The Strong Than All gaming league has begun to talk Halo. Read an introductory blurb on our forum, or visit the site directly; If you’ve got a 5-man team, this might just be for you! Thanks to T3muJin for the heads-up.

If you feel like you’ve been left behind in terms of what’s known about Halo 2, head on over to Battleground: Halo; Banshee Ace has writted the first part of a series of articles spelling out where we are.

One One Se7en looks ahead… let’s hope we make it.

Halo: Resolution has finally gotten away from the lag gag… oh, wait, no, it hasn’t.

The Stop-motion vid we mentioned yesterday has been updated quite a bit; it’s still short, but now it’s a complete fight. (Still only 640K.) Very nice work! (Read about the new version, or comment on it, in this thread.)

DocOctavious created a pretty nice stop-motion film, MC against a covenant. (A MUCH smaller – but equivalent quality – version can be found in this post.) It’s really nice to see the Action figures being used so much!

A few days ago, SEspider popped on to our forum to mention a comic he’s been creating for a couple of months now, using Halo action figures. I thought they were great, but I was afraid of posting the link on the front page; they were being hosted on a Geocities site. I wrote to him, offering him space here; he accepted. The Geocities site will continue to be updated, because it has other links and information – but the images will be housed here, because… well, because we can provide more bandwidth than Geocities. It was simple enough to port his images into one of our existing comic pages; We’ve added the link to our Comics page, and as new strips come in, we’ll point ’em out. All that said, go and read the first 11 episodes of Miniature Halo!

Recently, we mentioned an Xbox Halo mod that gave players big heads… nukedude points out that he’s modified it for every map for Halo PC. Now everyone can join in! Update: Oops, MT pointed out that he, also, posted a ppf for Bighead in the original Halomods thread. You have multiple ways of getting this puppy!

I’m pretty amused by the fact that we had two entries for the Plinth of Art contest submitted under the wire this evening… and both are Jackson Pollock jokes. I’m gonna have to find out if the guy was perpetually late or something. In any case, the contest is now closed. Over the next few days, Stuntmutt and I will take some close looks at the submissions, and then get out the dartboa – um, magnifying glass – and choose 3 winners out of the nearly 50 entries. Never fear; all entries will be on permanent display once we’ve announced the winners. I have to get Stuntmutt sober, first, though – that might take a little while. Thanks to all who participated! More when we know it.

Woohoo! Bungie’s Annual Winter Pentathlon is coming around this Friday… they’re looking for predictions. Games on the agenda this year are Halo 2, Mario Kart Double Dash, Top Spin, Eye Toy, and Pictionary. The teams, as they have been for a few years, are The Grizzled Ancients, Old School, Middle School, and Newbies. Swing on by Bungie.net, and vote! (Right now, folks are pulling for the new guys… but I’m guessing that might change as more votes come in. Remember, The Grizzled Ancients rolled over all competition last year, badly enough that there are still tire marks on the side of Dave Dunn’s face. Go vote!

MeatSaw is holding an interesting contest; design a T-Shirt, and if you win, he’ll print it on a high-quality shirt, and mail it to you. Details are in this thread on the Gearbox forum. You must be registered there by tomorrow to enter, and entries must be in by February 17, 2004. There’s no word on what happens to the design after the contest ends… Thanks to Chumley for pointing this out.

Speaking of One One Se7en – just a reminder that The Plinth Of Art closes today; any submissions not in our mailbox by 11:59 pm (UTC) will not be considered. That means you have… um… ::carry the 1…:: about 11 hours and 45 minutes to get that strip in!

Today’s Guest One One Se7en, from Lt. Devon, looks at what is NOT a primary strength of one of the Halo characters…

Seventeen pieces for you today in Fan Fiction:

• The Final Meeting – Part 1, by Bluestone
• Something of a poem, by Inept Zombie
• A Series of Wierd Events – Sequel, Part Five, by Hunter_Killer
• A Series of Wierd Events – Sequel, Part Six, by Hunter_Killer
• A Marine Named Peters: The Finale, Part One, by GLADIATRRR3000
• Earth’s Destruction Chapter 6: Flying Solo Part 2: One Vs Many, by Sentinel
• Manufactured Destiny :: Chapter 1.5, by MoZ
• the jackal brothers:episode 1, by new1nab113
• Stalingrad [part I], by thindog
• The Corporal: Part 1, by The Scribe
• Desecrating Providence (Prologue Part 2), by Marty
• Survival of the Fittest: The price for being nosy, by MasterCD
• Johnson’s War (vignette/drabble), by witelancer
• Halo Installation 01, by FOrunnER
• The Corporal: Part 2, by The Scribe
• The Earth Tears, by Frensa Geran
• Air Force Wing: Part 1, First Contact, by teemus

And you’re waiting for… what?

Episode 0 of Freedom Isn’t Free is released over at Clan [WSD], to celebrate their one year anniversary. Unfortunately, it’s in a format that isn’t viewable on a Mac. (It’s also not readable by TMPGEnc, so I can’t CONVERT it to something viewable on a Mac.) If you’ve got a PC, though, WMP can view it. (It’s a 10.2 mb download; the movie is compressed with the WMV3 codec.) It’s the story of a bunch of criminals… some of which are smarter than others. Cinematography is quite good; I’m looking forward to the rest of the episodes. Thanks to [WSD]-Porsj, who gave us the heads-up in our forum. (Happy Birthday, guys!)

BIG HEADS! I love ’em. See ’em in this forum thread at halomods.com, and download ’em from there, as well. Xbox only, I guess… Thanks to Mr-T for pointing this out (and making it, for that matter).

Hehe – Bachus pointed out that the latest d+pad (a web comic) has a Halo 2 theme to it. Got a chuckle out of me…

MarkHawk dropped by to let folks know that The new Halo: Ice Fields trailer has been released (visit the Movies section). It’s 43 seconds, 11.2 mb in DivX-encoded AVI. It’s a tad different from your average Halo movie… there’s a lot of non-Halo footage. Like… the whole thing. There’s no release date on the movie itself… but this trailer looks pretty intriguing!

X Tournaments is running a 3 vs 3 Halo Tournament in New York, on January 24 (that’s next Saturday) – with $1500 in prizes. Tournament fee is $90/team, but you can lock in your slot for $10/player. Check out the site for more details.

And so it starts. Frankie has posted the very first Halo 2 Weekly Update on our forum – it’s a little light on content, but it’s HEAVY on attitude, and the artwork has to be seen to be believed. That man is a future Van Gogh. (Well, maybe just the ear part. Or the insanity thing.) Go read it… and look forward to this being a weekly event (though not always here; as he makes clear in his Bungie.net writeup, these (as was true with the Halo 1 Updates, back in the day) will be spread around to a collection of websites, to better acquaint the average Halo fan with the full Halo community.