Wow, I’ve seen sleazy… but this is pretty amazing. Over at a site called ‘JonsModding’, they’re SELLING (yes, selling) three maps for your Xbox, which they’re willing to install for you. These maps come from “the programming department teamed with JonsModding”, and they “have programmed the maps to use the old halo 1 weapontry and we have even added a new vehicle called ‘The Wasp’.” The three maps? “We have named them Immature, Anxiety, and Corrupted.” Whoa… that sounds a lot like the names of the three maps released by Mothergoat back in September! (Well, except for the Immure/Immature typo – but that actually gets corrected later on down the page.) And hey – those screenshots look the same, too! Oh… no wonder… JonsModding simply linked to the images on mothergoat.net. Dang, they couldn’t even be bothered to localize the images they stole. Wow. These guys have a forum – maybe some of you want to discuss this issue with them?

Heh – Peter Moore talked to Computer and Video Games a couple of days ago, and discussed the next installment of Halo as though MS was actually holding it back on purpose. Reading his words, one might almost get the idea that the decision NOT to release Halo 3 as a launch title for the Xbox360 was made not so much because it wasn’t done, but because they wanted the 360 to be able to stand on its own, and not be ‘a Halo box’. How convenient, then, that Halo 3 isn’t actually ready for release (or, in fact, even announced as in production)! Thanks, voregaffer.

Taso, of the HIH forums, got some screen time with Frankie recently – you can read the interview over at High Impact Halo. It’s a really fun piece. Check it out! Thanks, Phan7om.

Dragondex submitted a video to the MPRRS a couple of days ago – ‘Dominic Grey: Tales of a Tortured Mind’ tells the story of a… somewhat disturbed individual. Nicely filmed! Give this one a look. WMP9 format (27.8 mb) or QuickTime format (27.3 mb). (He actually started a forum thread about this on Monday – comments can go there.)

Compton has written up another blow-by-blow account of a Halo 2 multiplayer match – this one is a 1 Flag CTF game on Zanzibar. As he did once before, he’s managed to put you in the game – it’s a fun read.

Interesting… Stephen Loftus ran across this page at Chapters (a Canadian bookseller) – it lists an as-yet-unnamed trade paperback based on Halo 2, written by Eric Nylund (author of two of the three existing Halo novels), and published by Tor books (previous Halo novels were published by Del Rey). According to Chapters, it’s due out in October. Accurate? A mistake? The ISBN number listed comes up blank at ISBNdb.com… but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. (Doesn’t mean it does, either.) Intriguing, in any case! (While I was looking for other info about this, I ran across this entry at Amazon/Borders – an audio-book version of First Strike, available for purchase for $40. Scoop it up if you’ve been looking for this!)

Over at Joystiq, there’s an article about the Video Games Live concert series (yeah, I know, I said I wasn’t going to mention them any more… sue me). It contains links to video excerpts of a dress rehearsal of the Halo segment, filmed several months ago (the WMP9 version is 53 mb, the QuickTime version is 125 mb), and the video also contains interview clips with Marty O’Donnell and Mike Salvatori. Go grab a copy! Thanks, Rota Jota. (This is, by the way, the same video that IGN had up for Insiders last month – except that it’s free for everyone.)

Coolness – a Stubbs The Zombie demo has been released for Mac and PC; if you haven’t had a chance to try this out, swing by Filerush and grab a copy! (200+ mb…) Thanks, hminn.

Dennis Powers points out that machinima.com has become an official mirror of his Halo CE Chronicles series – nice going!

Almost lost in the flood of ‘BILL GATES CONFIRMS HALO 3!’ emails – DropShock Radio has released episode 9 of their podcast. 50 minutes, 24 mb. They wonder what drives modders on XBL, among other subjects…

Wow, I missed this yesterday – careless. According to a news post on Bungie.net, Marty O’Donnell did an interview with Kilroy, a member of Bungie.net’s Chapter Founders. It’s a pretty rambling piece – but it’s full of tasty morsels. If you’re an up-and-coming Marty Stalker, you owe it to yourself to read this!

Very pretty Halo 2 faceplate for your Xbox360 on eBay right now (2 days left) – I’d agree with ManKitten about the price, though.

Newegg.com is selling Halo 2 for $17.99, today only. If you’re looking for a cheap copy – this is it! Thanks, Snowy_Duck. Update: phoenixdude24 let us know that his local Blockbuster is selling copies of Halo 2 (still with the ‘do not sell before 11/9/04’ label on them) for $9.99… his email address suggests that he lives somewhere in southern Florida. Now THAT’S cheap!

Some wishful thinking, and very nice graphics work, turned an idea into a cool pic – thanks, X3n0!

I really wanted to pass on this – but there are literally dozens of emails in our mailboxes (yes, boxes, plural – folks are mailing this to every address they can find, which is a lot of addresses), so I’m posting it to make people STOP WRITING – Engadget interviewed Bill Gates at CES this year, and he was asked about the release of Halo 3. His answer:

No, I have to make sure that any speculation I did about that is — it’s up to the team when they want to ship that, and they’re going to take their time to make that a super great product. So even we don’t know when that will come out. That’s one of many games that are just phenomenal that are in the works, but it’s up to the artists to do it when they feel good about it.

For folks who are really excited about this stuff, let me clarify a couple of things for you – the fact that he says it’s one of many ‘phenomenal’ games does not mean he’s played it, and thinks it’s phenomenal – it means he knows how important the Halo franchise is to the Xbox(es). And this is not an official announcement that Bungie is working on Halo 3. There. It’s posted news, you can read it, you can point it out to your friends. Can you stop telling us about it now? Thanks!

3Suns points out a number of new tidbits at mlgpro.com – you can find a Player of the Week profile of Poison (Lil Poison’s uncle), Ogre2’s blog, the featured blog of the week (video from WinterLANd coming at some point), and the MLG Handbook, with info for players looking to be sponsored or signed. Check it out!

Feenix writes again – with news of an upcoming machinima contest. Full details will be announced soon, but for now, the basic gist is that winners will be included on upcoming cover DVDs for Xbox World 360, and an overall winner will earn a free game. The rules are simple: the machinima has to be made with an Xbox game, it must be at least 640×480 resolution, and it cannot contain any copyrighted music. Existing pieces (that is, machinima creations that have already been released on the net) are acceptable. Use this announcement to get started on making something new – or to polish up something you’ve already released!

You might remember that this week, there’s a campaign to get everyone to play as Elites on Xbox Live – Stuntmutt looks at some of the people that might not participate in today’s One One Se7en.

John Doe found a pretty random Master Chief inclusion in a Flash vid – you can find it here. Oddness…

The Seventh Column Art competition which ended a couple of days ago had results posted on Bungie.net last night – the second and third-place winners were both Halo pieces (and both artists should be familiar to HBO regulars). First place went to a piece depicting a scene from Marathon. Check out the details!