Cyber Gaming Network has posted a Halo 2 preview; it’s a solid read, combining info from the E3 demo and recent press without going TOO far out on the speculation limb. (It’s an update of a much shorter preview they wrote after E3 2003; the URL hasn’t changed.) Give it a read…

aiMutation is a Windows program for modifying the appearance of the AOL Instant Messenger. Recently, a new skin was released with a Halo theme. Thanks to Baldev Patel for the heads-up.

Many of you probably saw threads on various Halo or Xbox forums this weekend about leaked beta screenshots. Bungie has yet to make a public announcement about this (it’s unlikely that they ever will, actually), but there are many clues that suggest that these aren’t fakes; that they did, in fact, come from a beta version of Halo 2. I wanted to take a moment to state our official policy on leaks like this, and to explain why I think they’re a problem. We will NOT allow links to these pictures to be posted to our forum – as we find them, we’ll remove them, and if people persist, they’ll be banned. As one of our admins posted last night, if you can’t find them for yourself, that’s YOUR problem. Many folks are asking what the big deal is – they’re just screenshots, and not even very exciting ones… who cares? Putting aside the legal issues (which aren’t actually minor), there’s a really good reason to keep pics like this away from the public… many casual gamers don’t realize that a beta version is NOT a final version. Often, there are elements that have been added specifically for beta testers – debugging information, or extra on-screen displays, so that testers can provide useful feedback to the creation team. (Beta testing isn’t a game; that should have been made clear from the recent Bungie.net article. It’s pretty serious business.) When beta shots hit the public, though, many people are oblivious to the fact that they’re looking at a test image. We’ve already had folks griping on our forum about how cluttered the HUD looks, and how disappointed they are in Bungie for putting so much crap onscreen. Others read these comments, maybe without even looking at the pictures themselves, and the ideas spread… and before too long, there’s buzz about how crappy the interface of Halo 2 is. Only… it’s NOT the interface of Halo 2 – it’s the interface for BETA TESTERS. Boiled down: the final product can NOT be judged by the appearance of an early beta – but because many people can’t make distinctions like that, pictures of early betas do NOT belong in the public eye.

Massive content update over at Halo Babies – new fan art, a new fan STRIP section, and some credit stuff. w00t!

Brand-new layout at XboxOttawa… and with it comes a new Flash game called Melee Combat. It’s a bit hard on your keyboard… Go play. Thanks, Mantis819.

Dark Helmet posted a small video showing his own Marine Launching techniques yesterday, on the High Impact Halo forums – he shows that Marines take no fall damage, no matter HOW FAR they fall (or what hits them)… but more importantly, he’s invented a new sport – Halo Trap, using marines as the pidgeons. Hmm… there might be ethical problems with that. To save on DH’s bandwidth, we’ve made both his original WMP9 film (5.2 mb) and a QuickTime conversion (5.6 mb) available from here. Thanks, Ducain, for pointing this out. Update; Dark Helmet clarifies a few points about fall damage and marines. They CAN get killed from it, my mistake. They can take a heck of a lot more punishment than you can, however…

A full-blown website devoted to Mac Halo development has been opened – it existed, in a much simpler and less interactive form, on HaloMods, but it now has a site of its own, and a much more extensive layout. If you’re a Mac user interested in modding Halo, check it out! (Thanks, Nick.)

c0ld vengeance, with a little help from his friends, has put together a series of Mosaic pictures – 5 can be found in this forum post, and one more in this followup. The software used to make these is linked from here. Intriguing views…

It’s Monday, so there’s lots of action on the Going Nowhere Fast front. The sixth level run – 343 Guilty Spark – is now available for download via BitTorrent, to begin with. It’s a 58 mb file; 7:41 to dash from the Pelican dropoff to the final pickup spot, and the first use of the purple boxes as traditional videogame crates – making the Time to Crate value rather high for Halo overall. Watch this run; you’ll find some amazing ways to shave a few seconds off here, a few seconds there… Also, since it’s been three days since Sean Oehrle’s Assault on the Control Room run was made available via BT (an even 1000 downloads, as of right now), we’ve provided direct download links for this 52 mb film. You’ll find them on the Status page. (Thanks, once again, to all the mirror sites for these files; BitTorrent alone has served over 900 GB worth of movies in the past 10 days, but the direct download links have accounded for hundreds of gigabytes more; we couldn’t do it without you guys.

c0ld vengeance has apparently made his opinion about the 2-day European delay for Halo 2 known… and today’s One One Se7en addresses his concerns. Sort of.

Ten new stories for you in the Fan Fiction section… and a special-case instruction. Wado SG asked me how folks could submit their entries to the now-defunct Enkidu Fan Fiction contest and have them all be grouped together; I suggested using the Series Title field. Wado reminded me that this is normally tied to the author’s name… so it’s not settable on the submission form, as it currently exists. Rather than recode the form to allow for this special case, it would be easier for me if people submitting their Enkidu stories would simply drop me an email with the name of their story – I’ll link them all from this end. Again – this is ONLY for this one special case. If you would like to submit your Enkidu entry to the HBO Fan Fiction section, and have it readable with all OTHER submitted entries – send me the name of the story after you submit it. Thanks!

Sector Seven Halo has put up another installment of its Marines comic. I’m not sure I get it…

The whole MegaBattle concept is being expanded over at the Gearbox Forums – check the top several threads for fantastic examples. A new technique, documented in this thread by king_nothing, allows for some incredible vehicle-in-air shots with multiple players inside. Again – this technique REQUIRES Halo Custom Edition; the detachable camera is not available in the stock Halo PC. C’mon… download it. You know you want to. (And once you do, jump online and look for some of the servers hosting great new maps.)

I’ve run across a really nice Halo Custom Edition map in the last couple of days – this is absolutely worth your time if you’ve got HCE. (If you DON’T have HCE, and you’re using a PC, you really need to ask yourself why not… it’s free, the massive download is a one-time deal (an overnighter on dialup, but you only have to do it once), and it opens huge new vistas for online gameplay. (You can grab a copy from one of these links.) It was created by Tarehart, and is called called ‘HighLow’ – pics and a download link can be found on Gearbox’s forum (thanks, rapture). Quite a lot of thought has been put into map flow, entrances and exits, routes to objectives, balance. Check it out! (It should be online on Assault-Server-TWD at some point.)

Ducain continues the abuse of Sarge – his latest foray includes a beautiful hog jump with the MC, Sarge, and no damage. Find it in this forum post – with a QuickTime link in this one. 5 mb or so.

The fourth Going Nowhere Fast run, goatrope’s zippy Silent Cartographer dash, is now available via direct download from a half-dozen mirrors. If you haven’t watched this 33 mb piece… you should grab it now.

Finn blames it on the weather. I say he’s just coming to his senses. Whatever the reason, the Halo Story Page has been updated for the first time in almost three weeks. Go read.

Ever wondered what it would be like to do beta-testing full-time for a company like Bungie? It might not be what you think it is. Swing on by Bungie.net for a new Top Story on this very subject… thanks to clarksbrother for the heads-up.

Curt is Not, from the Xboxottawa forums, has put together a musical tribute to Halo, overdubbing his own voice into a recording of Skid Row’s I Remember You (6 mb download). It’s a bit scary, actually… but quite funny.

This week’s Bungie Update is over at the Penny Arcade forums – it’s a bit lighter than last week, but still full of tasty morsels. And… um, somewhat odd Misterchief art. Hmm. Thanks to many, though the first at HBO seems to be Leprechaun.