For the second day in a row, Finn has taken a healthy bite out of the Halo Story page mailbag; there’s a sizeable update today. (He also addresses concerns that Story page submissions might be used for purposes other than the edification of Story page readers…)

Halo: Resolution takes a shot (hehe) at the needler as a weapon; check out today’s strip.

15 pieces for you today in the Fan Fiction update:

• Athenienses-II: Chapter 2: Plasma Tanks, by ZackDark
• Appocalypse-Sector4, by FF Echo
• Closing with the Enemy Chapter 2 Covenant Attack, by monitor101
• Closing with the Enemy Chapter 3 Death on the Front, by monitor101
• Neverland: A New Home, by SOS.Odin
• Merick’s Journal’s, Episode II: Streaker’s Annonomous, by John Kitchen
• Another (Part 1), by Mr Bill Jr V
• Another (Part 2), by Mr Bill Jr V
• Lan Battle Chapter 2 Jesse’s Plan , by Blue Angel
• Fight for New Tatley (Chapter 2: Alien Ambush), by CoLd BlooDed
• Balo: The Pillar of Yearning (Chapter 1), by Sergeant B
• A Series of Wierd Events – Sequel, Part Two, by Hunter_Killer
• All Roads Lead To Sol…Despite What The Map Says: Chapter 12, by S7N
• Halo the Aftershocks, by Nestor Nazario
• The Forerunner: Prologue, by Steele

A steady flow, no?

Mafioso writes to point out that l337 Guide has gotten an entirely new look. Check ’em out.

We’d like to say goodbye to a strong member of the Halo community; CobaltNova has closed its doors, permanently. In the words of Emil, its founder, “we had a pleasant community, decent website, with nice plans for the future that had to be closed down for the foreseeable future because life interfered.” We’re gonna miss you… (Thanks to gwdpto, who was the first to point this out to us.)

We’ve received another piece of Halo-inspired music. This one is the Halo 2 Trailer Music, with a hip hop beat. It’s 2:13 long, just under 2 mb in size, and the author, chaostheory, had this to say:

I am an avid hip hop producer and I noticed the music in the background of the H2 preview was about the right sample speed to loop and mess around with. I absolutely adore Halo, beaten on legendary a few times and play MP regularly so I thought I’d make a halo beat. With the music form the movie, combined with a few vocal grunt samples and the like, I put this together. The drums aren’t outstanding and I could have chopped the sample better but it was kind of a rush job….you be the judge.

He’d love feedback; if you have any comments, drop ’em off in our forum!

In a suprise move, we’re clearing out the Wallpaper queue, as well, posting 8 new desktop images (11, if you count variants). Some pretty cool ones… check ’em out!

It’s been a couple of weeks since we updated the Miscellaneous Art section – we’ve got 16 pieces for you today, many of which are comics of one kind or another. Thanks to all the submitters for their patience!

Just in time to reinforce my assertion that someone messed up in the Best of the Best voting, c0ld vengeance’s take on the HBO Halo PC servers is there to make you smile. One One Se7en – social commentary with a grin.

Another Halo Story page update – this time, in response to a forum thread. (Okay, probably not. But the timing was pretty damn good.) Go read.

Back at the end of October, @ndrew submitted a new entry for a contest that we closed 18 months ago. Yes, his run for the Maw 700 is too late for prize contention… but it’s a pretty darn good run (he finished with 2:45.26, faster than any of the actual entries we got). Despite the fact that the music chosen for the run made my ears bleed, this movie shows how cleanly this run can be done. 15.2 mb, in QuickTime format, for a 4 minute movie hosted at files.bungie.org. Check it out! (To save everyone a lot of stress, let me state here and now that we’re not going to accept any more of these; some people see a post like this and say “I can do better!” – and they can. But our bandwidth isn’t infinite, and though I liked this run, we don’t need to see it again and again and again and again, just to shave another few seconds off that record… thanks.)

The MC… losing it? You would, too, after 87 regular One One Se7en strips, and almost 50 guest ones…

The previously chinless Keyes assigns a new… helper to MC in today’s Halo: Resolution. Uh oh…

17 stories released in the past 48 hours for our Fan Fiction section…

• Eldar Counsels Log Part 2- Stories and more Questions, by Blue Angel
• Tactics: A New Way of Thinking (comedy), by Awacar
• Apocalypse-Sector 4, by FF Echo
• Shell Shock- chapter 3, by Myth
• Shell Shock -chapter 4, by Myth
• Operation:Thunder, by Raise A Little Hell
• Death By Design Pt.1, by Silent Death Sorrow
• Fight for New Tatley (Chapter 1: Taken by Surprise), by CoLd BlooDed
• Merick’s Journal’s: Episode 1: Why Sidewinder is better than Blood Gulch, by John Kitchen
• Countdown Earth: Hour Five and Thirty Minutes, by Mainevent
• The Final War: Chapter Three: Getting real… Part Three: Awaiting a ride, by Awacar
• Episode 1: Old Landmarks, by Unorthidox Everythng Man
• Halo 2 Rise of a Hero Chapter 4, by CovieKilla
• Halo 2 Rise of a Hero Chapter 5, by CovieKilla
• Trace 117, by GLADIATRRR3000 and Silent Death Sorrow
• Lan Battle Introduction-Chapter1: Turak’s Defense, by Blue Angel
• Marooned Chapter 5, by Steve Ollett

The never-ending cycle continues.

343GS.com has posted their second EchoFourNineteen comic – you’ll find it in the Downloads section. (It’s called ‘MMM Grunt Grape’.) Thanks to Madda Cheeb for the heads-up.

Anyone who’s spent any time on our forum knows the story of KORHAL, The Boy Who Cried Movie. Well, this weekend, he finally released some footage; there are four films, showing stuff like glitches, vehicle launches, and vehicle collections. They’ve been hosted by nukedude (vid one and vid two) c0ld vengeance (vids 3 and 4), and Break Point (all four vids). There’s really nothing in them that hasn’t been done before, and quality’s a bit low (filmed off a webcam)… but for people who’ve been listening to KORHAL claim for a year and a half that he has filmz… it’s closure. Check ’em out!

Sector 7 has posted a Halo PC review. Well, really, it’s more of a ‘Halo PC Demo Impressions’ article – it was written by someone who played the demo a few times. Hmm…

(GT)Juggler has put up a bunch of photos and some low-res vids from the or Inerumnis Lannactionica fest yesterday on his website, HaloGT. Warning – first two vids are of a modded copy of DOA Beach volleyball; the girls are missing some items of clothing. Everything else is pretty clean.

Dave Mertz has posted an update on both the next Halo PC patch (1.03) and the Editing Tools package, over at the Gearbox forum. No definitive dates… but it looks like the tools package might still be a ways off, due to the volume of material that needs to go into it (and the changes necessitated by the latest game patches). Thanks to The Guardians for the heads-up.

Blade writes that halo.leetgamers.org has gotten a design overhaul, and tossed the Team Ice affiliation. Content coming at some point.