Wonga. See what happens when Bungie yanks their unofficial RSS feed? Lazy bums like me miss important updates. Yesterday, Roger Wolfson, Bungie’s test lead for Halo PC, posted a nice FAQ in the Maw forum related to Halo CE and where it fits in the grand scheme of things. It spells out who’s responsible for what, from here on out, and gives some pointers on where to look for more info. Go read it! (Achronos posted this on Bungie.net’s front page, but I was too busy eating jellybeans to notice. Mmm… jellybeans.)

Calvin points out one of the downsides to playing your kid in Halo in today’s Calvin and Halo.

Sep7imus noticed an article in today’s Wall Street Journal on the video game industry – and it features Halo 2 prominently. We don’t have a copy of this, and it’s not online yet, but if you see the WSJ, look for it!

We’ve compiled all the working links from this Gearbox forum thread and the lists at Cortana.org, and added in a few that we’ve found elsewhere, and created a Halo Custom Edition | Halo Editing Kit Mirrors page. We’ll do our best to keep this updated; if you run across a link to these files that isn’t on our list, feel free to drop us a line.

SEspider noticed a Halo DesktopX Theme; if you have DesktopX, check this out!

One of the big ‘gotcha’s so far with the HEK is the lack of ability, out of the box, to export new data from 3ds max into a format that the HEK tools can read. The HEK comes with a version of the Blitzkrieg exporter (the file that does the translation work) that works with 3ds max v5.x. Yesterday, Gearbox released exporters for 3ds max 3 and 4; you can find these at Cortana.org on either the Quick Downloads page or the Tool File Downloads page. However, there are still two groups left out; those using the newest 3ds max 6 (Gearbox has said they’re willing to consider creating a plugin if the demand is high enough, and a thread has been started on the Gearbox forums to provide evidence of this demand), and those without the cash to buy a copy of 3ds max at all. Last year, Gearbox said they’d do their best to create an exporter for gmax, discreet’s free 3ds max-derived creation tool, but there’s been no word of that recently. However, all is not lost; Xzzy, a longtime Bungie fan and a prominent creator of HaloPC tools, posted a note last night that suggested that he’s not too far from creating the plugin himself. (He’s out of town for the next week, so it won’t happen right away, but he sounds pretty optimistic about the possibilities.) In the meantime, baldactor, a mod on the Gearbox forums, has posted a thread with info on how to get hold of a 30 day trial of 3ds max 5, for those who WANT Max, don’t already have it, and can’t find anything but 6 right now. Whew! Does that sum up the mess at this point? Update: I missed this thread; Scott Velasquez of Gearbox says he’ll be ‘looking into adding 3DSMax 6 support in the near future…’ Good news!

We received word today from Marc Tardif of Gearbox Software about the ability to distribute the HEK Tutorial. Some European sites were asking whether they were translatable, and others wanted to know whether the color scheme of the pages could be altered. (White on black can be hard on some eyes.) The answer to all of these questions is yes:

The more people who get it the better. I think getting it translated is an excellent idea. My hope is that this document will become a base for more user-created tutorials.

I haven’t removed the frames yet – but I DID whip up an HBO-themed version (minor image changes and a new style sheet) – you can see it here. For any sites interested in using the cleaned-up html as a base for translation – you can grab it here, in zipped format; drop in the two image folders, and you’re good to go. (The tutorial is included with the HEK download, so if you grabbed that, you already have these folders. If you need them as a separate download, drop us a note; we’ll see if we can find the bandwidth for it.) And if you DO write a new tutorial that folks might find useful, send it along; we’ll probably host it for you!

Interesting – Kris Kristensen, the director/producer of a film called ‘Inheritance’, is appealing to the Halo fanbase for a show of support. It seems some distributors are reluctant to take this film, because there are no ‘stars’ – so Kristensen is asking that folks who know about Jen Taylor, the voice of Cortana and a star of the film, to sign this petition, affirming that there’s an audience for this. The forum post has links to film trailers, so go take a look!

Halo50k3 is ON, baby. Dolbex has posted an info page with hotel and registration info – go read it, and reserve your pillow-top mattresses with down pillows today!

Whoa. Dark Helmet got to the top of Halo – in time to see something you’re not supposed to see. Very short film – 11 seconds, 722 kb in WMP9 format, 547 kb in QuickTime format. The man’s on fire!

One One Se7en takes advantage of some cool Halo 2 stuff today.

… It’s Still The Worst Job On The Halo 2 Dev Team. Halo: Resolution takes a literal view of ad slogans.

24 pieces for you today in the Fan Fiction section – some standalone, a poem, some continuing series, some comedy… a little something for everyone. Go read!

Yesterday, Achronos posted a note on Bungie.net explaining that the site would be down for maintenance for a short time today (10-12 Pacific, or 5-7 pm UTC). He clarified the need for the downtime on our own forum last night. he’s hoping it will be less than an hour – the two hour window is an outside estimate.

At 9:50 pm Central last night, Cysco announced that Halo Custom Edition and the Halo Editing Kit were being released sooner than expected. There is a thread containing a list of mirrors for both items (they’re BIG), also on the Gearbox forums. First word here, both on our forum and via email, seems to be Munkeegutz – thanks! Go grab ’em!

Sorry for the late entry, but way back early Sunday Daedalus alerted us to a new interview with Alex Seropian over at gamesindustry.biz.

Good info and you get to see Alex wearing one of his funny hats. 🙂

So I’m lookin’ through the uploads folder, and there’s this huge movie, and the name rings a bell. Someone named Mike just sent an email about it. Half the guys I know are named Mike… could be anyone. So I grab it and I start watching it, right? And it’s a little slow… another black-and-white legendary thing… I’m thinkin’ I’ve seen too many of these… oh, good, there’s some color. Okay, so he’s playing through pieces of the game, big deal, why am I was—hey, he’s pretty good with that plasma pistol! So my son wonders in the room, and we watch him take down a few elites with nice snipershots. And then there’s this balls-to-the-wall jump-out-of-the-banshee attack on a Wraith. Cool. Something’s tingling, though – I’ve seen this style before. About the time we watch The Best Gold Elite Kill Ever, I’m scrabbling back through my email, trying to place this guy. Hmm… random AOL address, nothing’s jumping to mind. The Steel Trap is definitely rusted. A quick search… Mike Miller sent in two of the best vids we’ve seen (In Too Deep and Winning Isn’t Everything), and now he’s taken the hat trick with Legend. 30 mb, QuickTime format, 8:32 long. There’s a copy at Mythica, too, just because I haven’t stressed Brian enough recently. You gotta watch this, just for the outtakes at the end. And that elite kill. (And the pair following it.) And Mike – I’m really sorry I didn’t recognize the address. Though I must say, having the movie unfold like that was worth not knowing. Update: We’ve got 4 mirrors to tell you about for this film – Coerce.net has mirrored it, as has clarksbrother, in three places (here, here, and here). If our main sites begin to lag, grab a mirror! (Thanks, guys!)

A quick note – in answer to the deluge of mail we’ve been getting about the Going Nowhere Fast contest; the reason there are no times listed is because nobody’s submitted any movies yet. However, that obviously wasn’t as clear to the world as it was to us… so I’ve added a Leaderboard to the contest page. It’s empty right now, and will stay that way until we receive entries… but it’s there, so that you KNOW it’s empty.

Hehe – new Flash game from Z, of Xbox Ottawa; it’s called Banshee Chase, and it’s a top-down driving game (avoid the gravestones – yeah, I know they’re not gravestones). It’s tiny; we haven’t asked, but we’d be happy to host this. At the moment, though, you can find it at Newgrounds. Go play!

The Gimme Your Best Shot contest for best HUDless screenshot, over at Halo Zone, has been won – check their front page for the top dog and the runner-up. Thanks to XLNC for the heads-up.