A couple of weeks ago, we mentioned a London-based tournament to be held over Xbox Live – it took place on Friday, and the winning team was [TmC]. Thanks to [TmC]’s Samscrim for letting us know!

The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Dennis McCauley wrote a column for tech.life@play called ‘Xbox Hitting the road’. (You have to sign in to read it in its original location, so you might as well grab it from a syndicated location, instead – The Wichita Eagle is running it, for example.) It’s taking a look at the run the Xbox has had (assuming that it’s dead now that the 360 is about to be released – a bad assumption, maybe). The end of the article lists McCauley’s top 10 Xbox games – Halo is number 1, Halo 2 is number 7. Nice!

This Spartan Life has updated with a new video blog entry – blog 04 continues to chronicle the Bodyguard Competition. Some nice camera angles (I’m impressed with how careful the competitors are to not kill the camera people); I’m guessing he’s getting closer to picking a winner. QuickTime (13.8 mb) or WMP9 (10.5 mb) formats. Go check it out!

There’s a nice interview with Matt Soell over at Gaming Nexus – he talks about Stubbs the Zombie, and though much of the info is already out there, there are a few new and interesting questions. Go read! Thanks, Rampancy.net.

The movie trifecta is completed with a high-res version of one of the high-speed runs we mentioned a couple of days ago. I wished for higher quality, Cody Miller answered me. You can grab a 640×480 QuickTime (82.5 mb) of Jeff’s Cairo Station run from our server; the original source was VHS tape, so it’s still not crystal-clear, but it’s much better than the 320×240 version released Thursday. (We’re not going to get in the habit of hosting speedruns; that’s what highspeedhalo is for… I just wanted to see it better, and Cody obliged.)

Another recent submission to the MPRRS that the reviewers gave their thumbs-up to was the HALO 2: Mombasa trailer. This is a trailer for the second installment of Clan Dyslexia’s re-enactment of the Halo 2 story (the first installment was mentioned here, here, and here), and aside from being too dark in places, is a gorgeous filming of the Earth sections of Halo 2. You can grab the WMP9 version of the trailer (20.6 mb), or a slightly less dark (but still hard-to-see in places) QuickTime version (20.9 mb) – and then settle in to wait for the final product, because this one looks to be amazing.

Halzred submitted his latest montage to the MPRRS; he didn’t want hosting (it’s already being hosted over at Halo2forum.com – WMP9, 64.9 mb), but it passed with a pretty high score, and we always try to make hosted movies available to as many people as possible… so I’m putting up a QuickTime version (65.9 mb) just for those who need it. Great editing, great gameplay, fantastic timing. Go watch!

Bungie’s Weekly Update is up – and while there’s nothing ground-breaking in there, it’s a nice read. Small details about the DoA pics (they’re real, in case you doubted), teasers about the Xbox360 and its capabilities with respect to Halo and Halo 2, cool numbers about the Fight the Flood campaign, and a funky Mister Chief. Go read! Frankie, of course, was first, but I found it on my own anyway.

Hehe – fan fiction from an IT guy. Brick, over at HushedCasket.com, reposted a story from back in the day… it’s a fun read. Check it out! Thanks, rapture.

Blogcritics.com has reviewed Halo 2 Hacks, a new book by Stephen Cawood and published by O’Reilly. The book covers a wide range of ‘hacks’, from simple glitches to full-out modding of your copy of the game. I’ve been holding off saying anything about this book so far, because I think we’ll be able to bring you excerpts from it… but that can be another post for another day. Meanwhile, go read the review, or check out the book at Amazon.com.

Xbox Solution is reporting about the mtvU’s Gamers’ Ball, a traveling game tour that is stopping at various college campuses around the US, and offering cool prizes for winners of various tournaments (including a Halo 2 tournament). Check the page for more info.

We’ve been unwilling to point out scans of the GameInformer article we mentioned last week, because our policy is not to provide access to magazine scans until the issue is off newsstand shelves… but if you swing by Xboxyde, you’ll see the original screenshots those scans incorporated. I must say, Cairo Station looks pretty darn spiffy on the Xbox360! Thanks, Tempus Fugit.

tyguy101a (the guy behind KissTheChief.com) stopped by our forum to point out a Halo tourney in Philadelphia on October 29th. (They’ll be playing Madden 2006, too.) Registration is $30/40 (depending on when) for Halo 2, and top prize is $1000. More details are at Game Time Philly, the sponsors of the event.

Saucee’s third montage passed the MPRRS this morning – so you can grab a copy of it either in WMP9 format (43.3 mb) or QuickTime format (44.1 mb). Nice audio-video synchronization, and some funky video effects. Go watch!

Stuntmutt takes a look at the decision to use Spartan 458 in the upcoming Dead or Alive 4 in today’s One One Se7en. He makes a compelling alternate case.

Twenty-eight new pieces in the Fan Fiction section – busy week for the writers. Go check!

Over at Wideloadgames.org, there’s an exclusive interview with Glenda Adams, Director of Development at Aspyr Media (the software house responsible for the PC and Mac versions of Stubbs the Zombie). It’s quite technical, centering on the requirements needed to run the game, and why – looks like the video card minimums are gonna be pretty steep. It’s a great read, also talking about what went into making this game work on personal computers, and how those versions will differ from the Xbox version. (I’m sad to learn that the PC/Mac versions won’t ship with Co-op play.) This is only part 1, so keep your eyes peeled for more! Thanks, BattleCat.

LunarShadow has posted a new version of H2O Stats Reader, for aggregating XBL stats. Check out this forum post for details of the new stuff and a download link.

Wow. Looks like since they stopped telling us about them, we’ve completely missed the last few Podtacular podcasts. We mentioned Episode 12 on October 10… since then, they’ve released Episode 13 (Grenade Power and Burial Mounds), Episode 14 (Customs and Call-Ins), Episode 15 (high-quality update), Episode 16 (Coag and Combos), and Episode 17 (Customs and Call-Ins). Go catch up!

There’s a new strip up at Halo Babies today, looking at the loss of leaderboards at Bungie.net. That’s ONE way to handle the situation!