Files.bungie.org (no, there’s nothing at THAT particular link) is now back open for business; this includes the FTC vids we host. Apologies for the 3-day downtime… we’ll do our best to ensure this doesn’t happen every month. (No guarantees, though.)

In other news, we’ve bought Rampancy.net.

Wow – nice conversion of Blood Gulch for Unreal Tournament 2004… There’s a download link in the thread (along with some pics), but unfortunately no attribution; I have no idea who created this. (The filename simply specifies that it’s a Vehicle CTF map, and the site it’s on has no real information.) Heads-up goes to Konrad on our forum, who found it from Strato.

Alexander Valient found a Halo-related strip from a comic called Alg. – Co. The full page can be found here. And a whole bunch of people mentioned the tiny Halo 2 reference in yesterday’s Crtl+Alt+Del comic. Seems Halo is showing up in more and more places…

Hehe – here’s a fun little Halo-related flash thingy… Nice work from the HaloNATION team. Heads-up from HuMaN_fLy in our forum.

One One Se7en looks at those funny Subnova folks today. Poor MC.

Today’s Halo: Resolution pulls our poor MC out of the frying pan…

Wow. Wraith has managed to add a working Fuel Rod Gun to Two Betrayals; the graphics are a tad blocky, but the functionality rocks. (I’m not sure WHY the graphics are blocky; you’re using the gun that the Spec-Ops Grunts use on that level.) It was originally available as a PC mod, but he also found a way to make it work for Xbox (NTSC). Update: Wraith explains the blockiness here.

There’s an interesting essay on Games, and the stories they try to tell, written by Greg Costikyan, Co-Founder of Unplugged Games. It looks at games in general, and is not Halo-related, in any direct sense… but Halo (and Bungie games in general) tend to try and tell stories, and they do it more successfully than a large chunk of the games released in their genres, so it’s worth a read to anyone who thinks about this sort of thing from time to time. Heads-up comes from Brian Graham, in our forum.

Jonathan Eaton points out the third ACM @ MSU -hosted Xbox Halo Tournament, in East Lansing, Michigan, on April 10. $700 in cash prizes, plus goodies. The web page is here.

Blade posted a 22 mb, 8:37 long movie of Blood Gulch gameplay on his TeamHalo site. Fraps makes the gameplay pretty choppy, and the low-end video card makes the image quality… well, pretty low-end. It’s mostly just a few guys running around shooting each other. You need to register on the site (with a valid email address) to download the video.

Akba and Allroy have written up a tutorial on how to play Xbox Halo using Gamespy Arcade. If you have the client already, or don’t like Xbox Connect for some reason, but you want to play online, go take a look! (You can comment in this thread.)

JM made a HUDless ‘trailer’ for Halo, and posted it (in two sizes) over at Halomods. It’s not very big, so take a look!

Wraith has put together a new model for a Covenant heavy attack aircraft; ground landings might be a tad awkward, but it looks pretty deadly. (The tail, which folds underneath like a scorpion’s, is flexible – making it a rather deadly weapon.)

Wonga. The Nightmare Armor guys updated their site – with the name of the winner of the Helmet raffle. Scott Mills, of New Jersey, congratulations! (He probably already knows, since the helmet was sent out last weekend.) Heads-up came from Madda Cheeb.

BOLL wrote an interesting paper for school recently; it’s called ‘Analysis of Halo: Combat Evolved using Game Design Patterns’. He uses a methodology developed last year by three Scandinavian researchers to break down gameplay in Halo, and determine how well the game would work without the patterns found. It’s an interesting read, so we’ve posted it in our Miscellaneous section. If he fails the class, we’ll probably yank it.

Keeping up with current discussions, that’s Finn. Not noticing until today, that’s me.

Bachus found a reference to Halo in today’s Real Life Comics… another step in the plan towards World Domination.

Hmm. Over at Rampancy.net, there’s a pointer to a new page at the Joyride Studios site, showing a ‘sneak peek’ at the Waves 4 and 5 action figures, as well as early views of the Halo 2 prototypes. However – this is just a rehash of the page posted at Bungie’s Truth and Reconciliation site, which went live back on February 14. ALL of these pictures came from the show itself, and if what you’re interested in is Halo 2 shots, then what you REALLY want is this page at figures.com (a site first mentioned by Dan Chosich on February 18). There are much better shots of the Master Chief and Brute prototypes there, including closeups.

Calvin and Halo asks the question… are tigers part of the Covenant?