Price breaks: Halo PC at Circuit City is currently $9.99 (WOW) – thanks, Recoil, and Halo 2, shipped, is only $43.49 at Overstock.com. (The Limited Edition there is $52.49 shipped, a couple of bucks cheaper than most places. It’s unlikely you’ll get it on November 9, though.) Thanks, rywateska.

The Battlefield: Vietnam mod Homefront has put up a large update over on Battleground: Halo; new weapons, new vehicles, new skins, new map. Go check it out.

Back in March, we mentioned a DVD being put together by XBCTourneys, containing many tricks for Halo multiplayer. We just got word from Annihil8or that it’s finished.220 tricks, 1 hour and 5 minutes of content, 4 gb on disc. You can order it here. (I’ve never seen it, so I can’t tell you what’s on the disc – and though there are sample links on the main page, they don’t work in many browsers.)

July’s issue of the Official Xbox Magazine hits the stands today… so we’re putting up the Halo 2 article from the June issue. You can find it in our Press Scans area. (As a favor, if you link to this elsewhere, use the link in this news post, not a direct link to the pages or the zip file. Thanks!)

Twelve pieces for you today (mostly fiction chapters, but at least one poem) in the Fan Fiction section. Enjoy on this messy Sunday.

Victor, from Xtournaments, wrote to tell us about Xtournaments’ $15,000 State vs State 4v4 tournament coming up on August 14 in 15 states in the US. More details can be found at their website.

I hadn’t expected this to be necessary, but the email traffic we’ve been receiving would suggest I was wrong. A few days ago, we mentioned an auction at eBay for what was ostensibly an alpha copy of Halo 2. It was clear that a number of people realized it was a fake; the final bid was just under $100 million. In the forum threads that erupted in the following days, it became clear that the perpetrator had simply used the DVD included with a bundle at Best Buy, not even bothering to alter the graphics. I let it drop there – but many people still want to know what happened, and many others are unaware that this information has been posted several times on our forum and so send it to us for our edification. The auction itself has been yanked by eBay – if you want to see it, you’ll have to view our local copy. And that closes that chapter in Halo stupidity.

Episode 20 of Miniature Halo has been released – and the story takes a twist. Linda – unmasked!

Another article posted during the E3 flood on Xbox.com was one called ‘Xbox Fansites: Keeping it Real‘. It takes an overview of the fan community, and what fansites bring to the table, in terms of energizing people about a game. Halo is used as an example. Thanks, mechroneal for the heads-up.

Gamespot has posted a Rumor Control article – and Rumor #4 is ‘Numerous staffers are planning to leave Bungie following the completion of Halo 2.’ After looking at the evidence, they proclaim it bogus. Given that the first I even HEARD of this rumor is this article, I wonder whether they’ve done something positive… or negative?

Akba has decided to post 50 Halo 2 wallpapers in the near future; they’ll be visible in this thread on our forum. The first one is listed in that post.

If you read the section of this week’s update that comes from Nathan ‘bentllama’ Walpole, you’ll find that he’s going to be bringing a number of new animators up to speed in the coming weeks. I guess he’s in education mode, because if you swing by CGNetworks, you’ll find a 3-page article reviewing MotionBuilder 5, a character animation application. There’s no Halo content in this review, but reading it might give you some insight into how the bent one thinks. (Hmm… on second thought, that might be a bad idea.) If you’re not into 3d modeling or animation, this article is probably not for you.

This week’s Bungie Weekly Update is over at Subnova; I’m gonna point to the new site, rather than the old, because the old is much less stable. (You still have to go there if you want to actually POST… but at least you can READ it on a faster machine.) It’s a pretty cool update, because it sounds like folks are actually getting closer to done. This is a good thing, given that the release date is just 5 months away. Go read it!

Red vs Blue episode 35 is now out for sponsors – swing on by the Season 2 sponsors forum. Caboose + Donut = twice teh stoopid! Looks like LiteRedDonut noticed first.

Couple of fantastic new desktops and a new strip round out the week’s additions to Halo Babies.

Too many bad jokes… can affect your gameplay. So says One One Se7en today.

Noob, from Halo: Resolution, shows he can’t read maps very well.