Red vs Blue is taking the week off this week – there won’t be a video. There WILL be info later on today about the DVD they’re making, however. Keep your eyes peeled.

That Sarge… he’s a pip. Check out One One Se7en. (Remember, all three main strips this week are a miniseries.)

Two new Halo PC previews: Warcry, put up Tuesday, and The Armchair Empire, put up Wednesday. The Warcry preview is a bit strange; it focuses entirely on the campaign mode, and was written by someone who never even bothered to read old Xbox summaries. (The screenshots are of such degraded quality that we’re not even going to include them in our Screenshots database.) The Armchair Empire believes that the game will be a hard sell to Xbox owners, because “what little that is new to Halo just won’t be enough to justify paying full price for a second, slightly more robust version of the game.” (These guys obviously haven’t been playing internet multiplayer every night…) Both links come from Blue’s News, by way of ash.

Joyride has updated their website with pics and info on the next series of Halo action figures to be released by the end of this month. They’re listed on the left side of this page. It’s the new Master Chief – Green, Master Chief – Red, Elite, and Ghost which includes 3 mini figures of Elite, MC, and Jackal!

Yes, we’ve known about these figures before, but now it’s official!

I’m not sure what the difference is between the Series 1 MC and the Series 2 MC-Green. Is it just the weapon set? I’m sure we’ll find out soon enough.

They’ve been out for a little while now… but Joyride issued a press release today about the Halo Action Figures; check out the details at Bungie.net.

For the first time in almost a week, Gearbox has updated its top Exclusive Screenshot – this one shows a lot of firepower being unleashed on a few Blue guys by a pair of Reds… (And while your ON the Projects page, note that the remaining work items for Halo PC (things that must be completed before the game can be sent to manufacturing) is down to 57. When the countdown was first noted (6 days ago), the total was 146; not a bad week’s work! Thanks to Brad Griswold for the first heads-up.

Once again, a week goes by before the art queues get cleared. (They’re STILL not cleared – but they’re better.) We’ve got 11 desktop pics for you today, including two Marathon-related ones. Strange how things run in packs… check the Wallpaper section.

It blows me away how often the Fan Fiction updates include story totals that are multiples of seven. It’s as though someone’s PLANNING it…

• Chapter Two: Rise of the Phoenix, by Blue Jaguar
• Omega Centauri, by James Kinsella
• The Laurel, by James Kinsella
• Homeworlds IV, by Mainevent
• Survival, Prologue, by Agent Shade
• Defection: Part 2, by Zach Laskaris
• A Series of Wierd Events, Part Four, by Hunter_Killer
• Final Thoughts-Words Before Battle, by BlackValkyire
• Nothing to Lose Part III, by hornet34
• The Ghosts:Silver Eagle Down(Chapter 3), by Sergeant B
• The Adventures of Lt. Jake, Part Four, by Hunter_Killer
• In Light of Destiny Part VII: The Savior Within, by Jinkaiden-XI
• Attack on ERISTOCK-Part 2:Departure, by xitWOUND117
• Another ONI Black File: Halo &#4294967190 We Got There First: Part 9, by Arthur Wellesly

Go ahead, read ’em. There’ll be more tomorrow.

Yesterday, we mentioned Dogsounds’ armor variants – well, today, there are three new ones. Check this forum post for details – or view all variants on one page, here.

UNSC.net has run into bandwidth problems – they can’t host any more movies until they find a sponsor. Anyone interested in helping should contact admin@unsc.net. (They hope to offer hosting, as well, to anyone willing to sponsor them.)

Games Domain has put up a Halo PC Preview; not a lot new (well, they’re apparently MUCH better with a sniper rifle than I am), but 10 additional screens (added to the Screenshots database, as well). Thanks to ash, who noticed it at Blue’s News.

Mikey-Cd is back as a Guest artist for One One Se7en… don’t tell me this never happened to you.

The Hushed Casket had a one-year birthday… and they celebrated with a lan party and a cake. Pretty cool cake, too! Check out the pics! (Then chime into the forum thread.)

Forum regular Dogsounds did some reskinning of the Master Chief – it’s unlikely that his work would be approved by the UNSC, but we liked it enough that we added a page to our Miscellaneous section. Check it out.

Bluestone, of 343 Guilty Spark, submitted a new Flash-animated Halo logo. We’ve linked it on our Logos page.

Clint has turned in a new Halo 2 cover concept, which we’ve added to our still-growing Halo 2 Cover Art collection. Take a look!

Okay, it’s been a while since I’ve found time to rummage through the submissions – and for that, I apologize. Lots of people have been waiting for substantial chunks of time to see their work displayed for the Halo community… and I’ve been lax about getting it up there. However, our uploads folders (and email) are filled with material which we have to toss, as well… and this makes me sad. Some of it is just that folks aren’t paying attention to the existing guidelines… but some of it is that we’ve never outlined what isn’t acceptable. So I’m doing that now. First up, some rules to remember:

• Movies that are submitted in WMP9 version ONLY (that is, without a corresponding MPEG, or AVI, or whatever) will not be posted. This rule is in effect until Microsoft releases WMP9 codecs for operating systems other than their own.
• Movies that are simply collections of tricks, or that are rehashes of existing films we’ve posted in the past, will not be posted. You’re welcome to find your own hosting, and send us a link; we’re happy to announce it to the community. We cannot provide you with bandwidth, however.
• Items that are uploaded to our ftp or http uploads folders without attribution will not be posted. If we don’t know who you are… we’re not putting your work up. We’d like an email address (even if you don’t want it listed with your work; we’re happy to withhold it)… but we NEED a name, at least.

And while we’re at it… uploading halo.jpg or readme.doc or description.txt is sort of silly… remember that our Wallpaper section has almost 1000 items in it, Miscellaneous Art isn’t far behind; name your work (AND its accompanying text file) appropriately. Thanks. Now as for things that we’ve not addressed yet:

• Red vs Blue artwork (wallpaper, disc covers, logos, you name it) are really not appropriate for HBO. RvB has their own website, and a forum to post tribute work. Please use it.
• Windows executables will no longer be accepted. Once upon a time, we took some mini-games folks created… but the last item we tried to test totally hosed the Windows emulator I had running here, and in today’s virus-strewn world, it’s simply not worth our time or effort to ensure that your mini-game is safe for public consumption. Please don’t upload them – we won’t post them.

Material listed above – the stuff we won’t post – is simply discarded; we probably won’t contact you to tell you we’re not posting it. (In the vast majority of cases, we CAN’T contact you, because you haven’t bothered to include an email address.) If you feel that you’ve uploaded something that we SHOULD have posted, but didn’t – please don’t upload it again – simply drop us an email, asking us what happened to it. (Be sure to identify it clearly.) We’ll get back to you about why it wasn’t posted, or post it if it was simply overlooked. (Because yeah, we do make mistakes sometimes.) Hopefully this clarifies the issue somewhat. I’ll do my best to get the recent stuff put up soon.

Too much time getting toasted by the Halo PC beta testers, not enough time updating this site. Hmm. Anyway, before hitting the sack, here’s Wednesday’s One One Se7en, from Stuntmutt – continuing in the Flash Pelican theme. I know where that lady is coming from…

Dwain Faithfull writes to point out that UNSC.net has the second installment of their exclusive video, The Beginning of the End. WMP9 format only. This one’s called ‘The New Breed’, and it’s available from their Videos page.

A brief Halo PC preview was published (along with 25 screenshots) over at the Entertainment Depot yesterday. Thanks to Cash, on the Gearbox forums, for the heads-up.