Xtournaments will be hosting a 2v2 Halo tournament with a FFA segment on March 27th, in Smithtown, Long Island, New York. Entry fee is $40/team, with $1000 in prize money on the line. Check out the details!

This came in a couple of weeks ago – but like many other things, got buried. Apparently, the Ottawa Citizen ran a story (164K) on Halo 2, and how people are frustrated about the wait for it, back in mid-January. (The submission came from Thumper on February 17, and the wording suggested that it came out that day.) Nice to see it in mainstream newspapers!

This came in Monday night, but got buried – sorry about that. xitWOUND117 points out some shots that his group, Crazed Gnome Productions, have put together – mostly skinned vehicles. There’s a Red banshee, a decaled tank, a CGP orange LAAG warthog, a CGP black Rocket warthog, and a lightning’d ghost. Check it out! Update: as many people noticed, the bandwidth for CGP ran out pretty quickly; gwdpto has come to the rescue with some COERCE hosting.

dolbex has a fun writeup of a 16-team, 8-man-per-team tourney he went to last weekend, over at Been Mawed. Good time, bad money. Great pics. Go read!

Just a reminder – the Gamespy.com Title Fight between Halo and Goldeneye 007 begins today, at noon (PST). Don’t forget to swing by and cast your vote!

Wow. It’s FAR from empty, but the Miscellaneous Art queue just dropped by 15 items… because I just posted that many. There’s some good stuff, some bad stuff, and some weird stuff. Look it ALL over. For folks who have submitted comics in the past month or so – PLEASE be patient; we’ve gotten so many that a new section will open in the not-too-distant future. Okay, time to get back to work.

Today’s Guest One One Se7en comes from MasterTJ of Dark Halo… and brings a whole new take on the One One Se7en graphics. One might even say ‘different’. I’m reminded of Jules Pfeiffer.

Only 19 new entries in the Fan Fiction section today… you guys are slipping.

• Mad Rush, by Nick Kang
• Fall of the covenant, by Jetboogieman
• The Iron Hands of the Prophets (Part 1), by MadJackal
• Halo:The Fate of Earth, Prologue, by MetalGhost
• Before the Fall: Part One: Requiem, by Jagged
• Theta Omicron part 1: The Siege , by Jesse Harz
• Last Resort Part 2 – Return to the Library, by Nemesis0fTime
• The Strive to Survive (Chapter 3: Supplies, Ammo, and Weapons to Kill Freaks), by CoLd BlooDed
• Prodigal Son: Part 1, by Scott Devary
• Halo 2: Judgment Day Prolouge and Chapter 1, by Mibu Wolf
• ODST Lead the Way Chapter 2, by Helljumper
• Chapter One Unforgiving Wounds, by ToFu
• Sam, by Mainevent
• All Your Blue Base, Base, Base…, by Ermac of VGPro
• The Dimensional’s Last Stand:Part 3, by skseifer
• Chapter 1 of Halo: Fellowship in Blood: War of the Worts, by gamer02
• It Hurts But Still, by Chief-117
• The Mind Chamber–Chapter One, by Halo_2204
• The Fall of Rye: Chapter 2: Ambush, by teemus

(That was a joke. Really. 19 is a LOT.)

Today’s Calvin and Halo touches on a long-standing gripe I’ve got – nobody lets MY karma move the pointer. Bah.

I suppose I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that there’s an interview of me up at Battleground: Halo. This sort of thing really should be posted by some other HBO staffer… but that would require that another staffer actually post. Hmm.

Stefander has posted some early screenshots (and a small movie) of a new map he’s working – a conversion of 343 GS to multiplayer. Swing by Halomods.com and check it out!

Because, I guess, she wasn’t content with wowing the crowds with her awesome Halo art yesterday, Tina Leyk has sent along a NEW piece this morning; you’ll find it on the bottom of the fan art section of her Art page here. It’s called Gold Elite Bridgebattle… and it’s BEAUTIFUL. One day in the not-too-distant future, that page will be a bit more flexible (searchable, and the like) – for now, just scroll down a bit. If you missed the release of this stuff recently… look around. It’s something to behold.

EmptyShadows found a new piece of Halo-related fan art – The Master Chief vs Shadow. hehe… nice.

Whoa. SanchezTheLlama has posted the weekly Project Halo update… and it’s a doozy. Very cool shots of the new map! Check it out.

You may or may not have noticed that HBO is struggling a bit right now. Don’t worry – it’s not that the servers are dying again – well, they are, but it’s not because of a failure, it’s overload. BOLL’s Warthog Jump flash animation got picked up by Ars Technica this morning – and by afternoon it was on several large Flash-oriented game sites, the biggest (at least that we’re seeing) being AddictiveGaming.com – they’re sending us about 200 people per minute. That’s doing a number on the available resources for serving the REST of you. Luckily, these things are transient – the crush will be over by tomorrow.

One One Se7en starts another series – though I doubt the timing is accurate. Hold on tight, boys and girls… this one’s gonna get ugly.

Keyes and his insecurities continue to be the focus of Halo: Resolution – check it out. Incidentally, Fuzzy asked that a public statement be made about Resolution sprites; they’re not for distribution. He doesn’t mean any offense by it, but he’d rather people stopped asking him for them, because he’s not planning on distributing them. Thanks!

We got mail this morning from Strato99, pointing out a bunch of purported Halo 2 screens. (The originals were housed on some student webspace in Sweden, but Strato said he found them in a forum somewhere.) These have been confirmed to be FAKES – please, if you see them around the web, don’t perpetuate the myth! (Credit where credit is due – they’re very good jobs.) You can see them here:

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Congrats to the creator, whoever you are! Update: we got mail from Joakim Danung, the creator of these screens – seems they SHOULD have been an April Fools gag, but he was afraid they’d conflict with the rollout of the new Bungie.net. (I’d have to say he’s being pretty pessimistic; I’m hoping the new and improved b.net will be comfortably worn in by the time April 1 rolls around…) In any case, some of these images will be resbumitted as miscellaneous art, in altered forms – so keep your eyes open!

Greg Irvine put together a spreadsheet to keep track of player stats for his local LAN group. He’s now made it available to the community as a whole. You can grab it from our Miscellaneous section. (Read the page for instructions about use.)

Halo Babies has released this Friday’s comic a bit early – for sponsors. You can find it in the Sponsor’s forum. There’s also a new incentive to donate: drop off some money, get a halobabies.net email address. Go sign up!