Some of the zanzibar-based movies showed a new (for Halo 2) gametype called Assault – not to be confused with the Assault variant of CTF. A description of the gametype can be found in the Halo.fr writeup that went online a couple of weeks ago. A potential conversation between teammates DURING this gametype can be found in today’s One One Se7en.

Boatloads of new fan-created artwork showed up this weekend at Halo Babies. We already mentioned the Tina Leyk piece – but there’s much, much more. Go see.

Piggyback Interactive, a highly-respected UK-based strategy guide publisher, held a contest for game store managers recently, asking for the best reply to “Why should I buy the Halo 2 guide with the game?” The winners were announced today – they’re all fine reasons to buy a strategy guide. (Me, personally, I’m holding off until I’ve finished the game before I get one.) The weird part, however, is when you visit Amazon.co.uk. Both the Piggyback guide and the Prima guide (which will be marketed in the US) are listed for pre-sale… but the picture shown on the Prima page is exactly the same picture shown on the Piggyback contest page. I guess we just wait and see. Thanks, eddie m.

Nesnora, over at the (newly remodeled and super-cool) Red vs Blue site, has posted another of her realistic renderings of Halo locales; this one is called ‘Shiela was Here’, and is an amazing view of Sidewinder. Prints should be available sometime in November. (You will not be able to follow that link until you sign up at Red vs Blue; it’s free, and there are so many cool features that there’s no reason NOT to sign up.) While I’m discussing great offsite wallpapers, serpx found a cool Halloween-related wallpaper over at DeviantArt. Nice work! Update: Nesnora has kindly made ‘Shiela was Here’ accessible on her own site, as well – no signup required.

MiD33 has posted a beta of his ‘Pimp up Halo‘ game over at Newgrounds; at this point, the most fleshed-out module is the warthog, thanks to the artwork of Ian McConville (used with permission), but there’s also some basic changes you can make to a scorpion tank and a Marine. Flash-based, it lets you change colors, guns, added features… fun to mess around with for a couple of minutes. Take a look!

daedalus was the first to let us know about the Wired Magazine article going online – text AND pictures. We’ll still be providing press scans for the dead tree version once the November issue is on newsstand shelves… but you can read it now over at Wired.com. Once again – there is absolutely nothing in this article that we here at HBO would consider ‘spoilers’ for the Halo 2 Story; if you read this piece and disagree, please don’t send us angry mail, simply stop visiting our site. Thanks!

Verdafolio pointed out that Demented Puppy is hosting an older multiplay vid that Clan Alphabase made, called Instability. 11.2 mb, WMP9 format. (Registration required for download.)

Today’s Ctrl+Alt+Del is Halo-related… and shows why it’s important to have roommates you can trust. Thanks, russellfamily.

Big-O found a pretty funny error on the CompUSA Halo 2 page; somehow the date and the price got melded, so Halo 2 costs $1,109.04. Ouch! (If it gets fixed, look farther down in the thread; Brian Towne snagged a screenshot for posterity. It’s still that way now, though, 2 days later…)

ËœfmËœ and °MDS are organizing a Halo 1v1 Sniper Tournament, played on Halo PC and Halo CE. If you want to participate, you have to register on the °MDS forum. Be aware that this is a German clan. You’ll find more information in this section of their forum.

On Saturday night, Wolfy sent word that the Rockets on Prisoner nominees (culled from user voting) have been posted – look them over, pick your favorites, and go vote! There’s a small thread on our forum with comments, if you’d like to add your own.

Ryan ‘Mhaddy’ Matthews of the Junkyard points out that part VI of the “As Real As a ‘Survivor’ Elimination” series is up. A Marine Corps pilot looks at the military realism of the events in 343 Guilty Spark, and talks about what he would have done had these events actually happened to him (as opposed to how he played through the game.) As always, worth the read!

Tycho/Howard found a pretty funny Flash animation over at Newgrounds; someone else who’s angling to win a Plantronics Halo 2 Headset from HaloTV. A for effort, A for humor… I’d give it to him.

ghaash points out that the 7-Eleven/Mountain Dew Halo 2 Slurpee Cup website is now online – with chances to win Halo 2 before you can buy it. They’re giving away lots of copies of the Limiited Edition version of Halo, plus a couple of trips and a bunch of T-shirts. Eligibility is limited to the US and Canada, and you must be of legal age in your country. Check it out!

wopkins has posted a new movie showing MC doing the Can Can. It’s hilarious. 1.7 mb in WMP9 format, 1.3 mb in QT format.

More Crisp Death pics – clarksbrother put up all the pics he took (137 of them), and Konrad posted a bunch, with comments. KP wrote up his experience (an astounding amount od driving for the cause), including a scan of the original Mister Chief Blueprint, a one-of-a-kind piece showing where Frankie started, and Dan Chosich added a teaser for the footage he collected (sounds cool!). Dizzy seems to have spent the majority of the lanfest chatting on AIM or IRC. More writeups might on the way.

Stuntmutt sent in a special Sunday strip for One One Se7en – it addresses one of the biggest points of contention on our forum right now. Warning – it’s 200K large. Speaking of Stuntmutt, it seems he’s been cheating on us; or at least, he’s producing content for other sources, and not telling us. Bad Stuntmutt! He’s got an entire blog going over at blogspot – it contains commentary, lost strips, and (most recently) some awfully cool work by Stunt and Tina Leyk. Seems they agreed to swap strips; you can see her offering to him, and his offering to her… both are great. On this lazy Sunday afternoon (I’m running on 5 hours of sleep in the last 60), this stuff is easy on the eyes. Update: Ross Mills points out that a picture of the new, leaked pic of a ‘super-secret’ action figure (search our forum if you don’t know what this is about) is displayed on Stunt’s blog. Since nobody has any clue whatsoever what this model is of, or whether, in fact, it even IS a character in Halo 2, I’d disagree STRONGLY that its presence on Stuntmutt’s page is a spoiler in itself… but if you think that it is, I would suggest that you stop visiting this site completely for the next month or so. I will not be mentioning anything related to story spoilers at all, but items like this show where your opinion and mine diverge, so the only way to be sure you’re not ‘spoiled’ is to simply stop visiting.

Well, I don’t know for sure, but when I left last night around 3AM, the festivities were winding down. We all had a blast and if you check out the forum, you’ll see that some photos are starting to show up. Special thanks to all of you that spent greenbacks to fly in. Especially CYBRFRK and Shishka from the west coast. You guys are cool! Update: Sorry, there didn’t actually seem to be a link there. Fixed, now.

Okay, it’s time to start waking up the slugabeds lying all over my house; we’ve got furniture to move, and Xboxes to wire together, and Halo multiplayer to… well, play. Crisp Death kicks off in a couple of hours, and that means no more news posts for a little bit. Enjoy your Saturday!

EvilBurger pointed out that a new Subzero Rivalries is up; definitely has a Caboose-like feel to it. He’s experimenting with a new coloring style – and I’d say it works really well. Check it out!