Red vs Blue Episode 46 has been posted for Sponsors – 60 mb of cold fission and salsa music, and a return of an old friend. (It looks, from recent entry in Burnie’s journal, that they’re back on track for a one-a-week release for the next few episodes.) Free versions should be available tomorrow.

A couple of months ago, mnemesis got the chance to ask Joe Staten a few questions about some of the thornier mysteries in the Haloverse. (Well, to be honest, he cornered Joe at a party, and wouldn’t let him leave for the restroom without answering some stuff. I’m not sure I was supposed to tell you that part.) Anyway, swing by the Halo Story Page for a link – that Jillybean is on top of things already!

Looks like we slipped up – we’d been following w00tness, a webcomic with Halo ties, for a while in November. Starting in December, a new chapter began – and 19 new comics have been posted since then. Thanks to Duo, for mentioning it. (The latest one has some pretty nice artwork…)

Whoa. IceWeasel listened to a section of the Whisper in the Storm cutscene that sounded odd to him… so he isolated it, sped it up, and reversed it – and found a rather odd prayer:

“I wander the earth. I seek your forgiveness for my horrible crimes against God. Amen . I wish to seek death, destruction. the light, let the light that cannot be extinguished-“

I reversed the audio myself, to make sure he wasn’t faking this – it’s really there. It’s unlikely the Freewebs link in his forum post will hold up, so you can find his audio splice in its original .wma format, or a more compatible .mp3 format on our own server. If you listen to the reversed audio with NO other modifications at all, it sounds a lot like Gravemind… but what would he be doing in High Charity at this stage? This one is wild.

The Cutscene Library grows with the inclusion of the final Halo 2 scene today; the failsafes of the system are revealed. We have one more release for you – the credits, a rather large (and largely uninteresting to most) vid… but we’ll release the small bit of story at the end as a separate download, for folks who want it but don’t need the credits themselves. In the meantime, this is how the game ends. Enjoy!

Yet another Best of the Year award for Bungie – 1Up (the website for EGM, XBN, and CGW magazines, among others) posted their Readers Choice Awards, and Halo 2 took Best Online/Multiplayer, and Best Game of the Year. I got this one from Frankie himself.

Bungie has posted the next in its ongoing series of Weekly What’s Updates at Bungie.net. A long answer to the ‘why is cheating so rampant?’ question (but one that probably won’t assuage the most angry among the players), along with a bunch of other stuff. One rumor we neglected to report this week was that Halo was being created for the Gizmondo – it seemed a little too far out there to dignify. Turns out that assessment was correct. There’s some stuff about downloadable content (though nothing about WHEN to expect it). There are a bunch of questions that anyone who can find a FAQ link should already know the answer to (but then, evidence shows that that’s not a huge percentage of those online). There’s a solid answer to the question ‘how come I can’t have black armor in MP?’, which is nice. And there’s the scariest Mister Chief artwork I’ve seen yet – and that includes the bug-eyed thing from a couple of weeks back. Go read!

Took a little while… but I’ve finally found time to clear out the Miscellaneous Art queue. 20 new items, dating back about 3 weeks. Some of everything – sketches, paintings, digital, traditional, you name it. Go look.

Eep – almost forgot today’s additions to the Cutscene Library – these are the last four scenes before the big finale. The end of High Charity, and the three scenes from The Great Journey. Almost there! (As always, thanks to Sniper 058 for the recordings.)

According to Slashdot, the Red vs Blue crew will participate in a panel discussion on machinima at the end of January at the Sundance film festival, presenting a live demo showing how they produce RvB. Nice! Thanks, full-bore. (The ‘feature in the January 2005 issue of Wired’ mention has to do with Rooster Teeth’s The Strangerhood series, not RvB.)

Rampancy.net continues its Halo 2 Impressions series with Sacred Icon – a discontinuity, but not a permanent one. (The two skipped levels will be covered later.) A very nice look at an effort Bungie made to address a major fan complaint about the first game… go read!

Another hidden Bungie inspiration comes to light in today’s One One Se7en. Or something. (Methinks this engagement business is going to Stuntmutt’s head…)

Twelve new pieces for you in the Fan Fiction section today. At least one long-unseen name, as well…

Termi, of Shaolin Productions, created a Halo 2 trailer recently – cutscene footage and added text and effects. The end product is pretty slick. You can grab it, in its original DivX format, on the Shaolin Productions website (there’s some description and a few screen grabs, as well). You can also get it from files2.bungie.org or mythica.org (in the original, 692×428 form factor, 35 mb) or a smaller version (460×286, 9.2 mb bungie.org or mythica.org). And finally, it’s available in QuickTime, as well – same screensizes: large (31.3 mb, mythica.org | bungie.org) and small (9 mb, mythica.org | bungie.org). Whew!

Hehe – TeamXbox put up their own analysis of the Bungie/TXB faceoff that was this week’s Halo Humpday Challenge… it’s not that they’re crowing, or anything, it’s just that they’re… well, crowing. PIctures, stats, even movies. Yeah, they’re milking it… but it’s fun. Go read. Thanks, 3Suns.

There’s a new comic up over at Halo Babies – the end of the Getting Started series. Poor Cortana! While you’re there, there’s a ton of new fan art and graphic novels in progress to see… check ’em out!

Welcome to our latest inmate – Jillybean has joined the Halo Story team. For now, she’s on tea and crumpets duty, until she learns the ropes… but as soon as she gets the hang of things, and stops blaming Cortana for everything, we’ll be letting her play with the toys around here. Welcome aboard, Jilly!

One last one for the day – There’s a new Humpday Challenge Writeup over at B.net. The Bungie Chimps took on TeamXbox… and got their butts handed to them. In small pieces. The first major defeat for the home team (the forum mods don’t really count). OUCH! Go read the gory details for yourself.

A list of ultra-popular Halo movie makers must include Hickadam (and his partner in crime, Dark 72), creators of such classics as A**hole (yeah, sometimes we try to be family friendly), Birds, and Holiday. The films are characterized by liberal doses of humor, tight integration of action and song lyrics, and preternatural timing – but they’ve been pretty quiet for the past 7 months or so. Luckily for all of us, they’re back. The latest offering is called Germs, and contains spoilers if you’re keeping track. It’s available in WMP9 format (18.3 mb) from either mythica.org or bungie.org, or in QuickTime format (18 mb) from either mythica.org or bungie.org. Enjoy! (If you like it, or even if you don’t, discuss it on our forum.)

We have four new cutscenes for you today in the Cutscene Library, because they’re not very large. This finishes up Gravemind, takes us all the way through Uprising, and starts off High Charity. Go watch!