Eleven pieces for you today in the Fan Fiction section:

• Earth Taken Part 2: Defense, by Inept Zombie
• Jake A Model Four: Chapter Six: Six Feet Below, by Slipping Knot
• A Marine Named Peters: Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here, by GLADIATRRR3000
• Alcatraz Choronicles–chapter 1 , by Nazgul
• Jake A Model IV: Chapter Seven: His Heart Bleeds, by Slipping Knot
• The Norinthian: First Contact, by Deathhead666
• By The Sword, by Frensa Geran
• Athenienses-II: Chapter 4 : Pay Back Time, by ZackDark
• Enemy of our Enemy, as told by Elites, Part 1, by FOrunnER (inspired by Wraith)
• VENGEANCE[3], by GLADIATRRR3000
• Battle for Tectron: Chapter 6, by Helljumper

To the person who submitted nine segments of a DOOM fanfic – sorry… but this is a Halo site. I’m sure there’s a place for DOOM-based fan fiction, but this isn’t it.

Nice find by Dan Chosich; Bungie has posted a new Job opening – Finishing Artist. (I’m assuming this is for Halo 2; if Bungie is working on another project at the moment, I’d be surprised if it were far enough along to require a ‘Finishing Artist’. But then… who knows.)

Reuters interviewed Robbie Bach, Chief Xbox Officer, according to TeamXbox. There was a brief mention of Halo 2:

“We’re going to ship it when it’s ready. That might be the first half of 2004, it might not. You have to be careful with franchises like this.”

Hmm… Thanks, op_ivy.

Bungie welcomes Frank O’Connor, former Executive Editor for the Official Xbox Magazine, as its newest member of the Community team – and kicks it all off with an interview. Go read about the guy who’s gonna be bringing you juicy Halo 2 tidbits in the coming months!

I lied… today’s One One Se7en Archive update is 22 strips, not 21 (one more came in about 5 hours ago). As requested, there are now next/previous links on the strip display itself (so you don’t have to come back to the main page to see the next strip). Some of these have been seen before (on our forum), some have not; some are weak, and some are hilarious. It’s a grab bag. Go grab. (Next major One One Se7en event, so that everyone remembers, is the Plinth of Art contest, closing in 10 days. If you’ve been meaning to submit a strip… do it!) Update: Looks like I forgot one; Wado submitted one the week before Christmas, and I missed it in the roundup. It’s been added in to its proper location… sorry for the confusion. (If the thumbnails seem to repeat for you, you’re caching the old information. Force your browser to reload, and all should be well.)

goatrope posted news of a new movie today on our forum. There are a pair of links for download; grab whichever works best for you. It’s in XviD format (links to the codec are in the post, as well, if you don’t have it), and weighs in at 21.3 mb for a 3:14, 640×480 movie. It consists of tricks performed on HPC multiplayer maps; mostly getting out of levels. My understanding is that this wasn’t supposed to be released yet… but then, my understanding isn’t always clear, and it’s there for all to see on our forum, so go see it.

Team Hogan has put together a very moving video; It’s set to Johnny Cash’s version of Sting’s ‘I Hung My Head’, and follows the music quite closely. Gorgeous cinematics, beautiful timing. There’s a thread going on in our forum about it; response is really positive. The original version is 730×480, 23.5 mb, in DivX-encoded AVI format (v4.5, so if you’re not up-to-date, you won’t be able to watch it); however, the vast majority of the image is simply black space. (The actual content fits into a 360×125 window…) I re-encoded it into QuickTime (v5-compatible), and chopped out all the empty stuff; my version (TH Sloth-approved) comes in at a bit over 13 mb. (It’s currently mirrored on files.bungie.org and mythica.org.) Worth watching, and then toss your two cents in to the forum thread!

Yeah, it’s true, later today there will be a massive One One Se7en Archive update (21 strips). However, that doesn’t change the fact that it’s Wednesday, and there’s a Stuntmutt strip just waiting to be posted. That Stuntmutt… I think he’s lucky most folks don’t know where he lives. Tomahto indeed. Lots of ’em.

Halo: Resolution looks at the OTHER side of the Grunt/Elite relationship… (careful where you party, that’s all I can say.)

PfhorSlayer popped into our forum this afternoon to mention that Aquaduct, the Mac Xbox Tunneling app, had been updated. Majorly updated. It now talks to Xbox Connect… so it’s gonna be a race; will the Postpose team finish first, and allow PC and Mac users to play together on Xbox Halo… or will Westlake finish first, and allow PC and Mac users to play together on Mac/PC Halo? Keep an eye on this space to find out.

By popular demand, a new link has been added to the left navbar here; one that contains all the comics we host, plus the two biggies we don’t. (I’m sure there are others out there – I remember one that Stosh used to do, for example, and Bungie does some awesome ones – but they’re not very coherent; the former is defunct, as far as I know, and the latter set doesn’t really have a theme.) Hopefully, this will make your life easier, as you only need one hand to navigate to your daily sketched fix.

It was just a matter of time… Boxer points out that the latest Subnova.comic totally rips off – um, pays homage to Stuntmutt’s One One Se7en. Wow. It could even BE a One One Se7en… except it’s not here. Check it out.

Miguel Chavez has tossed up a teaser of what’s coming up with respect to his Red vs Blue at Lincoln Center coverage… check out the post, and let him know what you want to see!

rendar points out that Xbox.com has another article up that praises Halo – this time, for its ability to bring friends together (in Coop mode). And on and on…

Strykerwolf popped into our forum with a slick little animation of the Master Chief (as modeled by him). Go take a look!

Today’s Guest One One Se7en comes from The Rat, and has a slightly different look than your average One One Se7en. I gotta say, though, I’ve felt the same way as the MC on the Library…

Warbow continues to send in inspired Calvin and Halo comics; there’s a new one live today. Ooh… I just wouldn’t want to be there.

SketchFactor stopped by the forum this evening, once again looking for YOUR input. Concept du jour: Kill In Order Slayer games. (There’s one on the HBO servers, called targetpractice… all players are invisible, to boot.) Do you like these? Hate ’em? Have a particular peeve about ’em (like, say, if all players are invisible, and it’s set for a team game, and there are no friend indicators… RANDY)? Chime into the thread!

It’s taking a bit longer than I’d expected to get the 1.03 patch for Mac Halo out to the fans… so in the meantime, we’ve decided to run HBO-Subnova as a 1.02 server, with a mapcycle that mirrors HBO-GameDaemons. (We’ve also removed the password for it.) If you have Mac Halo, and you feel left out of the whacky HBO gametypes… come on by!

Hehe – I read the article this morning, but managed to overlook the fact that it was Halo news. Ouch! Thanks to Rams, of BGH, and Dinky, for pointing out the error of my ways. Gamespy posted a ‘Year in Video’ article, in which they ranked what they considered to be the top 10 game videos of 2003. Halo 2’s E3 trailer came in at number 2, trailing only the Half-Life 2 E3 gameplay video. Not too shabby!