Bizarre. c0ld vengeance has been griping about a sound he hears on the Zanzibar bridge (the one you can lower to get to the sword) every time he plays… some expressed sympathy, and some expressed confusion. Today, he posted a short vid, showing what he was talking about… and it turns out this is another PAL/NTSC difference. NTSC players hear nothing when running on that bridge… PAL players have to listen to what sounds like grinding metal every time they walk across. Apparently, a PAL player can be playing in a game with an NTSC player, and one will hear the noise and the other won’t. I think it’s Bungie’s way of handicapping European players, or something.

Today’s addition to the Cutscene Library is a biggie – it’s the end of Sacred Icon and the beginning of Gravemind. Lots of story meat in this one! (There is one tiny difference between the Legendary version and the other versions – we documented it here. The film that’s there now is on Legendary; it’s unlikely we’ll bother to put up a delta vid for this one.)

MrJukes has updated his Jumping Guide again – this time with a 6 minute treatise on Foundation. Some of the tricks are more fun than useful (they require overshield to survive, for example), but man… the guy’s got style. Check it out!

Kevin Ryan writes to say that Afterwar episode 10 has been posted – there are game spoilers in this one (Afterwar takes place… well, after the war). Go see what’s next for the Chief!

Back in December, Vue Cinemas in London sponsored the Big Screen Battle tourney, pitting Halo fans against one another on movie screens. Now, they’re doing it again… for a cause. This weekend, pay £3 to enter or £1.50 to watch, with proceeds going to the Disaster Emergency Committee for use in tsunami relief efforts.

Captain Spark snagged another 44 pretty cool dialogue snippets – they’re available for download in a single batch from his website (link in the forum post, 1.3 mb), or piecemeal in our Halo 2 Dialogue Databank. Go listen!

That TricKy doesn’t stop looking… this time he found a Best of 2004 Awards page on Xbox SE, a Swedish site. Halo 2 took home Game of the Year, Best Xbox Live Game, and Reader’s Choice.

Stuntmutt looks at Jackal snipers in today’s One One Se7en. (And for those who can’t get enough, it looks like there’s another animated one from N1NJ4 on our forum.)

Juggler has put up another modding vid – this one shows views from outside Colossus, Midship, and Waterworks, as well as other fun stuff. 35 mb, QuickTime format, hosted on HaloGT.com.

Halo 2 picks up another GotY award… XBOX365 gives it the nod as the #1 Game for Xbox in 2004. Thanks, TricKy.

Wonga. Looks like I got interviewed. I hardly even noticed. Ducain, over at High Impact Halo, asked me a few questions about ‘The History of Halo Tricking’, or somesuch… and then wrote up the answers all pretty-like. Go read.

Ouch. The last Fan Fiction update was 6 days ago – 27 new pieces have been submitted since then. Sorry for the delay! (They’re up now, obviously.)

The Detroit Free Press’s Game Master choise Halo 2 as the Free Press Game of the Year 2004 – mostly for multiplayer. (There is a second article with input from other editors, on other games, as well.) Thanks, ICDedPpl.

TheTaintedOne has been working for some time on an ‘end-to-end widescreen process’ – a technique to capture Halo gameplay footage in true Widescreen mode. His proof of concept is a video called Rocket Festival – taking advantage of a funny glitch in how homing rockets deal with a target on a high point of land, he’s melded nice video cuts with great music and an environment that really shines in Widescreen mode. There are two versions – a 7.2 mb WMP9 vid and an 8.2 mb QuickTime vid. (Both are a compromise for Taint – his original movie used anamorphic video (non-square pixels) for true Widescreen – but this requires Windows Media Player 9 on Windows XP to view; the Mac WMP9 ignores the rectangular pixels, and scrunches the film. He re-converted, after changing to square pixels, so that everyone could see the final product.) Comments can go in this (already lively) forum thread.

Three new cutscenes for you in the Cutscene Library – Objects in Mirror are Larger Than They Appear (accidentally released a couple of days ago for a brief time), Shooting Gallery, and That Old, Familiar Feeling (the end of Sacred Icon). Get to downloading!

Today’s Calvin and Halo makes you think a lot about the uproar over the Rumble Pit Reset a few days ago.

TricKy points out that Xbox Gamers has announced their 2004 Best Of awards, and Halo walked away with quite a few: Best First-Person Shooter, Best Xbox Live Game, Best Soundtrack, Best Story, Best Multiplayer Game, and Game Of The Year 2004. It also won a runner-up award for Best Graphics. Not too shabby!

The Junkyard’s Bungie Tribute Poetry Contest has wrapped up – the winners have been posted. Swing by to read all the details (and the poetry itself). First heads-up goes to Jillybean, who got a cookie.

HALOChat points out that the CyberAthlete Amateur League is starting its Halo 2 season – maps, gametypes, and preseason schedules have been posted. Get your game on!

WINBIG24 sent word about a trailer for download over at HaloMods. It was created by ShadowX, and it uses our Cutscene Library (and a War of the Worlds trailer) to paint a grim picture of invasion. 5.9 mb, in WMP9 format. (Might have been better to keep the widescreen aspect of the originals, though…) Update: Seems ShadowX posted a link on our own forum – silly me for not checking first.