Dr. Nick points out that even though the actual movies are being hosted elsewhere, the Advanced Essentials movie brought enough traffic to the [-GTC-] website that it’s offline again. I wasn’t smart enough to record all the mirrors, but I can at least point out the b.org ones: we’re hosting both the DivX version and the QuickTime version. Read the original news post for more info on the vid itself.

Out of time and out of options, it seems, Frankie has posted this week’s Bungie Weekly Update over at Bungie.net, on the new ‘New Mombasa‘ forum. It’s not particularly meaty this week – but Frankie has lots of excuses for that. There IS some discussion of new maps, a new (previously unmentioned) weapon, and some fun stuff about dialog. Go read!

Red vs Blue has Episode 34 – ‘aftermath, before biology’ – up for sponsors. (The general public will have to wait a couple of days.) It’s 4:27 of RvB goodness, with a great combination of humor and plot advancement. And the – oh, go watch it.

So Bungie’s got a new toy – they can make 3D screenshots! And the first one is a pretty slick piece of work. It’s called “Army of One”, and it’s available in both high (8.4 mb) and low (1.3 mb) res versions. Grab it (make sure you have QuickTime installed), and go to town rotating around the sword-wielding elite, checking out ALL the action! Farsight was the first to stumble on the story, before it made it onto b.net’s front page.

As a followup to their Basic Essentials movie released last week, [-GTC-] has created Advanced Essentials, a new film showing some lesser-known tricks of the trade. Some are useful in single player (grenade jumping, for example), while others are purely multiplayer (speeding up the invisibility powerup). Again, the movie is presented in a clean, easy-to-understand manner. It’s available in both QuickTime (13.3 mb) and DivX (15.7 mb) formats, and [-GTC-] has gone to the effort of setting up mirrors ahead of time. You can find three mirrors (we’re one of ’em) on their Advanced Essentials download page. Go grab it!

Aquaduct 2 is imminent – “we’re talking days or maybe hours now” (written about 11 hours ago). Mac-based Xbox tunneling is almost upgraded! Thanks to Sharp for noticing!

One One Se7en continues its look at new Halo 2 stuff. Was this what they meant by ‘battle damage’?

Halo: Resolution gets… odd.

Slick. Dark Helmet has filmed some really cool Lifepod launch angles on Halo; you can find the movie (wmp9, 3.5 mb) and a thread of discussion, over at High Impact Halo. Thanks to vshields ash for the heads-up.

Halo Babies has not only a new strip for you today, but a bunch of new artwork: a pair of new wallpapers (very nice) and a couple of new avatars. Check ’em all out!

KurtVanHulle points out a new Halo remix at OverClocked ReMix. Interesting Celtic overtones.

Whoa. Very cool – Videogames.co.nz is reporting that Microsoft confirmed that the Halo 2 Limited Edition will be released in New Zealand on November 9th – adding another country to the list of places which will receive this game on opening day. Thanks, The l337 n00b.

Hehe – very nice. Sketchfactor points out a new Zoe-created Wallpaper, entitled ‘WortWortWortHog’, on the Bungie.net Wallpaper page. Nice composition! Thanks, Caligula Caesar. (And thanks, Evil Otto, for the inspiration!)

thunderhawk555 popped onto our forum with a tidbit from Gamestop – they suggested that there were ‘exclusive modes only available for play over Xbox Live’. (thunderhawk was skeptical, hence the post.) EvilOtto jumped in for one of his rare but welcome visits to debunk this rumor (in classic EO fashion).

I don’t know if this came from Gamestop or MS marketing or Satan, but you can all rest assured, we’re not hiding any gametypes from people that don’t have Xbox Live.

One wonders if those are all similar, or if they get progressively worse, or what…

kornman00 mentioned that Supreme Conflict: The Enna Wars (formerly Project Halo) had an update posted; you can find it here. Personally, unless you’re excited by dialog boxes, I’d recommend passing on the screenshots of Bruce.

Just in time to be up-to-date before the NEXT Bungie Weekly Update is released, we’ve updated our Weekly Update Archive, so that you can now see that a search on ‘Jaime‘ shows that Mr. Griesemer has been lying low since mid-April, as far as these updates go. (He was mentioned in passing on April 30, but it doesn’t count, in terms of actual work updates.) Sekretz… lots of sekretz…

Apple has posted an interesting interview with Phil Sulak and Ken Cobb, of Westlake Software. It’s geared towards techheads (it’s on their Developer site, after all), and focuses on the tools Westlake used to bring this game to market, but it’s full of little tidbits for non-professionals who are interested in how it all works. Thanks, Carlo Zottman.

Today’s Calvin and Halo looks at a situation that many kids would love, but wouldn’t happen in too many houses. Still, it’s nice to dream!

Adam Daniel found an interesting article on the New York Times website (free registration required) which discusses movie-to-game licenses, and why most of the games don’t work. Halo is held up more than once as an example of how the model (that you need brand recognition, either because your game has a precursor or because it’s based on a mass-market item like a movie) is flawed. Adam points out that we (online Halo fans) get props:

“Everyone is trying to make gaming more mainstream, but it’s still the hard-core gamers that get it started. Look at Halo. That’s not a franchise sequel or a licensed property, but the word of mouth from the hard-core community really drove the larger market and made it the success that it is.”

Nice! Go read.

DJ SKILZ is a Scratch DJ/Scratch Artist, and has created a couple of pieces with Halo influences. Read his forum thread, visit his website, download the tracks.