Tina Leyk seems to have caught the baby bug; her second new piece in a row is a Halo Babies tidbit. I must say… it’s gorgeous. Check out her Fan Art page for ‘Baby MC vs Baby Elite’ – I’ve really got to get me one of those carbine water rifles!

Marty O’Donnell talked to the Music 4 Games crew about the audio in Halo 2, from what went in to what didn’t, how the outside contributors were used, what’s still to come, and more. It’s a great read – swing on by!

Okay, I doubt the overlap between HBO visitors and NPR listeners is really big, so you’re gonna have to bear with me here. National Public Radio in the US has a program called ‘Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me’ – it’s a news quiz. If you call in, and take the quiz, and win, your prize is that NPR newscaster Carl Kasell (who has a pretty distinctive voice) will leave the message on your phone’s answering machine. (You know, the one that says “we’re not here right now, leave a message” – although you can have Carl say anything you want him to.) Why is this relevant to you, the HBO viewer? Because Tim Dadabo, the voice behind 343 Guilty Spark, has agreed to perform a similar service for the winner of the 343 Guilt O’ Lantern contest. Yep, that’s right – if you win, your answering machine could tell callers, in the inimitable voice of 343 Guilty Spark, how much of a genius you are… or how fascinating the lost call is. Or whatever you choose. An incredibly generous offer, in my opinion – so do your best!

Xbox LIve France has a preview of Halo 2, written up during the European tour last month. It’s in French (naturally), but there are plenty of pretty pictures (mostly on the last page, unless you’re a REALLY big fan of Cam Payne). Thanks to caudronix for pointing this out.

No Hables is getting in on the vidmaster action; he’s posted a movie in which he runs through 343 Guilty Spark, using zero bullets… and only ONE grenade. On Legendary. Movie is 12:15 long, 31.2 mb large, in WMP9 format. It’s got a couple of double-take moments. If he runs out of bandwidth, let us know – we’ll see what we can do to help. Download it now! (Oh, yeah, and don’t forget to read the Weekly Update; it was posted so close to HBO’s end-of-day that it only stayed on the front page for a couple of hours.)

Frankie has posted an update (kinda) on Bungie.net; the game is done, as far as Bungie’s concerned, but it’s out for Certification. However, there’s plenty of reading material; info about making clans, how busy Frankie is (in between getting his butt kicked by Mat Noguchi – or wait, was that just ‘kicked out of the game’? Maybe both), and gametypes, and stuff. Go read!

Man, it took a while… but it’s done, and it’s pretty. mnemesis has unveiled the Halo Story Timeline (to date) – including information from Microsoft, the books, and the game (though the actual GAME timeline for Halo is NOT included). If you’re curious about backstory events, this is the place to look!

Halo and Master Chief have been nominated to get a star in the San Francisco Metreon’s ‘Walk of Game‘. If you want to help, you have to register (email address needed); you can vote once per day through October 31. At the moment, Master Chief and Halo are far and away the top picks for Game/Character – if you want to help keep it that way, stop by! Thanks to Frankie, at B.net, for the heads-up.

Ah, phooey. Two days ago, synide sent along a link to this week’s Plantronics Headset giveaway at haloTV – there’s even an extra set (on top of the normal 6) up for grabs. Sorry about the delay. (I was reminded when I saw a news post about this on the HaloPlanet front page.) Go win already!

Not very long ago, in our forum, Skeletor posted a link to some new artwork by Craig Mullins. I ended up having to yank the link, because the work wasn’t actually supposed to be seen by the Halo community quite yet… but in the communications I had with Craig about that piece, a number of OTHER Halo pieces have come to light. Now, we mention Mullins work whenever we notice it, because, quite frankly, it rocks. I decided this morning, however, that there were now enough Halo-related pieces that I should probably put together a separate showcase page for Mullins Halo art here at HBO. You’ll find older pieces you may have seen, years ago… but you’ll also find 2 (and maybe 3) pieces you’ve NEVER seen before; study them, and see if you can figure out how Craig evokes such atmosphere from a few brush strokes. As more work pops up, we’ll continue to add it. (Thanks to Cybrfrk for pointing out the cinematic piece.)

Stuntmutt takes a look at the new shield/health system again in today’s One One Se7en. You gotta love helpful AIs…

Uncle Mato has kindly donated some Halo gear to the 343 Guilt O’ Lantern loot pot; we’ve upped the second prize collection to include an S-type controller, and added a third prize. More goodies for everyone!

7 new pieces for you in the Fan Fiction section today – more poetry than anything else (including some haikus – whoa, does that bring back memories!). Go see.

Plenty of new content over at Halo Babies – a new strip, of course (it is Friday), plus new concept art, and a nod to MC and Cortana, another comic strip that’s recently come back online.

Looks like there was ANOTHER Xbox.com article I missed last month – this one is called One Chief to Rule Them All, and it looks at what makes Halo stand alone in the field of Xbox titles. Not a bad read, overall.

GhaleonEB posted a link containing a list of all the EB Games stores (sorted by state) that will be open at midnight on November 9 to sell Halo 2. If you want to be sure you get started playing at the earliest possible moment… check this list for a store near you.

Ms. Man created a collection of multiplayer trick movies, back in the day. (None of them, for some reason, are in our Movies database… I’m not sure why.) His website went offline, and the vids were gone… until now. Ducain points out a post on the High Impact Halo forum containing a list of all the movies folks have been able to round up, linked locally. If you’ve never seen any of these, go grab some – they’re pretty fun.

There’s a new article on Halo 2 in the BBC’s Technology section today; most of the info is well-known to hardcore Halo fans, but it’s pretty fun to see such an in-depth article in a mainstream news source such as the BBC. They look at what is known about single-player (not much), how multiplayer has evolved since the first Halo, the chances of a Halo-based big-screen movie (pretty slim)… and what’s next for Bungie. From the sound of things, it’s not going to be Halo 3. Go read!

Recently, a new website put together by the Red vs Blue team went live – The Strangerhood is a new machinima series that uses the Sims 2 engine for storymaking. This is totally unrelated to Halo – except that a team that came together to make Halo-based movies originally is making this. An astounding number of folks wrote to tell us about it, so rather than let this flood CONTINUE, I figure we’ll actually mention it. There are a number of articles about the new series prominently linked on their front page, as well as an intro trailer that can be downloaded. It’s really well done, and if you enjoy machinima, you should check it out – but please, don’t send us news about this, because even though we love the guys involved, it’s not Halo-related. Enjoy!

Man, I don’t know how I missed this one… except maybe because I wanted to. Xbox.com posted an article in their Lifestyle section a few weeks ago that looked at who should be cast in what role if anyone ever made a Halo movie (which, I hasten to say before the next sentence break, they’re not doing). Their first recommendation – Vin Diesel as Master Chief. And it went downhill from there. I like the Xbox.com community folks, because they bring interest stories about Halo to a wider audience… but this was a mistake from the first paragraph.