The all-girl gaming clan PMS is given 3 pages in the latest Entertainment Weekly magazine (Sept. 16 issue, on sale the 9th) No online edition as far as I can tell. Since they’re heavily into Halo, there’s much talk about the game, and their participation in the CPL 2005 Summer Championships. Interesting to see how Halo is again used as an example of a game that draws you in, no matter what your background.

With the Wu gone this weekend, updates are a little sporadic, but we’ll do the best we can. First up, thanks to a heads up from Anton P. Nym, The Escapist’s latest issue has an article written by John Tynes, a tabletop game aficianado that had some adventures in computer game development, it’s an interesting read, esp. when you get to the part where he mentions his role in Bungie’s aborted Phoenix project. Oh, what a tease!

A few days ago, a secret message was discovered on the mysterious site Origen Xbox 360. The details can be found in this IGN article– basically, there’s a Latin message on the page that, if you kinda squint at it, may or may not have something to do with what may or may not be Halo 3. We don’t know what it means, we don’t have any secret information to help you with, and we’re not willing to guess on record as to what this page means. So stop emailing us about it, OK?

Bootstrap Boon is an HBO Helljumper who put together a long (21:39 long) story called ‘Oddball’ – it uses footage from a couple of multiplayer maps coupled with dialogue from the Dialogue Databank, all wrapped up with nice background music, to tell the story of a Spartan/Covenant conflict. It passed the MPRRS recently, so you can grab copies from our server. Warning: the original WMP9s are a bit off, aspect-wise. I asked BootStrap’s brother about fixing this, and got no response – so you’ll have to live with the problem. Also, the low-res WMP9 has screwed-up audio at the start – again, this is unfixable by me. The QuickTime versions (both low and medium res) do not have either of these problems. Grab the one that makes the most sense to you (please be gentle, these are huge, and we don’t want to be poor next month):

• WMP9 Medium (856×480, 166.9 mb)
• WMP9 Small (428×240, 79.1 mb)
• QuickTime Medium (856×384, 138 mb)
• QuickTime Small (428×192, 66.6 mb)

Pretty ambitious work!

Stuntmutt takes a walk down Memory Lane in today’s One One Se7en – I’m with ya, brother.

In the ‘what fans are doing’ category, Laird, of Sponsors vs Freeloaders, pointed me to an eBay auction in which he’s selling a sketch of an SvF character, with all proceeds going to Hurricane Katrina relief. Check it out!

Over at Halo Babies, the winning strip in their recent ‘Red vs Blue’ contest has been released as this week’s normal comic. Nrek did the writing, Gruntsbane did the artwork. Knowledge of a popular custom gametype in Halo 2 multiplayer is necessary to get the joke. (Cute stuff!)

The Video Games Live tour, originally set up for this summer but delayed because interest was too great for some of the venues, is getting ready to kick off again; it starts in Seattle on October 29, with 27 additional tour dates to be announced soon around the US. There’s an official trailer, in both WMP9 and QuickTime formats – go watch!

Seventeen new pieces for you in today’s Fan Fiction update – go read. (I let a haiku through, because there’s no real policy about them at this point – but I’m also MAKING a policy, because haiku crazes on the forum have shown me their potential for overwhelming the fanfic section. From now on, I have to say ‘no’ to haikus – you’re welcome to post them on our forum, but please don’t add them to the Fan Fiction section. Thanks!)

I hesitate to mention this, because the files are enormous… but hey, what the heck. A couple of weeks ago, we mentioned that Cody Miller had completed the Twin Galaxies Halo 2 Bounty – complete Halo 2 on Legendary difficulty, with no deaths… today, he posted a note that the finished run had been uploaded to archive.org. There are two versions – a low-res, 800 mb copy… and a higher-res, 2 gb copy. (Yes, you read that right, 2 gigabytes. It is, after all, three and a half hours long.) QuickTime format. Amazing. Simply amazing. He makes it look almost easy… Update: For those having trouble with a direct download of the larger file, we’ve made it available via BitTorrent as well (with a chunk of seed bandwidth to boot). Remember – this puppy’s 2GB large.

Couple of tournament newsbits for you: Chappelle writes to point out an ongoing series of tournaments at Survivor Halo (join up, win cash), and Chryton mentions a tourney coming up in Bowling Green, Kentucky on September 24th – registration is $30, top prize is a Pontiac Sunfire. What are you waiting for? Update: We also heard from LTL Legolas, of Larger Then Live [sic], who wrote to point out the LTL League, an online league that’s free to enter. There are no prizes (at least not yet), but you can join for the joy of competition. Rules are here, signup info is here, and gametypes are here.

Eep – I didn’t notice a Halo 1 montage by Llamaking over at Halo Planet – go watch for a lot of 3-shot pistol kills.

As MLG gears up for Seattle this weekend, you can go read Dyslexia’s review of MLG Nashville, held a couple of weeks ago. It’s nearly a blow-by-blow of IGS Monglers fight to the top of the heap – check it out! And while we’re on the subject of MLG, synide sent us a small (5.3 mb, WMP9 format), heavily-compressed clip of Sundance DiGiovanni on G4’s Attack of the Show a couple of days ago – he talks about why MLG is different than its competition, and a bit about how Halo 2 is ‘a step back’ in competitive gaming. You can grab it from our server.

A couple of weeks ago, we showed you a pretty amazing picture created by Mike Hill. Bungie liked it enough that it was added to the Bungie Weekly Update that week. Well, Mike’s back – and eventually it’ll get added to the various art sections of this site, but again, I couldn’t hold this shot. It’s a sniper pose – he said it was a study, ‘placid’… I disagree. You make up your own mind. There’s a small version (142K, 585×422), a huge version (885K, 1928×1377), and a version formatted as a background image (318K, 1024×768). Enjoy! Update: apologies for those who tried early – the links were bad. They’re better now.

Looks like Briar’s Armor is finished – you can find it for sale on eBay. Starting bid is $1500 (reserve is not yet met), auction has a week to run. Remember – you can get closeup views of this armor at briarsarmor.com!

Cnet has posted an article detailing their choices for the top 10 games of the last 10 years – Halo (the original) came in at a fitting number 7. Thanks, prometheus.

Whoa, very cool. Bryn “ofthehi77” Casey has put together another gorgeous piece – MC, another MC, and Cortana, in some Forerunner ruins. Check out ‘In The Ruins‘! (This was originally posted at yayap.com – we’ve added it to Bryn’s page here with permission.)

Over at the Halo CE Chronicles website, you’ll find a document entitled ‘The Halo CE Chronicles Universe‘ – it’s a backstory for the Halo CE Chronicles, and attempts to put that machinima series in sync with the Halo universe as we know it. Go read!

Today’s One One Se7en brought a smile to my face – because he ain’t joking, it really is like that.

InnerRayg posted a parody of Linkin Park’s In the End a couple of days ago – but the link wasn’t working. Last night, kobaj came to the rescue, with a different link – and now that I’ve gotten a copy, I’ve localized the file. Voices aren’t exactly like Linkin Park… but the singing’s decent regardless! 3.3 mb, MP3 format.