This morning, we mentioned a sponsors-only extra available at Red vs Blue. This was a movie the RvB team made for Microsoft’s Professional Developers Conference 2003… and it’s pretty funny stuff. If you’re not a sponsor, you can STILL get your hands on a copy… if you have a PC. Microsoft is hosting its own copy here. Thanks to Ninja on Fire for the heads-up. (If you have a mac, and you’re a sponsor, there’s a QuickTime version available at RvB.) Update: it’s now available to everyone, not just sponsors, in both WMP9 and Quicktime formats, from Red vs Blue themselves (both download and BitTorrent links). Thanks to Jandals for the heads-up.

Randy Pitchford and Pete Parsons spoke to Gamespot recently; they’ve posted a video interview (49.7 mb, zipped) on their Halo media page. Unfortunately, it’s subscriber-only; if you’re not a Gamespot Complete member, you can’t see this. There’s not a huge amount of new information, and from what I can tell, it was filmed about a month ago (Randy talks about the Rocket Hog change as brand-new; that took place just before Fanstock, in mid-August), and the gameplay footage in it comes from a pretty old beta (pre-1.5, even)… but it’s got Randy and Pete philosophizing about what made Halo great, and how they tweaked things to make Halo PC better. Thanks to ON-X for letting us know.

Whoa – Marty O’Donnell’s planning on releasing a surround sound mix of the E3 2003 Halo 2 music suite – details to be posted on the Marty Army 7th Column site. I’d have known about this if I’d read my email, but Deimosâ„¢ over at Subnova pointed it out first. Droolin’!

A pretty darn cool sponsor-only extra is now available at Red vs Blue – check the Sponsors for more details. Currently WMP9 only… but a QuickTime version is coming. Thanks to P_40E for reminding me to go back and check.

Another guest strip from Germain Couët over at One One Se7en; a different perspective on the Halo 2/Half Life 2 rivalry…

10 stories for you today in the Fan Fiction section…

• Battle for Croton 3.5, by Earl Hershberger
• Homeworlds VII, by Mainevent
• They Died with Their Boots On, by Walker
• Untitled Improv Boredome Story #1 , by Mainevent
• Part 2 Capture, by JAfdifai’fih
• Nothing to Lose Part IV, by hornet34
• The Virus Part 9, by monitor101
• Courageous Pride:Solutions Unavailable(Chapter 1), by Sergeant B
• Human Elite Ch. 1, by Tinmad!
• Do Spartans Dream of Ossified Sheep?, by Crushed Acorn

Go Go Go!

Microsoft has put up shots of Infinity, the last of the 6 new levels in Halo PC, on the official HPC site. These, combined with the shots you can find in our Fanstock Screenshots section (put up almost a month ago), should give you a good sense of how massive this level is (and how much fun it’s going to be with Warthogs)…

Move over, Evel Knievel… Baby Elite’s gonna kick your butt. There’s a new Halo Babies posted – thanks to mrsmiley for the heads-up.

Gearbox has posted a new shot to its Projects page; it’s a followup to the last shot (showing a flamethrower on Boarding Action). This one is called Victory Inferno… and it looks painful.

For those who like to see dead bodies – SketchFactor decided I needed a little comeuppance.

iGames is planning to host an international Halo PC championship, with a showcase event to be made available during the week of October 13. For more details, go visit CobaltNova.com – they’ve got the lowdown!

Forerunners.org has posted the Halo PC box art, as received from Genevieve Ostergard (Microsoft Game PR). If you’re having trouble downloading it from there, Dolbex has mirrored it on his site. This image was posted to our forum some time in the past week, but for the life of me, I can’t find the post (so I can’t give the poster credit). At the time, the consensus was that it was just another mockup… but that now seems not to be the case.

Do you miss Frogblast? I do. Stuntmutt keeps him alive in our memories, though, with today’s One One Se7en. Rock on.

Red vs Blue Episode 18 is now up for sponsors. (Yes, that means the rest of you are gonna hear about something you won’t be able to download before Sunday. Deal with it.) Caboose is going for the record of Stupidest Human With Muscle Control… he’s got a good shot at it. Funny stuff.

Interesting – did someone jump the gun, or is this just another instance of not enough information? Stuntmutt points out a new Microsoft site in the UK, advertising Halo PC… and it’s got, emblazoned across the top in bright letters, ‘Available 10 October 2003’. Is this the official date Gearbox said they’ll announce in 1-4 days… or is this just some web dev’s idea of filling up the space?

Want to know where Halo PC stands at the moment? Read the word from Randy Pitchford, President of Gearbox, on his own forum. Thanks to Nightshade for pointing it out. Update: It looks like Gearbox’s MySQL server barfed; the link is pretty useless for the time being. If you get a page with a bunch of errors on it, the best advice is try again later; I’m sure someone will fix it soon. Update 2: As of 16:43 UTC (11:43 Gearbox Time), the forums are back up.

Massive Halo PC coverage: Gamers Hell has a preview and 33 new screenshots, GameGossip has a preview (contains 5 screens), and Game Over has a preview (12 screens, but several are taken from the Firing Squad preview last week). Of the three, I’d have to say that the Game Gossip piece has the most meat… but press is press. Thanks to ShackNews for all three links.

And the egg parade continues. Just when you thought there were no more eggs to be found in Halo… c0ld vengeance turned up one under the pilot’s seat in the lifepod. Check this forum thread for details.

A Halo benefit tourney will be taking place in Los Angeles on September 24, to raise money for a local theater group’s production of A Clockwork Orange. It’s $10 to get in, and there’s an 18 and older age limit. Check out the details in this forum post!

Funky – there’s a yellow warthog showing on the Bungie webcam at the moment. (If it’s gone by the time you read it, you can see a saved picture here.) Whether this is a customized hog (a standard Joyride hog, repainted by a Bungie employee), or a future offering from Joyride, is unknown at this time. It nicely matches the Hog billboard from the Halo 2 E3 trailer… Nice spotting by Poocho.