There’s quite a lot of good stuff in the Miscellaneous Art section today… but I’ve got to draw your attention to the final image of the group, entitled Melee Madness. It’s simply stunning. (This is not to say the rest isn’t worth seeing – it’s a pretty eclectic mix today. Grab it all!)

Another (very large) banner has been submitted to our Banners section – sure looks a lot like the one underneath it, though there doesn’t seem to be any relation between the submitters…

A couple of logo enhancements for you, as well – check the Logos page.

Clearing out the Desktop queue from the weekend – five new images for you. Check the Wallpaper section.

The weekend’s Fan Fiction, posted early on a Monday morning:

• Cortana’s journey (Halo 2: Chapter 6), by Shadowrunner
• A John Before Halo: Part 2, by J-117
• The Maiden Fight: Reality Strikes A Stone Mind, by pj-NYkr90
• Human vs. Covenant War: Part Five, Masterchief’s Man Hunt, by Ronald Maszk
• Chapter 2: Ancient Artifacts, by Nightblade
• Project: Shadow Spartan, Chapter 2, by Agent Shade
• True Purpose: The Finale, by Frensa Geran
• Halo: The Aftermath pt. 2/5, by Matthew Buzas
• Battlefield, by harley
• Shadow Spartans, Chapter 3: Interrogation and Assault, by Agent Shade and Arinoth Koby
• The Long Ride Home 13: Home At Last, by Joshua Elias Barreto (Infernal)

Just a reminder; this is a Halo site – we only accept Halo fan fiction. Thanks!

Yet ANOTHER movie at XboxOttawa – this one’s not an FTC film, but instead a fun Oddball match on Blood Gulch. The Matrix-like effect at the end is generating some interest these days – it was discussed yesterday in this forum thread (and that thread references this one, from a few months ago). Useful for folks making movies, certainly… Send in the Oddballs is 8.9 mb, in DivX 5 format.

Several people have written to us about the new Elite sound included in the Bungie Dialog Archive – some have gone so far as to attempt to reverse and filter the snippet. Bottom line – it conforms to the standard rules that xbill and others discovered about ALL Halo: CE elitespeak; it’s the Sarge, with the pitch lowered and the sound reversed. This particular clip, when reversed, says clearly “Like I don’t have enough on my mind!” (There’s been no pitch change here; my audio editing software is unhappy that I changed disks, and I’ll need to contact the company about re-serializing tomorrow.) A rather appropriate clip, given the trigger (Killed by friendly fire)! Update:Okay, for those who care, here’s a pitch-adjusted version, as well (27K).

We didn’t release any movies yesterday because I was out of town… but here are a few more from the queue. These have all been released on their own already – but bandwidth might have been tight, or you might have chosen not to download them because we weren’t hosting them. (That may sound silly to some of you… but one side effect of our Movie Posting Guidelines is that if we choose not to host a movie, some visitors choose to conserve their bandwidth and pass on the movie altogether.) Anyway, here you go:

• 300 Meter Flag Throw – SleekShadow has taken the trick shown in Maverick’s recent CTF 2 movie and applied it on the Blue side of Blood Gulch – for a total distance of 300 meters (half again as far as the throw Maverick showed with the red flag). Original details are here. 6.6 mb, QT5.
• Sidewinder Saga – series trailer. Original description is here. 5.8 mb, QT5.
• FTC Episodes 1,2,and 3 – Fire Team Charlie has put out three very different (but all very funny) vids; we’re mirroring them. (The originals are here. Video 1 was first described here, Video 2 here, and Video 3 here. Mac users will need to run these through DivX Doctor II to be able to hear them properly.
  • FTC Video 1 (DivX 5, 7.0 mb)
  • FTC Video 2 (DivX 5, 4.8 mb)
  • FTC Video 3 (DivX 5, 12.4 mb)

Hmm… let’s see, that’s 36.6 mb of videos – but luckily, some of you already have these. Grab the ones you don’t! (Please, for the sake of our bandwidth, actually CHECK to see if you have these; don’t waste Mythica’s freely-given bandwidth if you don’t need the files… it would be terrible if the resource were yanked because folks were too lazy to conserve.) Coming tomorrow – new content (that is, not seen before on other sites).

Short notice… but we just heard about it. Game On Entertainment is hosting a Halo tournament (21 and older) in Chicago, this Monday, July 14, at 6:30 pm. Prizes are not listed yet – but entrance is free. Take a look!

Red vs Blue Episode 12 is now available to the publc. Normally, this doesn’t warrant a separate news post (we announce the RvB movies when they hit the Sponsor pages)… but in this case, there’s some additional info which might be of use to some of you. First, the archive of existing episodes has been pulled offline until traffic drops, so that they can serve Ep12. They’re guessing Monday or Tuesday for its return. Second, in addition to standard HTTP and Bit Torrent download links, they also now have FilePlanet links – the options continue to increase.

Just got home from Brian Josselyn’s Are You Big enough lanfest – here’s a shot (68K) of some of the folks present, set against the backdrop of the largest screen we used. (No, we didn’t play on this surface – there was a real screen that had been stored by the time this picture was taken.) Twelve hours of hi-def Halo goodness – and even though a bunch of the players won’t actually be home for a few more hours, it was absolutely, positively worth the drive. More soon, I hope. For now, bed.

As i write this, it’s 4:50 am, local time, and in just over an hour, a 2-car caravan filled with 8 psychos – er, Halo players – will head north from here for the Are You Big Enough lanfest in East Bumfu – er, Andover, Massachusetts. There probably won’t be too many site updates today, unless Count Zero manages to dig his way out from under that mountain of Jack Daniels bottles he built last night.

Well, we might not have access to Marty O’Donnell’s vast snippet archive… but Captain Spark is doing his best to keep up. 14 new submissions, based on some creative torturing, can be found in our Dialogue Databank today.

11 Fan Fiction bits for you today:

• Project: Shadow Spartan, Prologue, by Agent Shade
• Return of the Chief: Chapter 1: Lab Experiments, by Nightblade
• Escape from Marakesh, by The Scribe
• Battle for the Colonies Part One: Alpha Comus 8, by Hunter_Killer
• True Purpose(14), by Frensa Geran
• Oblivion Chapter 2, by Reclaimer
• Project: Shadow Spartan, Chapter 1, by Agent Shade
• pt2-Injustice-Halo2, by Spartan Construct-117
• The Last Hope For Outpost Bravo: Part 2, by Spartan5000
• The Maiden Fight:The Mouth of Hell, by pj-NYkr90
• A John Before Halo:Part 1 (Changed for the better), by J-117

Go get ’em!

IGN has a realtively new feature where readers can rate the game they’re reading about. Yesterday, they posted the top 10 rated Xbox games, as decided by their readers… and Halo is number 1. Thanks to Hank for the heads-up.

Massive updates at Bungie.net today. (Yeah, yeah, you all know about it already – that’s what happens when I’m away from the keyboard for 6 hours on a Friday afternoon.) Lessee if I can get all of it into one post:

• Part III of the Making of E3 demo article has gone up; Sketchfactor interviewed Marty O’Donnell and Jay Weinstein about the cool sounds you hear in the demo. Awesome behind-the-scenes info… must-read. (Fantabulous artwork, too.)
• A new Halo Voice Dialog Archive has come online. Because they know we’ll beat ’em into the ground with quantity, they cheated and added a bunch of clips you can’t even TRIGGER in the game. (Just kidding – it’s all good. Awesome stuff, and in a few days, when they’re not looking, we’ll add these to our Dialogue Databank.)
• Halo 2 voice outtakes; things that never, ever had a chance of making it into a game, but are fall-down funny…
• The Halo manual, in PDF format, has been added to the FAQ/Info section. (Hehe – yah, it’s been available at xbox.com since November 2001… but you know Bungie.)

Rockin’ stuff. Go grab it all. (Well, maybe not the manual.)

The continued adventures of a MC Puff(y) on One One Se7en today… that Sarge, man, he’s cold.

Wow. Looks like if you preorder Halo PC at Gamestop, you get a mini Blue Master Chief action figure, free. We’re not usually big on preorders… but this one seems like a pretty good deal. Thanks to Jonah for the heads-up.

Red vs Blue have put up Episode 12 for sponsors – and man, this one is nicely done. Filmmaking is topnotch, and plot twists abound. There’s a new server online, and it’s working considerably better than the old one (though it’s not clear if it will be available to non-paying visitors) – but if you’ve ponied up at least $5, go get it right now! (It’ll be available to everyone else on Sunday, probably.)

FTC, of Xbox Ottawa, is rapidly making a name for themselves in the Halo moviemaking world. Their first and second movies were both critical successes – and they’ve just released Number 3: When in doubt, take a ghost and jump out. It might take a couple of watchings to get the whole storyline, and the sound at the end leaves a bit to be desired (background noise interferes heavily with dialogue)… but this one had several laugh-out-loud moments, and top-notch filming quality. Check it out! Divx 5 format, 12.3 mb. We’re dropping it in the Mythica queue, so if they run out of bandwidth again, you’ll be able to grab it from us in the not-too-distant future.