whining), and a stroll through the referral logs, checking out what people are looking for. Go read!(Louis Wu 13:14:14 UTC)

I’m not thrilled with YouTube – but this one’s pretty darned funny. Swing by to see the original Halo 3 trailer… the special effects on Cortana must be seen to be believed. Thanks to Konrad, via IRC, for this one.(Louis Wu 02:31:35 UTC)

The MPRRS queue has been getting pretty long recently – Cybrfrk just brought in some new blood to try and clear out some of the movies that have been languishing. The first pass out of the gate is ‘Lost: Halostyle Episode 5’ – a continuation of a pretty funny series. (This episode is quite good, as well.) Audio and video quality are topnotch, the storyline is solid, the humor is on, most of the time (an elite singing along to Kelis made me worry a little about nightmares) – this one’s a winner. Grab it in WMP9 format (48.5 mb) or QuickTime format (45.8 mb).(Louis Wu 02:26:27 UTC)