M E R R Y   C H R I S T M A S !



From the HBO crew and our families, to you and yours, we wish you the merriest of holiday seasons. Pax.

Our Christmas image comes to you courtesy of Tina Leyk – we hope you enjoy it! There is also, in accordance with our long-standing (one-year-old) tradition, a special Christmas wish from Stuntmutt.

We’ll be back updating on Sunday, the 26th.

Last post of the day, I think. Gotta run some errands, and then it’s Christmas Eve, and I’m off duty for a bit. Enjoy the fourth entry in the Halo 2 Cutscene Library – ‘They’ll Regret That, Too’. Thanks once again to Sniper 058 for recording these, and to Mythica, HaloImpulse, and That Weasel for bandwidth help!

HaloUT Content Pack 1.5 has been released; lots of updates, apparently. You can find download links (use the BitTorrent ones if you can) at The Project Torlan homepage, or at DragonStarElite’s download mirror. Thanks to Digikid for the heads-up.

MereCatFish created a Live Forever Christmas video – 13.2 mb, DivX format, hosted by measter. I think all the guys standing around are supposed to be singing.

thesaelens turned in another 28 dialogue snippets for the Halo 2 Dialogue Databank; a split between Grunts and Elites. I’m amazed by how many DIFFERENT clips there are when you shoot your own teammates, or trade your lousy gun for their good one. Go listen! Update: That link now goes to 53 new clips, not 28 – Captain Spark submitted his own collection of 25 new pieces, as well. Lots of good stuff! (I’m not sure what our official policy is going to be on scripted content, from here on in; in general, we rejected it for the Halo Dialogue Databank, but some of these clips are priceless.)

Very nice. there’s a new image over at DeviantART, created by Pinkuh – the Master Chief, saving a small girl (or using her as a human shield, if you read some of the more cynical posts on our forum). Great work. Thanks to SEspider for the heads-up.

Comic, Double Comic, Triple Comic! We’re gonna stop with One One Se7en, because a ComicTacular would simply be too much. (That said, we’ll almost certainly hear from SOMEONE today who wants to make that happen.) Good thing Stuntmutt lives in the UK – this strip has the potential to upset some Americans…

Gruntsbane is back at Halo Babies, and there’s a new strip up – the first of 3, it seems. (There’s also a new Baby Sarge concept sketch.) Go check it out!

Ross Mills (among others) sent word about today’s Ctrl-Alt-Del, with a true Christmas message, Halo-related, of course. (You might need to read Wednesday’s strip to see what happened.)

argent sent us over to Newgrounds, for another Halo 2-based Flash movie. This one’s called ‘H2’, and was created by Robbie Watt. Stick figures and gore – what more do you want?

I check mail this morning… and there are still MORE movie updates for you. That Weasel, not content with the Cutscene mirroring and new Grunts vid, sent along a HUGE list of new and mirrored content – it’s too long to list here, so visit That Weasel’s HBO Mirror, and check out the top 10 items. (If they say TWTv Exclusive, you won’t find them anywhere else.) The first new item on the list is The Blair Skull Project, by Mother’s Tooth – a scary live-action film just for you. Go revel in more movie footage.

Movie’d out yet? No, wait! Remember the Halo CE Movie competition at HaloMaps.org? Remember how I said it was totally Mac-unfriendly? Not only has that been fixed, but there are now 16 entries to view – and less than a week to get your OWN entry in. Go watch! And then go submit! (Thanks, Dennis.)

Couple of contest notes: the Xtournaments Crew writes to point out that they’re starting their Halo 2 Tourney (4v4) in February, with $15,000 on the line. Visit their website for more details. And ZATZAi is pretty insistent that we mention an update to his Coagulation Christmas Tree Challenge (we noted it last week) – the deadline has been extended, and a Halo 2 soundtrack has been added to the prize pool. Check his post at High Impact Halo for details.

That Weasel writes to say that a mini-episode of “Grunts are People Too!!!” has been posted – Episode 15, ‘Tic-Tac-Grunt’ is now available in WMP9, QuickTime, and DivX formats. It’s a little…bizarre. Also – they’ve added mirrors of the first two cutscenes from our Cutscene Library – and sent along wishes for happy, safe holidays. Back atcha!

Got another movie for you. Remember the Dawn of the Dead gametype we mentioned a couple of days ago? Clan Tricking IT put together a fun movie, ‘Beach of the Dead’ with an eye to the cinematic. It’s large (large-format, and large filesize), but the quality is a little lacking… don’t let that get in the way of your enjoyment. 640×480, 7:08 long. By the end, you’re really rooting for the remaining spartan! Clan Tricking IT is hosting a 50 mb WMP10 version – here’s hoping their bandwidth holds out. I’ve put up a QuickTime version (same screensize, about 43 mb) – this one will last for a bit. If you simply can’t get enough of this gametype, there’s an older movie, created by spesalfred, and posted on our forum a couple of days ago. (The link in that post is now dead, but you can grab a copy off Mythica.) It’s WMP9 format, 17.5 mb; I found the action harder to follow than Tricking IT’s vid. Whatever footage you grab, use it to get inspired – jump on XBL and play this game yourself!

Weird. I updated the Fan Fiction section about 12 hours ago – but the news post I wrote up seems to have vanished into the ether. 11 new pieces – go read.

And another Halo 2 Cutscene goes live. Return to Sender contains the scene between Cairo Station and Outskirts. Once again, we’ve added mirrors for existing entries – HaloImpulse has put up Home Field Advantage links. Go grab ’em!

Mintz08 points out that ‘The Unauthorized Halo 2 Battle Guide: Advanced Combat Techniques’ is now available at Amazon.com. If someone buys one, please – send us a review!

Hmm. Over at Tech Central Station, there’s an article entitled ‘Halo 2 and the New Heroism‘. It looks at Halo 2 (and games like it) as a potential route to saving military personnel in a real war. Yeah, struck me as sort of out there, too. Go read. (If you choose to discuss this on our forum, please – remember the rules about political discussions. Stay away from value judgements about the US military presence in Iraq. Thanks.)

To all those people who say the SMG is a useless weapon in Campaign play – Cody Miller says ‘meh’. He says it quite eloquently, actually – 3:23 worth of Legendary gameplay in a new movie called ‘SMG Love’. I’m sure that (just like after every OTHER movie Cody’s released) we’ll get people posting on our forum that this is faked; there are areas that he breezes through so effortlessly you’ll think it MUST be faked. It’s not. And yeah, he uses grenades, as well… but man, I have a new respect for that SMG. Or maybe it’s just for Cody. The video is available in QuickTime format (22.7 mb) or WMP9 format (27 mb). Watch it and say thankya.