Mintz08 has been porting various web pages to the PSP – he started with some Weekly What’s Updates, moved on to the Enkidu Fan Fiction, and last night posted the Bungie.net Terminal preview. If you have a Playstation Portable, and you’re interested in reading some of these web pages offline on it, check out his posts!

Back in April, ArchieGates (a Gamespot user) released a pair of Needler songs; they’re pretty funny stuff. Looks like a couple of weeks ago, he released song number 3 – you can grab a copy off our server (2.4 mb). Funny stuff! Thanks to bighairyape for the heads-up.

comradx has released a trailer for the first episode of his upcoming feature-length Halo 2 film. (We posted an overall trailer a couple of months ago.) There are 7 episodes planned, with a trailer for each; Episode 1 should hit the web on July 4. The trailer is 18.8 mb in QuickTime format, 20.7 mb in WMP9 format, and combines cutscene footage with in-game play and additional voice work. Thanks to the MPRRS, for processing this. Update: thanks to trigger119, who pointed out that our hosting is pretty much unnecessary – it looks like this video has been online, on a dozen mirrors, for a few days now, according to this High Impact Halo forum thread. You’ve got a ton of choices, including BitTorrent.

XerxdeeJ posted his weekly mention of Tied The Leader, his gaming blog, on our forum – Halo-related entries include Team Tactics Scorn, a LAN party poll, the new Tom and Jerry, Quitters, and Cheaters (more flying warthogs). Go read!

Whee! Flying warthogs. The Geezer Gamers got into a matchmaking game on Containment last night – and the other team had clearly modded maps. Bad news for them – it’s on film. (9.1 mb, WMP9 format. Unfortunately, it’s on Putfile.) Thanks, Martin.

DarkChief wanted folks to know that his fanfic, First Drop, which was mentioned a couple of days ago but which went offline pretty quickly at that point, is back up, now that HaloTips is back online.

Wow. I simply couldn’t pass this up. Bonekin posted a video entitled “Violence Isn’t The Answer” – it’s a full Rumble Pit Training game of Foundation King, in which Bonekin wins by a healthy margin… without firing a single shot or meleeing a single opponent. Zero kills, zero assists, zero shots fired, playing on a level where the hill doesn’t move, and is normally a grenade death trap… but he took the match by more than a full minute. Pacifism… the choice of a new generation.

trigger119 writes to point out Mental Image, a new machinima created by his friend Vice Ruetoy. It’s in the ‘something the government is giving me is making me crazy’ genre – it’s 44.1 mb, WMP9 format. Voice stuff needs some work. You can post comments to this thread (this was put up yesterday, but the movie was replaced last night with a version with better sound).

Hedfones has written up a pretty complete collection of information about the new maps coming out, combining details from many, many different sources and providing download links in one convenient place – go read his thread over at HaloPlanet!

Socrates points out that the magnet thingy we mentioned yesterday seems to be confined to the east coast of the US – there aren’t any out west yet. Bizarre. Update: (And this will be the last I say about these things) – we got a few emails saying that Socrates was incorrect; that there ARE magnets to be had on the west coast. We have absolutely no idea what the distribution of these really is, and in fact it doesn’t really matter; this is your heads-up that there MIGHT be magnets in your local game store, or there might not be. If so – cool, grab ’em and have fun. If not – sorry. We really don’t need to hear from other locations. Thanks!

Due to a relatively boneheaded move on my part, the new Fan Fiction submission page was set up to eat submissions, rather than post them. With some help from Wado and Mark Lieberg, I was able to track down the cause of the problem – and the latest 4 entries are now up on the Fan Fiction page. Apologies to any authors who submitted stories that subsequently vanished.

Count Zero has taken time out of his busy schedule (of answering emails and sucking his thumb) to compile the next collection of questions and answers for the HBO Mailbag. Remember: the emails are all REAL. We really get this stuff.

A number of new action figure pics have been added to Joyride’s Halo 2 section – mostly stuff coming out later this year. The four that coviehunter noticed specifically were the Prophet, Hunter, Pink Spartan, and Spectre… there are more, scroll through the list!

Computer and Video Games has posted a summary of the five newest maps (along with screenshots); if you haven’t gotten your fill of this sort of info, go read!

Continuing their series of one map preview per week, Bungie has put up an in-depth look at Terminal – its strengths, its weaknesses, the best Starbucks kiosks in the station. Wait – that’s not right. But the rest of it is. Go read! Very cool graphics – screenshots, closeups on scenery items, even a map.

Davidgojr writes to point out that EB Games is giving out free Halo 2 Maptacular Map Pack magnets; he sent along a scan (242k). In his words: “The magnet itself is on the left side of the dotted line. It’s hard to tell from the image but each of the three spartans as well as the rocks and wording are raised, textured areas to give the magnet a sort of 3-D feel to it.” Go get one! Update: OscarGordon writes to say that they’re not just at EB Games – he’s seen them at Gamestop, Gamecrazy – they’re everywhere. Go get ’em!

We got word of a vid called ‘Ultimate Slayer’ – it’s a 7:24 long machinima… of sorts. It’s actually the story of a Team Slayer game in Coagulation. Nice filming, and some funny moments! The actual vid is 113 mb, but it’s stored in zipped format, and the download is only 56 mb. DivX 5 format. Go grab a copy from the Final Supremacy website.

Video Games Live, the upcoming concert tour involving video game music, has announced 17 new dates, with tickets going on sale this Friday. You can find the full press release in our misc section. Looks like I’ll be in Boston on August 22! Update: whee… the PR company has asked for a ‘recall’ on that press release. Sorry about that. Dunno WHERE I’ll be in August, I guess. More when we know it. Update 2: Minor corrections have been made, the press release is back online.

Last week, Stuntmutt commented on the unintended side effects of one of the more powerful weapons in Halo 2. A lot of people were confused. Today’s One One Se7en is another try at the same message.