Icetiger, who plays on HPC as IcetigerMOM (and generally kills me a LOT on HBO Coerce), has released a movie showing his work-in-progress, a moon level. Low gravity, Spartan bots, and a super-powerful sword are some of the fun aspects of this one. You can find links on both Battground: Halo’s forum and Halomods’ forum. The movie is WMP9 format (divx-encoded), 5:16 long, and a 19.5 mb download. The map is still in beta, and is not available for download. Can’t wait to play this one!

A reminder: on August 14, the Xtournaments Halo 4×4 National Tournament will be beginning with qualifying rounds at almost 2 dozen iGames centers around the US. Tournament registration fee is currently $140/team ($35/person), with a $15,000 purse on the line. The Xtournaments website has much more information, and the list of gaming centers hosting the qualifying matches can be found on the iGames site.

Last Friday’s Weekly Bungie Update has now been added to our searchable archive; you can use it to discover interesting things. For example, I’ve always thought of Pete Parsons as a rather classy guy, someone who put a decent face on the rabble that is Bungie. The Sushi Fart comment this week threw me… until I did a quick search for Pete in the database, and discovered that he’s a scatalogically inclined, rodent-based murder-obsessed lecher with a lousy car – amazing what you can miss when you’re not looking.

One One Se7en looks on the bright side of yet another new Halo 2 feature.

Joe Staten wants a pony, just like Halo: Resolution…

rapture found a fun image on Planet Unreal. I’m kinda glad Halo doesn’t actually work like that. (Yes, this is Halo-related; the pic comes from a UT version of Blood Gulch.)

Dogsounds, a staple on our forum for a long time, went away. Now he’s back. How do I know? Oh… it’s probably the milk squirting out my nose.

Thanks again to Fury Three, who’s done a wonderful job of summarizing the Halo offerings made of Legos over at the Brickshelf. Check ’em all out!

Bunch of writing over the weekend, for the Fan Fiction section – 29 pieces, to be specific. Go get ’em!

The largest French Halo site has just changed links; Halo-Game has become Halo.fr. They’ve written up a press release (in French), and sent along the highlights (in English). You can find both here.

There’s a new Livejournal to read – this one is called ‘SPARTAN Updates‘. It’s updated semi-daily (author’s terminology), and looks at the day-to-day life of John-117. In light of the negative feelings generated by some peripheral issues with the whole Enkidu presentation, I’d like to make a few things clear:

• This is not being written by anyone at Bungie, or anyone at Bungie.org
• The inclusion of a bungie.org email address for responses is simply to hide the identity of the original author, and does not in any way suggest that this is ‘official’
• The inclusion of a bungie.org address does not in any way imply that these are available to anyone who asks

All that said, go and read!

Matt_117 points out an interesting eBay auction; you can order a new and sealed copy of Halo 2 for £19.99, free shipping, delivered, VAT included, in your hands within 2 weeks of November 9. If you’re on a budget, and live in Great Britain, this might be worth looking at.

Episode 22 of Miniature Halo has been posted; MC gets some help. w00t!

Yesterday, we mentioned a movie posted by Ducain, showing the Object Overload technique used on the Maw to grab a banshee in Single Player mode. I’d mentioned that a QuickTime version could be made available if needed – a number of people have emailed about this, so you can grab a copy on files.bungie.org. Also, there was a post by Ducain explaining a few things about the movie (including the astounding fact that it took him 5 hours of continual Flood-killing to cause the overload) that is worth reading, for those interested in the technique. Wow!

tLove scanned a 2-page ad for Halo 2 from the current issue of EGM. It’s not very high-resolution, but it doesn’t need to be; it gets its point across quite nicely at any size. (We figure free advertising isn’t gonna bother ANYONE, which is why we’re okay posting scans from a current issue.) Update: Oops, this was double-posted, and the second post got lots more replies. If you want to contribute, this might be a better thread.

We got a nice note from Tina Leyk this evening, letting us know about a couple of updates on her website; we’ve added the relevant art to her collections here. There’s a new wallpaper using the Fur-Lo characters; you can find it on the Fur-Lo page. There’s also a great sketch of an Elite bust on the Fan Art page. This woman ROCKS.

Pballwizard points out a LAN party being organized in Kalkaska, Michigan on June 25-27. If you’re in the area, check it out!

Interesting… Ashrak has taken a shot at interpreting a pair of glyphs that appear in Two Betrayals (with a little animated gif and a description). I like it!

A year and a half ago, Frogblast showed us how to use Object Overload to grab a banshee on the Maw. He did it in Co-op mode, because OO is WAAAAY easier that way. However, last October, Mat Noguchi, Tools programmer over at Bungie, explained enough about Object Overload that the route was clear (though far from easy) to do this trick in Single-player mode. Last week, Juggertrout posted a movie (made by some friends) showing this grab in single player – but it was just the grab. There was no explanation of how it was done, or any video footage of the setup. Ducain, in his inimitable style, has not only rectified this situation, he’s offered (obliquely) to pass out a checkpointed save to anyone who mails him a memory card and a stamped self-addressed envelope. The movie in that post is 10.5 mb, 3:50 long, in WMP9 format. If anyone needs a a QuickTime version, let me know. It’s wonderful to see the dedication that Halo can STILL elicit in its fans.