If you’ve ever hunted for Halo gameplay vids to download, the name Hp-Fil4 is probably known to you; he runs a huge archive in Poland, and has often been the only source of specific games as a non-subscription download. Well… because he lives in Poland, he hasn’t had much chance to compete against the best of the best… but that’s going to change. He’s planning to come over for the MD-Madn3ss Halo 1 event in mid-June… if his team, the Polish Dream Team, can put together the cash. If you want to see how these guys play, check out this forum thread at MLGPro.com, or this website, which has been put together to showcase the team, and to provide a Paypal link for anyone who wants to help them come here to play. Go watch – and if you can help, please do so! (Thanks to insidi0us for pointing this out!)

Fifteen new pieces in the Fan Fiction section this week – go read!

DOMINATOR is offering $50 for the best HaloCE map submitted to him by mid-June – go read this forum post for more details. Careful, though – he’s reserved the right to give himself the prize…

Couple of articles out of Bungie.net today, both related to Halo music. The first update is about the upcoming PLAY! concert in Chicago on May 27th. Marty and Mike Salvatori will both be on hand to hang out and sign autographs. The second article is about a music mash-up contest being run by Sumthing Else Musicworks, Inc. Contestants will remix tracks of the Halo 2 Volume 2 soundtrack and be judged by both the community and a panel of celebrity gamers, composers and musicians. Frankie gets leet forum credz for pointing out both of these stories first.

Bluestrike2 points out that MLG PwnCast Episode 9 has been posted – they’ve gotten some help from the crew of MLGStats.com. Go listen!

This one’s sort of strange – the Ogres, Walshy, and Saiyan – Team3D to most of the Halo-playing world – have left Team3D and will be playing under the name ‘Final Boss’ for the rest of the 2006 season. Apparently, it’s a better sponsorship deal. (Not surprising, with all the money flying around right now in Pro Halo circles…) Read more about it at GotFrag. (There’s also a short note about it at Team3D.net.)

If you liked Mutha G’s Lookie vid a few days ago, you can now grab the MP3 version (and lyrics!) in this forum post. Word, yo. (Don’t forget to vote for his rock station commercial – details are in that forum post.)

Kuniklo pointed out that Bungie is hiring again; they’re looking for a new Lead Web Development Engineer. Dream job for webheads who are also Bungie fans? Sure! Go check it out! (To be fair, Cybrfrk pointed this out to me a week ago, but I wasn’t sure it was a new listing…)

Looks like a nice Halo 2 tourney is shaping up in Clovis, CA in early May – check this page at GotFrag for details. FFA on Friday, 4v4 on Saturday…

Stuntmutt recently hung out with some clanmates (in a bar, where else?), and they discovered why there are only three strips a week. Check out today’s One One Se7en to see for yourself. (We’d like to apologize for the accidental posting of Friday’s strip, for a short time; I blame me. Well, actually, I blame BOLL – but he’s gonna say he’s not even part of the staff here, so… Anyway, that strip will be up on Friday, as planned.)

Ron Dagan pointed out a Halo-based horror short story on his myspace account – take a look.

Zukan created a trailer for Vendetta, a trilogy he’s planning to make in the next few months; it’s garnered a TON of decent press to date, both from the general public, and from the MPRRS reviewers. It’s really, really well done – I’m looking forward with great anticipation to the final product. Grab a copy for yourself, and decide – the QuickTime version is higher quality (and 49.5 mb), but the WMP9 version is just fine too (and 30.3 mb). Go watch.

Coolness. GameJunkieJim put together a Bungie Crossword Puzzle – go test yourself. Thanks, Masta Chef.

Dennis Powers writes to point out that Part 8 of the Valley of the Forerunners is now available for download on the Halo CE Chronicles website. 8:17 long, available in WMP9, QuickTime, and streaming Flash, this part shows Harrington and the Marines a little more about what they’re up against. If you’ve wondered why some of the episodes of this season seem to start and end in non-standard places… Dennis wrote up a short piece explaining the difference between ‘Episodes’ and ‘Parts’, and why this season is laid out as it is. Worth a read!

Spartan Jag noticed a bunch of new content at the Halouvre – there’s stuff from Major.Dump and stuff from a new artist, Hikaru. Take a look!

Another imSuck movie made it through the MPRRS yesterday – this one is called ’10 ways to tell if you’re a noob’, and it combines (as usual) great editing with entertaining commentary on various noobish activities. Grab a copy in either WMP9 format (45.9 mb) or QuickTime format (47.5 mb).

Holy Pro Gaming, Batman! I should check my mail before I post news. There was an email from 3Suns with a TON more MLG links; we’ve got press releases about new sponsorship deals (specifically Boost Mobile and Scion Auto), and we’ve got a new Player of the Week article (this one focuses on Mack). Go read more!

Apologies for the news blackout; connection from this hotel is MUCH more difficult than I’d expected. Let’s start with some MLG news – Pieter Kok pointed out that MLG is about to launch a television show; you can find links to more info on MLG’s site. Pretty cool stuff!