The Weekly What’s Update is now posted at Bungie.net – info about PAX, info about the new playlists coming out in the next couple of weeks, a larger version of Mike Hill’s amazing warthog pic we posted this morning, and a really, really scary pic of Mister Chief in a speedo. (Blame DanteThePoet if your eyes bleed.)

A movie called ‘Untouchable’, by TheHaloGod, cleared our Movie Peer Review Rating System this morning, with a pretty unprecedented score. It’s a montage vid – but the timing is simply astounding, and the music choice is great. As luck would have it, I’m not anywhere near home today (nor will I be for the next couple of days), so the tools available for multiple formats are not what they should be. We’re offering the original WMP9 version, 44.7 mb – quality is fantastic. We’re also offering a somewhat larger, somewhat lower-quality QuickTime version (49.2 mb) – it’s still quite watchable, but not as beautiful as the WMP9. I’d point out the spots that made us all go ‘OMG’ – but they’re more fun to experience on your own. Even if you’re pretty jaded with respect to montages, this is worth watching.

Recently, Red vs Blue enhanced their website with a ‘Featured User’ option – each day, a different member is chosen, and people get to meet someone they might otherwise have overlooked in this community of thousands. Not long ago, one of these Featured Users was Elnea, an eye surgeon who enjoys playing Halo with her son. Exploring her RvB space, I found that she’s quite an artist – with a style I really enjoy. She was kind enough to allow us to spotlight her work here – so check out the Art of Elnea, a page that will grow as time goes along.

Too many people can’t pronounce important words – it’s Stuntmutt to the rescue. Today’s One One Se7en is brought to you by the word Gauss and the Number 7.

We got an art submission this morning that blew me away – I’m not going to have time to process the Miscellaneous Art queue right now, but I thought this should make it out into the community. Mike Hill put together a gorgeous action shot (347K) showing the Master Chief making use of that Warthog winch. He promises more in the future – I’m looking forward to it!

Halo Babies has hit 100! The current strip is a lot of fun – and has spawned three new desktops besides. Go read!

Looks like the Frag Dolls are recruiting – they’re looking for one more member, and will be vetting people at the Penny Arcade Expo this weekend outside Seattle. Details can be found at eToychest – thanks, Rampancy.net.

GameDaily has an article discussing Halo 2’s moneymaking power – almost 200,000 copies of the Multiplayer Map Pack were bought in its first month on the market. (It’s unknown how many have been sold as direct downloads from Xbox Live.) Some of the numbers in the article are suspect; they list 4.7 million total sales for Halo 2, when the numbers were above 6 million in April… but overall, it’s a pretty interesting read. (Halo 2 has been the most-played Xbox Live title every week it’s been on the market – even today, 9 months after release.)

The World Cyber Games announced sponsors yesterday – and the US National Final will take place in New York in two weeks. 40,000 players competed in the US in preliminary events – 186 are in the finals. Of those, 16 will continue on to Singapore to compete for a $400,000 prize pool in the Grand Final – 16 of 800 gamers, pared down from a total of one million, worldwide, this year. Big numbers!

Fourteen new pieces for you in the Fan Fiction section today – go read!

Over at MLGPro.com, there’s an interview with IGS (well, half of them), discussing their loss to TmG in Las Vegas, and playing in general. Entertaining read – check it out! Thanks, 3Suns.

Halo Babies has reformatted its site to fit comfortably on the screen of the Sony PSP – go read about this at the main site, or visit HBabies.net to see it! Gotta love it.

A couple of days ago, the MPRRS processed the second episode in Final Supremacy‘s Lost Stratosphere series. It failed – because one of the reviewers decided that the download took too long. Since this is an absurd criterion for a failing grade, I’ve overridden the score – and the movie is available to you in either QuickTime (38.6 mb) or WMP9 (37.5 mb) formats. It advances the existing storyline of Episode 1 – humans are in a dire situation! Go watch.

Dang. In the craziness that was yesterday, I didn’t get around to posting Wednesday’s One One Se7en – which means you missed some classic corn. Apologies.

Got a trick you want the community to know about? Head on over to High Impact Halo. Yeah, that part has been true since Halo 2 was released, and before… but they’ve put a new Trick Review System online, and it has the potential to vastly reduce the clutter that keeps some tricks from being noticed, while keeping things organized and easy-to-find. It will also reduce the workload on HIH staff required to identify new tricks, allowing newsposting to happen more easily – which will likely translate to more fun stuff MAKING it to the front page. Inspired by (but in no way based on, codewise – this puppy’s completely original to HIH) our Movie Peer Review Rating System, the TRS promises to help tricksters and fans alike – go check it out!

Prometheus, the multiversion Halo model manipulator/editor, has a new update online. They’ve lost scripting support (their scripter has left the team because of problems with the CE community), but there’s plenty of good stuff left. Screenshots and descriptions will give you a taste for what’s coming – go read!

retsamolah put together another montage vid; I’m sure it will earn the scorn of TRUE masters, because there are a couple of times when he actually takes 3 shots to no-scope the enemy (and because he uses the dreaded n00b combo to get a triple kill or two), but some of the sticks have to be seen to be believed. All footage collected in the last few nights – vid is 65.5 mb, QuickTime format. The downside: there’s only one jump-to-the-death-off-Lockout this time around, and it’s not even KP. Nice gameplay set to great music (though not timed to it) – a fun watch.

Over at MLGPro.com, there’s an interview with TMG, formerly Str8 Rippin, conducted after MLG Las Vegas. They talk about how good it feels to be on top (heh), and focus a lot on the rivalry with iGameSpot, the team they beat to win MLG Las Vegas. Nice read! Thanks, Arachneya and 3Suns.

The Escapist has written up a nice-looking article showing the evolution of Bungie’s FPS space opera from Marathon to Halo. A few factoids left me shaking my head… but all in all, a good read. Thanks to stosh, at Bungie.net, for the heads-up.

And1balla2829 writes to point out (in a post on the RvB forum, registration required) that he’s created an RvB Firefox toolbar – contains tons of mini-buttons for the best movie/machinima/Halo 2 sites, plus news feed menus and a ticker from Rooster Teeth, and more. Here’s a small screenshot to show you what you’d be getting.