Simpsons Rule created a pair of Simpsons-related Halo desktops. They’re being hosted by a couple of forumites; you can see a preview of one of them on Lion’s Truth and Reconciliation site (bottom of the page), and both are also hosted by guy who doesn’t post….too often.

The silver lining in the cloud that is my forgetfulness is that occasionally, you get three consecutive days of One One Se7en. (Okay, that’s really only gonna happen when I forget to post Fridays and there’s Sunday content… so it’ll probably never happen again. Enjoy it while you can.) Today’s strip finishes up the Unreal Championship series. Still funny, even if not 100% accurate any more.

10 stories for you today over in Fan Fiction:

• Shadow Ops, Chapter 4: The Alliance, by Agent Shade
• Halo: Attack of the Banshees Part 1, by Super Beast
• Halo 2, by System Failure
• Covenant Invasion! Part Five, by Hunter_Killer
• Mercenary – Prolog, by HockeyPuck
• Death’s Angels: Chapter 2, by Space_Moose
• Human vs. Covenant War: Part One, by Ronald Maszk
• coccon by flood, by Cpl.C.Hicks
• A Marine Named Peters: Run For Your Life, Fight For Others, by GLADIATRRR3000
• Halo Zero /p3/ Sniper Position 07, by nicholas

Can you get through all of them before the next batch?

Salon.com has a pretty funny article about Julia Roberts’ Halo obsession. Worth a read. (If you’re not a Salon.com subscriber, you can watch a 15-second commercial for a daypass, which will let you read the remainder of the article.) Thanks to Robert Reichle for the heads-up.

Z points out a pretty cool little movie on xboxottawa.ca (it’s the last thing on the page). 6.9 mb, DivX format (make sure you have an up-to-date version), 720×256. They’re working on more, but they’re all in school or working fulltime… so there’s no timeframe on the next product. You wanna see a slick multiplayer move… grab this film.

Took a little bit of finagling, but there’s a Sunday strip for One One Se7en today. This is a totally random feature; it will not happen every Sunday, or even every other Sunday; it’ll happen whenever Stuntmutt gets the inspiration for a Sunday strip. This one is just in time for the Red vs Blue forum members to get their hands on episode 10. (It should be available to the general public later today.)

Thanks again to BOLL – the Flash Pelican game is once again online, though now without a high-score option. Play it for fun. 🙂

Wow. We haven’t updated the Wallpaper section in almost a week… and now there are 21 new desktops for you. 10 come from kapowaz, and are just interesting renditions of opening screens on each campaign level. (Each one is available in 5 sizes, as well.) The other 11 (two of which come in multiple sizes) are individual submissions. Total number of new screens (including variations): 63. Wonga! Check the Wallpaper section.

Sir Fragula points out that his Halo Role Playing Game Combat Test system (a single in-game room that allows player to fight against all currently implemented enemy encounters, in an attempt to generate feedback) is now online, thanks to NeXuS and goatrope. (The download links are here and here.) More details about what this is, and what’s working and not working, can be found in this forum thread. The download is about 3 mb.

Apologies to all who were enjoying the Pelican Flash game (or, more accurately, attempting to get on the high-score list for the game). There were so many of you playing at once (and submitting scores at once) that the server’s been bouncing up and down like a yo-yo. For the sake of the REST of HBO, I’ve pulled it offline for a while. I’ll try and figure something out with BOLL so that you can play this without killing the site. I’m sorry…

Dang – once again, a busy day gets in the way of remembering to post the new One One Se7en. (To make up for this, we’ll post the first Sunday strip tomorrow.) In the meantime, Friday’s strip is now available; the Unreal Championship series continues. Mercenary? Of course.

Okay, it’s not COMPLETELY done yet… but it’s good enough for government work. A few days ago, BOLL released his Pelican Flash game… and folks loved it. It was only one level… but check out the thread of folks nailing that high score. Made us happy enough to crank it up a notch. BOLL went back to the drawing board and added 4 more levels… and I added a high-score backend for the website. Now, when you play the game, you pick your level… at the end, you add your name, hit ‘submit’, and you can check out how you compare to other site visitors. It’s a work-in-progress; BOLL might add more levels, and I’ll probably be adding more features to the high-score list (stuff like ‘number of times played’, that sort of thing)… but it should work, as is. Give it a try! Warning: your score will be ignored if you hit submit without adding a name. Keep that in mind. (Nothing says you have to submit at all; there’s a restart button right under submit, you can try again without putting the score up.) Update: There seem to be a LOT of you playing this game, mostly at the same time. (There are a few thousand new scores in the database already…) If you get an error upon submission, it’s likely because the database is being updated by someone ELSE at the same time. Sorry about that.

Fifteen Fan Fiction pieces since the last time we posted (what, 36 hours ago?). You guys are getting REALLY sloppy with your Series links – tons of you are ignoring them altogether, others are picking the wrong series… BE CAREFUL. Thanks.

• Covenant Invasion! Part Four, by Hunter_Killer
• Halo Zero 2 /p2/ The War Begins, by nicholas
• Halo: First Strike, by Phoenix/LordofDestruction
• Masterchief at Lonely Trench., by Ronald Maszk
• The Chronicles of Eternity: Humanity and The Halos Chapter 1, by Corey Lyon
• Shadow Ops, Chapter 3: Close Encounters, by Agent Shade
• A Chiefs Requim, by TheRambler
• Wrong or Right part 5, by harley
• Price of Glory Pt. 1, by loserman
• Worry, by Angelus
• Preparation, by Angelus
• Suspense shattered, by Angelus
• A Marine Named Peters: Bravo Base, by GLADIATRRR3000
• A Marine Named Peters: Bravo Base 2: The Battle, by GLADIATRRR3000
• Halo 2: Chapter 2: The 909th, by Shadowrunner

Now go read.

Curious about the development process involved in putting together a gameplay demo like the one Bungie showed at E3 this year? SketchFactor has interviewed the design team, picking their brains for details about how the level was decided, what needed to be thought about, and what got missed. And if reading it leaves you thirsting for more, don’t worry… this is only part 1. Take a look!

For those who missed the 8 pm showing of ‘The X Factor: Inside Microsoft’s Xbox‘ on the Discovery Channel this evening, it’s on again at 11 pm (ET/PT) tonight. Set your VCR!

The day has come – and man, have we been waiting for it! The Pillar of Art contest results have finally been posted. Details, and images of all the entries, can be found on the Pillar of Art site… but we’ll recap the basic stuff here.

• First Prize: Adam Vehige ($250, and a signed piece from Bungie)
• Second Prize: Richard Menchaca ($150)
• Third Prize: Russ Leach ($100)
• Special Award: Geoff Chang (Red MC action figure, as seen on the webcam)

There are also (as-yet unannounced) prizes for some of the younger submitters; we haven’t pinned down exactly what’s available yet, so we haven’t decided how to divvy up the loot – but that’s coming. Also coming are artist bios, and their explanations of their work. (We simply didn’t have time to get all of this into web-friendly format in time for this post.) The gallery showing for all of this work will take place on July 5, and details will be posted as the day gets closer. Congratulations to everyone who entered – we had a tough time! And to Richard Menchaca – we hope this prize makes a decent birthday present for you today. 🙂

A few links for you: Tekkomix was one of the sites kind enough to contribute bandwidth to the mad trailer rush last week – they also host a Halo clan, The Shadows. Brandon points out Installation 07, a Halo forum that needs some new members. And Alberto wants us to know about LANWARRIORS, an Italian Halo clan. Check ’em all out!

HemoGloben noticed that IGN has a hi-res trailer for tonight’s X-Factor special on the Discovery Channel; if you’re not an insider, you’re stuck with a WMP9 version, but Insiders have access to a 32 mb QuickTime version. It’ll definitely whet your whistle for this program! (Along those lines, SketchFactor forwarded a fun little promo graphic (67k) from FilmOasis yesterday – check it out!)

Red vs Blue episode 10 is out now for sponsors… this has got to be the funniest episode yet. It’s also HUGE; it’s almost like they slapped together two episodes to make up for last week’s missed episode. (They weren’t slacking, they were serving you folks more than a terabyte a day of Halo 2 demo trailer goodness, so don’t be givin’ ’em any lip.) If you’re not a sponsor, registered forum members will have access late Saturday/early Sunday, and the rabble can grab it Sunday afternoon. This one’s really big… but really worth it. (c0ld vengeance was the first to notice on our forum, I think.) Update: whoa, didn’t catch this first time around… but the voice of Blue Command (and his mouth) were supplied by a special guest – Randall Glass. Way to go, Randy!

Quick heads-up: We’re very, very close to announcing the results of the Pillar of Art contest. There are a few finishing touches needed to be put on the presentation of the work… but it won’t be long now! Once again, I’d like to apologize to all the contestants for the delays we’ve encountered… and tell the rest of you that it’ll be worth the wait!