The music videos keep coming in… this time, we have a 4-minute, 40 megabyte video that has E3 2000/nVidia commercial footage put to Soil’s ‘Halo’, created by Spike Bebop. It currently has NO homes – anyone willing to step forward to mirror it? Drop us a line!

The Halo SETI Marines hold their own this week – a new member joins, with almost 1500 units, nicely augmenting the team total (welcome, highlander!). Int_21 holds on to Le Crunch Honneur… but *-=SHARkY=-* is coming up quickly from behind. Fadecourt leaps 70 teammates to take the Frogblast award this week. How did you do? Check the 7 day stats to find out!

Well, kiss mah grits – another easter egg has surfaced. Space Cowboy has discovered some graffiti left on the Maw by Ferrex, one of Halo’s level designers. Now what I want to know is… did he make it to the Longsword after finding this? Check out all the details on our Easter Eggs page.

Another victim of our overwork… Amechwarrior uploaded a series of pics showing his (and his brother’s) efforts to get on top of Blood Gulch – the first batch went up almost a week ago, though he was still a good distance from the top. On Saturday, he uploaded a new batch, showing what the map looks like from above… way above. (If we’d been more on top of things, the folks who opened up Random Vector yesterday would have realized that their February Challenge had been beaten… before they even posted it! Our bad.) In any event, Amechwarriors pics are now immortalized on our Gameplay Tricks page – check ’em out!

Heh – noticed this over at the Battleground: Halo forums – someone’s gone and created a Halo Movie poster. Nice work!

Brian Towne has mirrored the newest music video, since Angelfire seems to have closed down the original site. You can now find it here, at mythica.org. Thanks, Brian!

DT_Spike snagged the images from the OXM scan we put up yesterday, and did some airbrushing, a little blurring, some editing… came up with a pretty slick mural (almost 2000 pixels wide). Check it out in our Miscellaneous Art section.

Another chapter from Gasmask comes in – Halo: A Strange Tale (Part 5) is posted to our Fan Fiction section. Marathon connections continue… and now here come the Pathways.

Apologies for the lack of posting – huge amounts of time have been sucked up fixing hardware problems. Yesterday, a note from Senator32 came in – yet another music video has been posted. This one is made up from existing clips (rather than newly-recorded material) – the E3 2000 movie, the Gamestock 2001 movie, and others – and it’s set to Linkin Park’s ‘In the End’. Take a look! (You’ll need to copy that link ,and paste it into a new browser, rather than clicking on it, to get around the host’s ban on referral links.)

Recently, a contest being run by the Official Xbox Magazine was mentioned on our forum. We were going to hold off on posting the article it came from (until the Press Scans section was completed)… but the contest ends in a month, so it seems to make more sense to put it up now. The article is 11 pages long, and contains an ENORMOUS amount of information… several pages are clearly marked as spoiler material, but in fact, the whole article could be considered spoiler material. It’s definitely worth a read, though… go to it!

Triplex Virus writes to let us know that a new Halo site has come online – Random Vector is devoted to tricks, hacks, and wishes for the mythical Halo 1.5. Check ’em out for some fun pics!

Thanks to Brian Towne, who has mirrored both the large version (33 MB) and the small version (16 MB) of Phear X’s Halo music video (this is the Silent Cartographer film, set to Rob Zombie’s Dragula) at Mythica.org. Check ’em out, if you didn’t get ’em via Hotline!

Another Gameplay Tip – it’s common knowledge that the pair of Banshees on the natural bridge on the Assault on the Control Room level are worth grabbing… but now you have access to a short video showing you what is probably the fastest CONSISTENT way of doing so. (Yes, you can run out there and grab it under the noses of the Elites… but every once in a while, you’ll be outrun, and boom, down you go.) Mark Levin has created a Banshee Boost video – check it out on the Gameplay Tricks page of our Tips and Tricks section.

Another pair of stories have found their way into our mailbox – Albino Joe sends us an interesting viewpoint on a contentious portion of the Halo story (don’t read this if you’re not up for spoilers), and Gasmask sends in part 4 of his Strange Tale saga. Check ’em both out (along with almost 250 other pieces) in our Fan Fiction section!

Walkthroughs: Neogamer has updated his Halo FAQ/Walkthrough to version 0.9 (it’ll be bumped to v1.0 when he finishes his Multiplayer stuff) – it’s available at GameFAQs, among other places. Also at GameFAQs (same URL, even) is a new Walkthrough by R.K. Raja – it contains most of the info from the Halo manual, plus a walkthrough/strategy guide. The element both of these are missing (in fact, that every guide I’ve seen so far is missing) is a discussion about the different strategies that work on different difficulty levels – most walkthroughs seemed to be aimed at those playing on Normal. While this makes sense – most folks LOOKING for a walkthrough are playing on Normal – it would be really nice to see an in-depth, well written guide showing how to get through certain areas on Legendary, for example. Ah, well – one can dream, can’t one?

Phear X has created another music video, and is looking for hosting, as well. It’s pretty standard Halo gameplay (there’s some fun stuff at the end) set to Rob Zombie’s ‘Dragula’. While I’m loath to discourage new creative material, this video has a few issues;

1. It’s pretty big (there are two flavors, a 33 meg version and a 16 meg version – it’s 3 and a half minutes long)
2. Unfortunately for Phear, the subject material has been done – a LOT; it concentrates on the beach scene of Silent Cartographer, and there are literally dozens of movies that came out of E3 using similar footage
3. It’s not very high-quality video (this is due to the capture source, a digital camcorder – it’s acceptable, but nowhere near crisp)

All that said, we’d be happy to facilitate the mirroring for anyone who wants to help out. Drop us a line if you’re able to help, and we’ll get you the movie. (Part of the reason for elaborating here was to make it clear that if you want to make a movie for the community, you should consider finding a niche. Aaron Suhr did that admirably – his footage was fantastic, in terms of its novelty. Video is too big, and bandwidth costs too much, for folks to want to host a lot of the same-old, same-old.) Update: Both flavors (well, the big one right now, the small one very shortly) have found their first mirror on the Psyjnir Complex Hotline server. Go take a look!

Another shout-out to genohunter – he’s dropped off a pretty positive 6-page Halo review from the January 2002 issue of Joypad, a French Console mag. Yes, it’s in French. Check it out in our (soon to be finished… hopefully) Press Scans section. (Okay, it’s true – it’s the only article in the new format. They’re coming – really!)

For those who haven’t noticed, the Halo Story page has finally kicked into high gear. (Blame me – they were waiting on some scripting work.) The submissions have been piling up,but they’re beginning to pare down that backlog! Check it out, and add your own speculation!

genohunter points out a pair of French Halo reviews – one from Consoles-France.com (posted on Christmas day, of all days), the other from GameTeam Xbox. Both were quite positive – 95% and 9.5/10, respectively. These have been added to our Reviews database.

Fanatic drops off a swirly, digital image for your desktop – you’ll find it in our Wallpaper section.