Stephen Loftus found some new information about the scale of Covenant Assault Carriers, and has therefore redone his UNSC/Covenant Ship Scale Chart. Those things are MONSTERS!

Several members of 2old2play showed up at MLG Chicago last week – and Joel “doodirock” Albert wrote up their experience for the website. It was a pretty doomed attempt right from the start… but they made the best of it. Thanks to doodi and DSmooth for the heads-up.

I was gonna let this one go… but everyone and their brother is writing about it, so I guess I need to say something. A couple of days ago we mentioned that Halo Zero, a fan-made sidescroller, was #10 on Gamespot’s most popular game list. Yesterday, it shot to number 1 – and it’s still there today. The reason I didn’t want to say anything is because you’re seeing synergistic feedback in action – the game is very high on the list of most popular games (and it’s the only non-commercial game there), so people visit the page to see what it’s about… which raises its popularity, which makes MORE people go look at it, and so on. It’s a fine game – a pretty impressive effort for a fan-made product – but it’s not the best game on the planet, and the expectations that are being built because of its position on Gamespot’s list are unfair. (There are lots of forum threads over there about how crappy this game is – which it’s not… until you start comparing it to Metal Gear Solid or GTA3 or WoW.) So: it’s really fun that it’s gotten to the top of the Most Popular list… but at this point, folks need to let it fall off again, or nobody will EVER enjoy it.

Tied The Leader is back, with a couple of extensive posts – and more, farther down. The most recent stuff: XerxdeeJ went to Chicago (writeup is still coming) , the TTL Gunslingers went looking for a fight on the 2old2play forums… and wrote up the results, and another Gunslinger wrote up a LAN event, complete with pictures. Good stuff! Thanks, XerxdeeJ. Update: looks like the MLG writeup went up just minutes ago… it’s a huge photo-essay, and it’s a great read. Check it out!

PHW is mostly a Half-Life 2 related comic site… but the Weekday Strip involves characters from a number of games, and the most recent strip involves your friendly neighborhood Master Chief. Thanks, Vapor.

Sometime back in the Jurassic Period, Schooly D asked Pinkuh (who is part of his Halo 2 clan, Team Schooly D) if she’d make a poster for the clan. She said sure… not having any idea how much trouble it would cause her. It got finished last night, though, and she posted it on our forum. I’ve also added it to her gallery here at HBO. It’s an awesome piece of work – check it out!

Now THIS is dedication. Nogard watched the Limited Edition DVD, and noticed that Joe Staten flips through a 160-page Halo 2 script on camera. He went to the trouble of transcribing as much as he could see – and posted it online. (It’s an angelfire site, so even though it’s a tiny page, it might go down – if it does, we’ll put up a mirror.) This is intriguing just for the focus it must have taken.

Scifibrain.com interviewed Nathan Fillion, who played Captain Mal Reynolds in Firefly – turns out the guy’s a Halo 2 fanatic. The interview eventually gets around to his filmmaking stuff… but the first chunk is ALL about Halo. Pretty funny! Thanks, Cornballer.

Jillybean has been creating Christmas stories for the past couple of years – and this year, she went a step further. She recruited some pretty talented artists from the Halo community to illustrate her holiday tale… and man, what a job they all did! The story is heartwarming, but when you add artwork from Theo Prins, Paul Davies, Shishka, Dillo, and several OTHER talented artists… wow. The images themselves will eventually be added to various collections around HBO – but for now, read the story in our Fan Fiction section, and check out the pics there (each of the thumbs leads to a larger version). Don’t forget to leave your comments!

spookie1337 has begun importing Hang ’em High into the F.E.A.R. engine – you can see a bunch of screenshots in this thread on the fearmaps.com forum. He pointed the project out on our forum here.

zerosignal wanted people to know about a double elimination Halo tourney that will take place at the Bottom Line Bar and Grille in Austintown, OH on January 28th – no word on entry fees, prizes, or directions. If you’re interested, I guess you should email him. Update: Looks like another one was announced on our forum last night – 4v4 on an upcoming (so far undetermined) Saturday, in Lititz, PA. Entry is $100/team, top prize is $1000. More details in the forum post. Update 2: And another one, in Groton CT, January 7. $10-$20/person, depending on type of competition, prizes based on participation. Go read!

Merecatfish pointed out that he’s got a new HaloCE map available for download – screenshots can be seen in this Gearbox forum thread, and the map itself can be snagged from HaloMaps. Give it a look!

Over at High Impact Halo, you can find a video tribute to the founder of that site, Ducain, put together by a collection of users and staff. The video’s huge – 130 mb or so – and consists mostly of folks letting Ducain know why they’re grateful to him for his contributions to the community. Go read the thread, and download the vid! Thanks to Faktablad for the first heads-up.

Joystiq has a ‘Five reasons why Halo 2 is #1‘ list – a solid list, I think. Go see if you agree! Thanks, Dt7.

The Squadron, Episode 13, has been released for the public – Durge continues to be bested by the humans, but the tides might be turning. You can grab the WMP9 version from Broken Console’s site (11.2 mb, 4:55) or the QuickTime version from us (11.3 mb).

So there are some button combinations that can give you a leg up on the competition in Halo 2 multiplayer… but what happens when you get ’em wrong? Stuntmutt speculates in today’s One One Se7en.

Jillybean has taken a whack at the overgrown forest that is the Halo Story Page mailbag – you’ll find her latest prunings on the Story Page.

LunarShadow points out that the H2O Stats Reader has a new version out (1.2.0) – a bunch of new features are available (check the changelog for details). Looks nice!

Wow, this is rather… strange, if you ask me. If you visit the front page of Gamespot, in the bottom left corner, you’ll find a list of the Most Popular Games, presumably based on traffic to various Gamespot pages. Number 10 on the overall list is Halo Zero, a fan-made sidescroller we mentioned last week. If you look at just the currently available games, it jumps up to number 6. That blows me away – it’s a fan-made sidescroller, in the middle of the Christmas season. Have you played it yet? (Thanks to LoneRanger 2.5 for noticing.)

Red vs Blue Episode 70, ‘Sneaking In‘, was posted last night for sponsors. (Yes, that means it’ll be out in the next day or two for everyone else – you don’t need to send us mail when it happens.) Tex rocks (yeah, surprise), and she puts a lie to the ‘the SMG is the wimpiest weapon ever’ argument. And Church rocks, too (though I don’t think he’s quite as good with SMGs). This whole season continues to reach new levels of funni – I’m loving it. Looks like DirePhoenix was first with the heads-up.