Stuntmutt takes a look at Wideload’s first Halo-based offering in today’s One One Se7en.

Fourteen new entries in the Fan Fiction database today – busy writers over the weekend! Go read.

MrJukes has put up a pair of ‘Mix’ videos containing jumps he missed during his first go-round – new stuff from Ascension, Foundation, Zanzibar, Beaver Creek, Coagulation, Lockout, and Ivory Tower. Go check ’em out!

I was pretty sure one of these was already posted… but maybe not. Over at Red vs Blue, there are two new Sponsors-only vids; a third clip shown at Barenaked Ladies concerts last summer (‘Sublime’), and a look at Red vs Blue in days gone by released on an EGM cover disc at one point. Both are pretty funny. Thanks, Ross Mills.

The C&C Generals TC Halogen has another update on its website – newly-skinned Warthogs, and a Wallpaper (busy, but cool to look at). Go check it out!

Xbox.com is hosting the 2004 Xbox Live Awards, and accepting votes for nominations in 10 categories. Halo 2 is up for Toughest Map, Hottest Ride, Best Game Character, and Best Live Peripheral. Check out the page to find out how to vote. Thanks, World War Seven.

Khas writes to tell us that there’s a press release for ‘Open Rebellion’, a total conversion mod that wil convert all single player maps to an ‘Elite’ campaign for Mac Halo (and Halo PC), over at Macologist. There’s also a report at Inside Mac Games, and an official forum set up by the team. Check it out!

Xbox Solution just reviewed the Plantronics Halo 2 headset. They gave it an 8/10, mostly because it’s expensive – they liked it, otherwise.

The Cutscene Library is now fully complete for Halo 2, with the inclusion, today, of the credits, as well as a separate download for just the small cinematic at the end of the credits. (The credits are available in printed form, in the Manual PDF, from either Bungie.net or Xbox.com, if you don’t want to download a massive movie just for this.) At some point in the future, we’ll be adding the Halo cutscenes to this library, as well.

Marty O’Donnell and Jay Weinland are speaking about Audio Production for Halo 2 at the 2005 Game Developer’s Conference. A promotional flyer for the conference contained a short interview with Marty – and thesoffish was kind enough to transcribe it on our forum.

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.)