Work on Last Stand continues – Phoenix_9286 announced Page Seven on our forum yesterday. This is turning into an F-Troop sort of thing…

Back in January, we mentioned that Bungie was beginning work on a series of Multiplayer guides, with Lockout and Ascension first up. It’s unclear when it went up… but Cptn Mexico just pointed out that the Lockout guide is now online. It’s pretty in-depth; a walkthrough, strategies, tips, all backed up with pretty pictures and video… go read! (Bungie.net sometimes doesn’t like external referral links, so if you get an error page, simply follow the ‘Guides’ link that should be on the left on that page.)

Spenser noticed the next installment of William Vitka’s series on video game violence at CBSNews.com – this interview is with Scott Ramsoomair, of VG Cats. This one’s a bit more ‘off the cuff’ – someone who doesn’t take the issue quite as seriously as say, Jack Thompson. And for those who think that discussion in THIS community is reactionary and thought-free, you should read this post by SPARTAN-01110101 – he makes a point that certainly opened MY eyes a little… Update: I’m a little behind, so I’m just noticing a link to a pretty interesting Thompson rebuttal on Friday’s Penny Arcade news page. Lots of good points in there.

imSuck wrote to let us know that Halogrid, a ‘movie making clan kind of joining the ranks’, had released their OWN ‘storming the beach’ video a few days ago; it’s called The Platoon Remix, and can be found on their website. It’s 44 mb, 6:03 long, 640×480. They tried to recreate the beach scene in Saving Private Ryan – and I think they did a very impressive job. Give it a look! Update: Dennis Powers pointed out a post he made on HaloMaps.org about the ORIGINAL Platoon (the one they remixed to make this vid) – and it’s a fascinating comparison. The first one was first-person, compared to this one’s third-person; it had some weaknesses (the Halo 2 HUD, including messages about kills and deaths, and occasional voiceovers (“Gained the lead!”) take away from the immersion level)… but overall, it’s a great piece, and an entirely different feel compared to this remix. Worth downloading. As soon as the current rush quiets down, we’ll do our best to create QT versions of these two, and throw up some mirrors.

Blade is having a Halo 2 party – and wants to invite you. It’s like a LAN fest – but it’s online. Details can be found on the teamhalo forum. (If you want to reply, you’ll need to register.)

A month ago, TurtleTurtleClan hit the scene with Episode 1 of Saving Private Cyan. Great cinematography, so-so voice acting. Today, they’re releasing episode 2 – well, I guess we are releasing it for them. (The last time around, the fans shut ’em down, they loved ’em so much.) Voice acting is much better, cinematography is still great. It remains to be seen how the story will play out – but it’s an entertaining film, well worth the download. We’ve got a QuickTime version for you (640×288, 37.6 mb – mirrors at mythica.org | bungie.org) and a WMP9 version (640×288, 31.4 mb – mirrors at mythica.org | bungie.org). Check it out! And sound off – either in our forum, or in theirs.

Two days ago, we mentioned an article in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer that quoted J Allard as saying that Bungie was “doubling staff for the next installment [of Halo]”. Today, that quote is all over the net – I saw stories about it at CVG and TeamXbox, for example. Straight from the horse’s mouth (separate emails from two different Bungie community team members) – this is completely untrue. Bungie hasn’t even officially confirmed that they’re making a third installment – but they’re absolutely, positively, not doubling their staff any time soon. Remember: if you didn’t hear it from Bungie… take it with a grain of salt.

Europeans – start preparing for the first official European Halo 2 Championship, being set up by Xbox.com. Check your country-based Xbox.com website to see if signups are open for your country yet. (The UK-based page is up, for example.) There’s some nice schwag up for grabs, so register soon! Thanks to Eurogamer and CVG for the heads-up.

Been a while, but Mat Noguchi (Desk Mess Consultant on the Halo 2 dev team) has updated his blog with some thoughts. He discusses how studios approach the ‘how do we get the most out of our creative people?’ problem – disjointed but fun read. Thanks, Cybrfrk.

Stuntmutt always said he stole his best work; I certainly remember seeing today’s One One Se7en gag in a few old Warner Brothers cartoons (just swap in Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd, and Bugs Bunny where appropriate). Nevertheless… it’s certainly topical and relevant in today’s XBL milieu.

Phoenix_9286 has posted episode 6 of Last Stand, his Halo 2 comic. If you haven’t read the rest, links are in the text blurb below the comic on the DeviantArt page.

AsiaOne has put up another interview with Brian Jarrard, aka SketchFactor, collected during his recent tour of Asia to promote Halo 2. This one does a much better job with translations than the last one did – there are no obvious gaffes like “most of [our games before Halo] were not successful” or “[Microsoft] cancelled several hundred game development projects”. There’s a little discussion of a Halo movie (but again, it’s just speculation, and Bungie is NOT saying they’re involved in any real planning), and another pretty clear statement that the next installment of Halo is in the works. Go read.

The Junkyard continues its Spotlight series (after a 3-month break) with a look at Ross Mills. Tattoos, The Princess Bride, and Fable – go see what ELSE defines this guy. Ross’s instincts for self-promotion have not failed him. Thanks, Mhaddy.

William Vitka is a columnist with CBSNews.com – we mentioned his very first piece, a look at the power of Halo 2, back in November. Recently, he began publishing a series of interviews focused on the issue of violence in videogames; a series of questions was sent to a variety of people with opinions on the subject. The first installment was with Jack Thompson, an attorney who’s been one of the most outspoken critics of video game violence; several of the claims he made were so outrageous, I chose to hold off on publicizing the series until some counterpoint material was online. (There’s no faster way to incite a flamewar on our forum than the material produced by Mr. Thompson.) Last week, it was Tim Buckley, the artist behind the webcomic Ctrl+Alt+Del, in the spotlight… and I understand that this week’s entry will be my own responses. I’m willing to allow discussion on our forum about this, under a few conditions: people stay civil, people refrain from ad hominem attacks (if you don’t know what those are, look it up), and (maybe most important), people do NOT send nasty notes to those who’ve expressed opinions they don’t agree with. There’s no better way to vindicate a viewpoint than to show that those opposing that viewpoint need to resort to crude or vulgar language; if you disagree with an opinion, explain WHY in reasonable terms. I’ll post again when my own series of answers gets posted.

Dennis Powers continues his introspective machinima series ‘The Halo CE Chronicles‘ with Episode 7, ‘Remembering the Future‘. The Spartan comes to grips with the loss of a friend, and his AI companion attempts to understand the human concept of grief. Pretty scenery, and a thoughtful (though action-free) episode. Proof that Halo machinima doesn’t have to be all about blowing stuff up. Flash format, 6:10 long, 6.6 mb.

Icy Guy and RMC 12 submitted another 12 multiplayer dialogue snippets for our Dialogue Databank – go listen.

coolp dropped by our forum to let people know that TalkXbox.com is looking for a new Strategy writer to continue their series of Strategy of the Week articles. Read the forum post for more details.

Geez – you’d think we weren’t fans, or something. Thanks for reminding us, Toby.

Must be a weekend for in-depth looks. Speedy posted a treatise on our forum on The Mechanical Aspects of the M12 Warthog LRV. When was the last time you saw a physics analysis of a video game model?

Wow, very nice – mortey points out a thread in the Halflife2.net forums showing screenshots of an in-progress map for Half-Life 2 deathmatch, based on Halo’s Prisoner. Great work!