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.

Looks like I missed a bunch of things while I was out of town this week. Thanks To HaloPlanet‘s newsies for being on the job. Major League Gaming released a vid of the final match between StK and FFA at Midwest Mayhem. 71.2 mb, 640×480, 7:16 of a rough Team Slayer match on Hang ’em High… the game came down to who could hold the high ground; FFA said ‘we can’. Registration on the MLG site (free) required. [DD]ZION released the tags for a railgun that can be included in HaloCE maps (pics can be found in this thread). And Icetiger has put up a beta of his newest map – Icetigarus. Pics and download links in this thread. Whew!

Ross Mills points out a winnable Limited Edition Halo Xbox, covered by Gabe’s doodling, that will be given away at Penny Arcade’s Expo in late August. As though you didn’t already have enough reasons to try and get there… Update: DOH! I’m as bad at reading as Ross is. Op-ivy points out that this will be given away at the San Diego Comic-Con, July 22-25, NOT PAX. Sorry.

Coolness. If you’re planning on seeing ‘I, Robot’, and your choices of venue include a Loews Cinema… pick that one. You’ll get to see a snazzy new Halo 2 trailer. (Thanks to cman for the heads-up on the trailer, and Frankie for clarifying where you can see it.) Update: It’s not just I, Robot – it’s a number of hot films, including Spider-Man 2, The Village, King Arthur, Catwoman, and Alien vs Predator. You do have to see them in a Loews theatre, though. Thanks, Dark Helmet. Update 2: Whoa. Comments from Mat Noguchi, tools programmer at Bungie:

One thing they didn’t mention was the 5 days and 40 GB of raw data I had to render out at least three separate times. Plus the tools I had to write to handle movies bigger than 2 GB.

Random trivia for the hardcore: I rendered the movies at 1280×960, 30 fps. This is the best you will ever see Halo in motion.

Well… if it never makes it to a PC, yeah. 🙂 (You can currently get better framerates than that on Halo PC at 1600×1200 on an X800 or a 6800.) Thanks, Adam Daniel.

Stuntmutt finishes up the Female Marine series today with a One One Se7en devoted to my favorite character from Aliens.

Halo: Resolution has Sparky with a… pet?

Ducain pointed out a new vid mentioned on the High Impact Halo forums; it came from a post made by Juggertrout a few days ago. He suggested that object overload could be used to empty the Pelican that flies over the first bridge, allowing space for you on board. (This pelican was the object of some serious attempts by Frogblast, back in the day… but he, for the most part, attempted to ride it down from the OUTSIDE.) Madrox provided a video showing the after-the-oo action (overload took him over an hour). To save Madrox’s bandwidth, please use our links for the 5 mb video – you can get either the original WMP9 format, or a QuickTime version.

There’s an article over on Xbox.com I’ve never seen before; dunno when it got posted, but Character Close-up: Know Your Enemies is a fun read. (I’m not sure I agree with all the advice – in fact, I think almost every section had something that made me go ‘hmm…’ but it’s a nice complete list.) Spoilers, for those keeping track. Update: There’s a Weapons Strategy Guide and a ‘Cheats‘ (more like glitches, actually) page that are new to me, as well.

28 new Fan Fiction stories since I left for Boston. Go read ’em.

Top story at TeamXbox today is a Top Ten Villians article – and Halo’s Elites come in at number 2, losing out only to Darth Malak, from KotOR.

Armored beasts that resemble what an Alien mother and a Predator father might pump out is a great pace to start when creating a player character nemesis.

Thanks, CuBaNo.