Halo: Resolution points out one of the lucky coincidences the Pillar of Autumn happened upon…

14 new Fan Fiction stories released this weekend… go check ’em out!

stan has announced a new contest – come up with a picture of his clan mascot, win free ice cream. Details in this forum post.

Ash and Doggie (his son) managed to entice the Gold Elite at the very end of Assault on the Control Room to follow them all the way back to the start of the level – amazing! Ducain did a fantastic job of condensing the experience down to a 3:37-long, 14.3 mb video (wmp9 format) – you can find a link, and comments, in this thread. For those who can’t use WMP9, a QuickTime version has been placed on mythica, as well (13.1 mb).

The Megabattle technique pioneered by n00bles last week has been played with by other fans – it looks like fun! BOLL got started recently (that’s a 299k JPEG – I’m guessing it’s only the beginning), and yesterday VALENCE posted some shots on our forum. If past experience is any indication, I’m guessing that a flood of new visual content will be pouring out of the community soon. Update: Looks like MereCatfish is getting into the act, as well. Very nice set piece on Fissure Falls!

Hehe – Pico has found an egg in the recently-announced SP-to-MP conversion of AotCR, by nukedude… and while it was designed to be unattainable without cheating, nukedude has stated that there IS a way to get it (but he won’t tell anyone how). Can YOU find the way? Personally, I’m more interested in the concept of a melee-only weapon in GENERAL – creating a map with ONLY this weapon would enforce the melee-only gametype we try (using the honor system) at local lanfests.

Mothergoat has posted another pair of maps, with descriptions, for Halo CE. For the curious, there are also a few screenshots. Nice!

TeamXbox posted an interview with Andre Vrignaud, Technical Evangelist from the Xbox Live Platform Strategy Team, in which he discussed where he thought Xbox Live was going in the near future. Predictably, Halo 2 plays an important role in their plans. He’s pretty optimistic about the Live support the game will have, and about how ready Microsoft will be to handle the traffic that will be generated by this game after November 9. Thanks to daedalus for pointing it out.

There’s plenty of stuff backed up, stuff that should get posted… but I’d ask everyone to be patient, and wait a bit. Today I’m spending the day with my family, hanging out and barbecuing in the back yard. (Well, my sister’s back yard.) No Halo news – OMG! Enjoy July 4th, we’ll be back tomorrow!

SketchFactor has announced the winners (and not-so-winners) of the Bungie.net Avatar contest that’s been going on this past month. There’s some great stuff (and not so great stuff) to be seen – check it out! Thanks to Sep7imus for the heads-up.

Whoa, missed it. Mrs Doublefire updated his long-dormant New Mombasa thread on the Gearbox forum with seven new screens – take a look! (Thanks to HaloPlanet for noticing this.)

Joyride has updated its site again, with more pictures – the yellow civilian hog mentioned in its printed material now has some information – it’ll be limited to 2000 pieces, and will be available in October. Check the Halo 2 page, and click ‘Hog’. There are also pictures of the newest Battle-Damaged exclusives in the Halo section (look at the bottom). I can see Cobalt and Maroon being used in upcoming Miniature Halo episodes… We get a lot of mail about Joyride changes (and don’t post notes about all of them) – but I think first mention of the yellow hog pic goes to A Halo 2 Logo, and lbm mentioned the new BD pics. Thanks!

Ow. A note on our forum points out that Randy Pitchford has made an announcement on the Gearbox forum that there will be no Halo CE updates in the near future – work on the project was contingent on market penetration, and to date, Halo CE adoption has been disappointing. This is definitely a blow to those looking to improve the Custom Edition product… (As far as I can tell, c0ld vengeance had nothing to do with this news post.) Update: STB pointed out a thread that brings ALL of his posts into one place – taken as a whole, it’s far more positive than the first post we mentioned. Read the thread.

Yesterday, nukedude posted notice that his AotCR to multiplayer map release was out of beta and ready for final release. I visited the download page, but there were no screenshots – so I asked. nuke delivered. Check it out – this is a gorgeous map!

Rockslider posted a new Frontline with Suzie yesterday – this one has Suzie talking to the Flood. Weird – I didn’t know they COULD talk!

Ever wonder about the process it takes to go from an idea to a modeled animation in a game like Halo? Gamepro has put up a short article explaining the steps, from storyboard to finished product. Take a look!

This week’s update is over at the newly remodeled HaloPlanet – and there’s more and more censored stuff. (Some weird formatting, too.) Lots of cool tidbits that we CAN read, though, like 15,107 FINISHED LINES of combat dialogue… and female marines! Go read. Update: Weird formatting is fixed – thanks, Frankie!

Red vs Blue has decided to put off the release of Episode 38 (the final episode of Season 2) so that they can make it as polished as they want it to be. In its place, they’ve released a new Public Service announcement to celebrate the Fourth of July – and I gotta say, it made me laugh… a LOT. It’s up for sponsors now, and should be up for the general public later this weekend. Grab it, watch it, and HEED ITS WARNINGS!

n00bles, a member of Fungi (the group that made Fissure Fall), has been making a series of battle pictures over at the Gearbox forums – there are shots of Blood Gulch, Sidewinder, and Timberland, as well as custom maps like Fissure Falls. This post explains how he made them. Extremely cool! (Thanks to TURBO for pointing this thread out.)

Excalibur, Team Lead for Grand Theft Auto :: Codename Halo, wanted to point out that work has begun on this project to bring GTA to the Halo engine. The site is hosted by Grenadiac, of Halomods, and is a bit light on content so far – though there are some answers and a bunch of pictures in the FAQ.