A rather odd story was posted on TechnologyReview.com yesterday – it contains speculation that Halo 2 could have been released at the end of 2003, but was delayed a year to add polish necessary to push Microsoft past Sony’s Playstation 2. Aside from the fact that Halo 2 WASN’T ready for release in 2003, and that the position that a more polished game will sell better than a less polished one is so obvious as to not need an article like this to be clear to most people… I guess this might be worth reading. (I can’t really understand why it’s even up – maybe someone can explain this to me someday.) Thanks, Google News Alerts.

More info on the Video Games Live tour ‘cancellations’ – jdman2289 points out that on the news page of the site, there’s an explanation stating that due to the overwhelming success of the series, many dates are being added, and many dates are being rescheduled. At this point, existing tickets are expected to be honored – don’t rip ’em up yet! More when we know it.

Jeff, from Video Gamers League, points out that there’s new info about tourneys in Dallas, New York, and LA up on their website – swing by for rules and entrance info. Dallas is this coming weekend, LA plays on August 6, and New York happens on August 7. Get ready!

trigger119 wrote to say that a new machinima trailer has been posted at Halomachinima.com – it’s for a project called ‘Installation 451’, and the trailer’s nicely done. WMP9 and QuickTime. Go grab a copy!

coaxke, of futuristic sex robotz, wrote to say they’re looking for an illustrator/cartoonist to do robot characterizations (Futurama style?) of all the members of Futuristic Sex Robotz for their new web site. Samples should be sent to this email address. (These guys put together one of the funnier Halo rap vids out there.)

prometheus did a bit of searching, turned up a few Halo-related podcasts. You can find links to the one that worked for him in this forum thread.

Dyslexia continues his series of Halo pro interviews with a chat with Str8 Rippin, put together at MLG St. Louis. Good read! Thanks, 3Suns.

2old2play has put up episode 5 of their podcast, 2old2type – site discussion, tournament discussion, lots of cheating stuff. 31 mb, just over an hour. Go listen!

It might be good for sniping, but… today’s One One Se7en shows the dangers of insensitivity.

Interesting idea… Andrew Matlock has resurrected his Coté D’Azur design for HaloCE – you can see an evolution of pictures (including current versions) in this Gearbox forum thread. Thanks, MasterGrief.

Nine new pieces for you in the Fan Fiction section this Monday – the writers never sleep!

HitManBobster pointed out a Red vs Blue Soundboard at AlbinoBlackSheep – clips from the various characters in the series, set up in Flash. Sound quality is lacking, but the organization is nice.

Xbox Solution has reviewed the Multiplayer Map Pack – they liked it quite a bit. Go see their comments! Update: another review today – this one from Globe and Mail (a Canadian newspaper). Interesting – I guess folks needed a week or two to play…

A few days ago, we got email from Matt Cheeser, alerting us to ‘This Spartan Life‘ – a pretty unique concept; Damian Lacedaemion is a talk show host who uses Halo as a set. His guests talk about a lot of things – games, yes, but plenty of other things. It’s machinima… mixed with talk show television. It’s fun. There are five episodes so far. (They got a pretty good review on G4’s Attack of the Show – we’ve taken this long to mention them because we wanted to help with bandwidth first, and setting up took a little while.) Go watch!

Aztec pointed out a new update from the HaloDev team about Prometheus, the all-in-one model manipulation tool that a series of prominent Halo modders (the good kind, not the kind that are cheating against you on Warlock) have been building. Lots of disasters, lots of under-the-hood changes, not a lot to actually SEE; this one is basically to let you know they haven’t given up.

kons0uL wrote a followup to his blog rant about cheaters and matchmaking that we mentioned yesterday – this one clarifies his position about his expectations, and about where he got them from. Go read!

Occasionally, the subject of paintball guns comes up in our forum, and the Tippman Model 98 is held up as a classic. True Dark 1ES found a company called Engler Custom Paintball Guns that has taken this gun and modified it to look like something much more familiar to Halo fans. The page is broken, so actually ordering it might be difficult… but it’s the last gun on the page. Scroll down to the bottom for a look – and if the price isn’t totally out of range for you, you could try email; hit the ‘BACK’ link at the top of the page, then the ‘Contact Us’ link at the top of the resulting page. Update: looks like it was mentioned before – this was the earliest reference I could find. I must say, though, the new pics do it far more justice.

G-Phoria is coming in early August – the Awards show on G4TV airs August 9th at 8pm ET, and Bungie’s been nominated for 7 awards:

• Best Shooter
• Best Multiplayer Game
• Best Sound Design
• Best Original Soundtrack
• Best Voice Performance – Male (David Cross)
• Best Boss (Scarab Battle)
• Game of the Year

Voting is open now – go let ’em know what you think!

Wow, bummer. Got an email from TicketMaster today – my tickets for the August 22 performance of the Video Games Live tour have been refunded, since the show was cancelled. A look on the Tour Dates page shows a number of other cancellations – and since Boston is still listed as active, it’s possible there are still more shows off the list. Maybe they’re not selling well enough? Update: jdman2289 pointed out a thread on the VGL forum the info that suggests that the cancellations might be a mixup. Maybe. More to come.

HaloGod points out a 3-foot statue of the Master Chief he won in a GameCrazy tourney, and is now selling on eBay. Current bid is $250, 9 days remaining. (This is the same kind of statue I mentioned here back in January.) Go look!