This weekend, BoneKin released a run-through of the Maw, on Legendary, without a single shot being fired. (He does use grenades – which seems reasonable, since most of the enemies you face on that level (at that difficulty) are immune to melee attacks.) It’s pretty big – because it’s over 18 minutes long. It’s pretty cool to watch someone do this entire level, on Legendary difficulty, without ever once firing a gun (or dying). It may not be for everyone… but we’ve put up local mirrors (both of his original WMP9 versions and a pair of QuickTime versions) because we think folks should be able to watch this if they want to, and we don’t want to crush his university connection. (All links can be found in the forum post.) Enjoy!

A week ago, Tempus Fugit pointed out that a site called Latino Review was claiming to have their hands on a copy of the Halo script, and that there’d be a review this week. It’s up now. There’s already a rather large thread on our forum, discussing its credibility… for those who don’t want to be spoiled, don’t worry, there’s nothing in this review that isn’t in the first game or the first book. It’s probably too early to be passing judgement… but if this writeup is real, I’ll probably be unhappy with the final product. (I’m not looking for a movie that exactly reproduces the game I’ve played hundreds of times.) Thanks to El Mayimbe, of Latino Review, for the heads-up. Update: I’m just adding this to clarify – I am not accusing Latino Review of faking this review, or pulling a publicity stunt. I’m reserving SOME judgement, because the general rule around here is it ain’t true until Bungie SAYS it’s true (and because the date on the script reviewed is 9 months ago, and an awful lot can change in 9 months)… but there’s no really good reason for LR to fake this.

Had to head out for a couple of hours… and now it’s all over but the shouting. (Well, the paying, I guess.) You guys rock: the items for the Blow Me Away charity auction went for a total of $11,717.97, which means you guys are contributing over $10,000 to the American Red Cross hurricane relief effort (as well as taking home some pretty cool schwag). A really cool side note is that almost half of the money has ALREADY BEEN PAID. Nice. As soon as I have information from Bungie about shipping, the winners will be notified with details… congrats to all!

Just a really quick note – the Blow Me Away auctions are closing now; the first three are already finished, with 13 to go. Last chances!

Joyride has put up a number of new toys; check out the Heretic Elite, and the Heretic Banshee (among others)! Thanks, madda cheeb.

rockslider has updated his Bad Cyborg website with a couple of warthog joyrides you can do on the second level of Halo (the original). I’m pretty sure I’ve done these – but it’s nice to have them delineated!

The latest episode of Podtacular is this week’s customs and call-ins episode. Go grab it. Thanks, GLewis.

Red vs Blue Episode 66 was posted last night for sponsors; they’ve moved to the H.264 codec for their QuickTime version, which means if your processor can handle it, you can get a great-looking video that’s only 9 mb (vs almost 30 mb for the other two flavors). The episode itself is pretty funny – I’m starting to feel sorry for Simmons. Not REALLY sorry… but a little bit. This ep will be available for non-sponsors by Monday. First heads-up goes to ShdwRngr.

Hehe – last weekend, I attended the birthday party of Miguel Chavez’s oldest son with my kids (Rafi turned 10). The party had a Halo theme… but I didn’t put up any pics or a writeup because… well, because Rafi is 10. The cake, however, was designed by Gruntsbane, over at Halo Babies, and Mig sent THEM a bunch of pics… so go check it out!

1Up has an article comparing (and contrasting) the Dreamcast and the Xbox360 – amazing similarities, in some cases. The differences are where 1Up thinks Xbox360 will get over the hump the Dreamcast never cleared – and one of the biggest is Halo (both older versions, and ‘Halo 3’ – yeah, we know it’s not announced yet). Thanks, DHalo.

Though for the time being, the links are bold and in-your-face, I know how easy it is to overlook stuff that’s been there for a while… even when it’s glowing. So here’s a news post to remind you. The Blow Me Away Charity Auction ends tomorrow – the first auction to finish (the Joyride figures) ends in one day and two hours from the writing of this note, and the last to finish (the I Love Bees signed commemorative DVD) is over an hour and a half after that. (There are roughly 5 minutes between auction endings, so there’s always time to jump to the next one if you get sniped.) Total bids are a bit over $9200 right now… but a few items are fantastic deals, and might go up before closing. (Shishka started an interesting thread on our forum recently, wondering why the totally unique Bungie art is selling for less than the signed posters; the thread holds some suggestions for answers, but I’d agree with him that for Bungiephiles, stuff like the Jam Board is hard to beat.) Also closing soon, but not QUITE as soon, is the voting on the 343 Guilt O’ Lantern pumpkin carving contest. 5000 of you have weighed in so far – but that leaves lots and lots and LOTS of Halo fans who haven’t spoken up. There’s no signin required, no email to fork over… all we’re looking for is your opinion on carved pumpkins. Look ’em over, label your top 5… voting closes Tuesday night, late, so there are still a couple of days to think about it.

Wonga. That Weasel has posted a note explaining that the Rockets on Prisoner Awards ceremony is now downloadable. It’s… pretty long. Almost an hour and a half long. Downloadable, in either WMP9 format (228 mb) or QuickTime format (291 mb). I tried to watch it… but my QuickTime player crashed. The forum post contains plenty of other links, including text versions of all the winners, if you missed them.

Bungie’s Weekly Update is posted – stuff on upcoming playlists, plus stuff pulled from user-contributed questions. And a really awful furry Mister Chief. Go read. (Thanks, Frankie. No, really. Thanks.)

We’ve been given permission by Stephen Cawood, author of Halo 2 Hacks, and his publisher, O’Reilly, to bring you a few excerpts from the book itself, in PDF format. (We’ve also added movies that Stephen and his editor, Brian Jepson, put together to illustrate these tidbits.) Look ’em over… if you like what you see, the book has 100 entries like these! (ObDisclosure: I co-wrote the forward to this book, along with Ducain, from High Impact Halo, and Grenadiac, from HaloMods.)

Broken Console Productions have posted The Squadron Episode 9 – the team has almost found a way out of Turf. WMP9 is up now (14.5 mb) – the QuickTime is on its way. Go watch!

Elnea’s been messing with her new Wacom tablet – the last few avatars she’s made have all been created with it. Check this one out – she found out that her dad visits RvB. (Remember that Elnea is a mom herself, in her 40s.) Ouch!

mnemesis, along with a bunch of helpers, has managed to get all but two Halo 2 level transcripts online at the Halo Story Page – only Sacred Icon and Quarantine Zone are missing. Go read both posts for more details, especially if you’d like to help out with the missing levels!

Stuntmutt, ever the cynic, points out that when talking about the upcoming Halo movie, what the fans want and what will actually happen might not be the same thing in today’s One One Se7en.

When I visited the Fan Fiction queue this morning, I was a little nervous – it was huge. Turned out, though, that much of it was spam, and some of it was porn. (Sorry – even if it’s on-topic, I’ve got to draw the line at porn.) At least two entries were folks attempting to get around the 750-word minimum by adding garbage at the start and finish of their piece. When all the extras were stripped away, we were left with 9 entries. Go read.

The Tied The Leader blog has quite a bit of fun reading at the moment… there’s a response to the article we mentioned yesterday, in which a female college student rails against Halo 2 for stealing her boyfriend; there’s a short note about a photoshop contest over at Fark, and there’s a great writeup of a LAN event put on by the 2old2play WEST Clan, in which much fun was had and money was raised for charity. Go read! (It’s interesting; that article about gaming vs relationships has spawned quite a bit of discussion; there was this thread on our forum yesterday, and a new one today.)