Episode 3 of the machinima series The Codex has been posted. It’s called “Aftermath”, and it’s available in Quicktime format for now; with Divx and WMV versions coming soon. The plot thickens…

To sleep, perchance to dream… or to play. Check today’s One One Se7en for deep philosophical meaning. Or not. Pax.

Somebody was messing around in one of the sub-basements where some of the servers are. This somebody apparently spilled their drink, or possibly some soup, all over a bunch of arcane equipment I can’t understand. Anyway, some sections here are offline for awhile, like Tips, the Story Page, and maybe some others. I blame Crux.

Deep thanks to Mike Miller, who submitted his Oracle chapter of the Halo 2 Legendary Walkthrough early enough that Louis could format it and prepare it for the masses before he left. Because of Mike’s consideration, you can read it on time, today, rather than at the end of this week. This level contains the first ‘Boss Battle’ in Halo 2 – and Mike shows you how to completely sidestep this annoying addition. 7 movies in all for this level. Pax.

OK, you naggers finally have your new Mailbag. Can I go back to sleep now?

A number of people have written to point out that tech news site Slashdot has posted a rather belated review of Halo 2. They give it an 8 out of 10, and also comment on the MagicBox XFPS, another adapter that lets you plug a keyboard and mouse into an Xbox (it gets a 6 out of 10).

Unable to pass up a golden opportunity, and with a bunch of other great stuff to boot, Jillybean takes time out from her busy schedule to update the Story Page once again.

That’s it – I’m out. My family and I are on vacation for the next few days; I’ll be back Thursday night. There’s a chance I might find a few minutes to add stuff here and there (mostly late evening)… but the bulk of the updating job is going to be taken on by mnemesis (and maybe Count Zero). If you mail news to lwu at bungie.org, it will be in limbo until the end of the week. I haven’t figured out why folks can’t seem to get it that Halo news for our site should go to halo@bungie.org… but they don’t. This week, though, if you don’t get it, you won’t see your news. It’s that simple.

Hogmasta put together a Halo 2 gameplay vid called ‘Broken’. Lots of folks on our forum liked it – but Hogmasta was pretty afraid of the bandwidth rush. Two kind souls have leapt to his aid – PLEASE, use these links instead of Hogmasta’s. Thanks to the DJ, of HaloImpulse (hmm… that link doesn’t seem to exist yet, but should, sometime today), and Nirvana, of Halo-Vids, for their help.

Stuntmutt pins down a nagging paradox in today’s One One Se7en.

Fourteen new stories for you in the Fan Fiction section today – and an apology. There was a story in German I needed to reject – we made a rule almost two years ago that we’d only accept fan fiction in English, just from an administrative perspective… but I never added that to the rules page. I’ve rectified the error; apologies to the submitter.

Recently, we posted a bunch of pictures of a Master Chief suit created by Alan James – today, we’ve got a helmet from Germain Couët. It’s possible he’ll continue with the rest of the suit – but for now, he’s got some nice headgear!

Some of you may have noticed that the Halo Story page had some strange rearranging of news posts. We had a database glitch, and needed to input a few lost records – the upshot is that the newest entries, from mnemesis, are now well down the page below Jillybean’s recent work. They’re the last two entries for February 19… but if you haven’t read for a bit, check out the top few posts, as well.

TheTaintedOne has created a pretty massive gameplay vid; it’s 12:22 long, in widescreen format. Timing is quite good; composition does a nice job of moving you from kill type to kill type. Movie ends with another melee-only oddball clip (just like the very first release I ever saw from TheTaintedOne) – all in all, if you like watching Halo 2 gameplay footage, this is one worth seeing. It’s available via BitTorrent right now in both QuickTime (64.5 mb) and WMP9 (61.2 mb) formats. It’s a little scary being the first movie posted after a ‘stop sending us bad stuff’ newspost… but someone’s gotta do it. Update: TheTaintedOne started a forum thread about this, if you want to comment. Update 2: HALOChat has provided a web mirror for those who’d rather use a browser than BitTorrent.

I HATE making posts like this one – but I think it’s become necessary. Recently, we’ve received a mountain of video announcements and submissions; some bits are quite good, and we’re happy to host them, or point them out if others are hosting them. Others are not great, but okay… and as long as they come with their own bandwidth (that is, nobody’s asking us to help with the hosting), I don’t mind putting up a news post. Unfortunately, many of them (more every day) are, simply put, crap – and lots of these come with their own hosting. If I want to pass on an announcement, I have no choice but to tell the maker that we’re not posting because the movie is crap – and that’s just mean. Please – save me the trouble, by LOOKING SERIOUSLY AT THE PIECES YOU SUBMIT. If nobody outside your immediate family would leave the thing running for more than the first 30 seconds… scrap it and try another tack. I don’t want to discourage budding movie makers; there are certainly MANY examples over the years here at HBO where someone who was given just a little bit of encouragement when they were raw and inexperienced blossomed into a spectacular moviemaker. I do want to make you think about why you’re doing this, though; if it’s just for the exposure, take the time and make a GOOD film instead of shooting us everything you’ve ever recorded. I know I’ve said it before – but clearly, it was far enough in the past that many folks never saw it: if a movie doesn’t show at least SOME level of entertainment value or originality, even if it comes with its own bandwidth, I’m going to pass on mentioning it. You’re welcome to circumvent me and post it in our forum, if this happens to you; if the announcement is met with enthusiasm and excitement, I’ll realize I made a mistake and take another look.

Outpost: Coagulation was announced last night – there’s a trailer and Episode 1. (The trailer was sent in a few days ago – I apologize, it got lost in the shuffle.) Heavily inspired by Red vs Blue, it’s the story of a team of Spartans on Coagulation, living and working under the threat of Covenant encroachment. Audio can be a little hard to hear at times. HALOChat has provided a mirror for episode 1, in case bandwidth runs out. Both vids are WMP9 format – the trailer is 14 mb, ep 1 is 22.5.

Yesterday, we posted BitTorrent links to synide’s MLG DC Aftermath vid – and almost a thousand people grabbed a copy. Those torrents are still open, and seeded nicely; if you want the vid, and have access to BitTorrent, this is really the fastest way to get it. If, however, you can’t use (or don’t want to use) BT, we’ve put up http links for both the WMP9 version (bungie.org | mythica.org) and the QuickTime version (bungie.org | mythica.org). Grab what you need! Again, these vids are about 34 mb, and will give you a taste of what an MLG tourney is like. Most of us will never actually be there in person… but synide’s shakeycam can make you FEEL like you’re there (well, after a bad burrito…).

The HBO Helljumpers are holding a tourney – rules and details can be found here. If you’re European, and you’re interested… swing by their forum – there’s plenty of room!

MasT3r would like very much if you’d take a look at his gameplay vid, currently hosted at That Weasel Television. Gameplay is decent… but it’s pretty long (9:35, with more than the first half devoted to slayer-type play on Lockout). 39.5 mb, WMP9 format. There are a couple of threads on our forum for comments – this one was first.

There’s a new Public Service Announcement posted over at Red vs Blue – it’s called ‘Cold and Flu Season’, and it uses the RvB team to pin down what causes the illnesses we come down with around this time of year, and some of the best ways of combating them. Well, okay, not the BEST ways… Hi-res for sponsors, standard res for the rest of the world. Thanks to altodarknight for the heads-up. Update: Bah. Sorry – it’s NOT yet available for the rest of the world yet. Soon. (Next time, I log out before posting. My bad.)