AYB Fonzi, a member of the Str8 Rippin clan, has been interviewed over at MLGPro.com. (Interestingly enough, the interview was conducted over XBL, via headsets – nice!) An interesting story about a group of guys who came together over Xbox Live, and challenged the upper crusts of the Halo Pro scene. Give it a read – and be sure to check out the streaming footage from MLG Houston, kicking off this weekend!

Sarge meets up with an Elite Councillor in today’s One One Se7en… and the results ain’t pretty.

Fourteen new stories for you in today’s Fan Fiction offering – and a milestone for me; the first post that I can remember where I didn’t need to delete a single entry! Wow. Go read. Update: There’s a fifteenth now, because someone… made noise. (No, this will not become a habit.)

There’s another massive art update (Halo and non-Halo work both) over at Halo Babies today – some fun stuff in there!

The Gamefly Q Awards (we mentioned these in January) were announced this morning at the Game Developers Conference – Halo 2 took hom Favorite Game of the Year, Favorite Xbox Game, and Favorite Shooter. Nice! You can read about it on PR Newswire or Yahoo Finance.

Turns out that National Xbox Tournament we mentioned a couple of days ago is not just Europe – it’s happening in Canada, too. Thanks, Speny Honest.

Captain Spark posted another batch of dialogue snippets on his website yesterday – all elites, this time around. We’ve added them to the Dialogue Databank.

Shane writes to remind everyone that Halo will be inducted into the Walk of Game this evening at 5:30 pm on Metreon’s Ground Level in San Francisco. Not exactly the same as getting your hands into the concrete… but if you’re in SF, go show your support!

Mike Miller once again comes through – what can arguably be called the most difficult level in Halo 2 now has a Legendary Walkthrough to help you along. Regret went up today – with 15 movies showing you a multitude of techniques that can get you past the hard stuff. Mix them in with Mike’s clear writing (and amusing commentary on the things he DOESN’T like) and you end up with a great read, even if (like me) your chances of actually USING this guide to get through the level on Legendary are about as good as Punxsutawney Phil’s chances of avoiding humans on February 2. Check it out!

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.