Lion discovered a pretty nice little bit of Halo PC footage over at iFilm. 5:52 long, it comes in your choice of three streaming formats (though with some sneakiness it’s downloadable; the QuickTime clip is 12.6 mb big).It shows footage from some new multiplayer maps, with an emphasis on Banshee fighting, as well as some solo play. Great to watch if you want to see where the PC version is!

Oops – another one we missed… Cyber Gaming Network has put up a Halo 2 preview. Not very long… but they hit the highlights. Again, thanks to BGH. We’ve added this to our Previews database.

Hehe – we almost forgot to mention… several hours before WE came back online, another casualty of digital corruption, Subnova, came back up, sporting a database that’s two months old. It must have gone through the Blue Base Teleporter…

People are STILL sending us E3 demo movie links of varying legality, so let me repeat what was posted last week: There will, very soon, be an official version of the movie released by Bungie. This will be a direct-feed video (unlike all the existing ones, which were done with camcorders), it will be higher quality than the cams, and it will be official and completely legal. It will almost certainly be released either on Halo.bungie.net or through our existing mirror system (I don’t know this at the moment). That is the ONLY version of the movie we will ever post a link to. So please stop mailing them in, OK?

IGN has posted their Xbox Best of E3 awards, and Halo 2 took a few: Best Graphics, Technological Excellence, Best Shooter, and Best Xbox Game of E3. Not too shabby! Thanks to Battleground: Halo for the heads-up.

The rest of Gamespy’s Top 25 games at E3 (we mentioned it yesterday, when Halo PC pulled 24th), is up… and Halo 2 snagged #2. (First place went to Half-Life 2.) Go read what they liked, and didn’t like!

c0ld vengeance (among others, but he was first) noticed that Red vs Blue Episode 7 was posted this morning for sponsors. (It’ll be out for the general public on Sunday.) Personally, I found it to be the brightest spot of my morning. Pay ’em the measly $5 and get your copy now!

Frank O’Connor, Executive Editor of OXM, enjoyed himself at the Fanfest last week. So much so that he wrote up the details in an entertaining report. And gave it to Bungie. Who posted it at B.net. Go read it. (mnemesis gets first dibs on notice.)

We’re back. (Duh.) Gonna try and catch up now. Lots of you rock. Some of you don’t. And so it goes.

Update on a recent movie: I was an idiot, and sound is broken on the early version of the Silent Cartographer Speed Run for 95% of viewers. (It’s a mystery to me why it’s not 100%, but some people have no problems.) In any case, both versions (Mythica and Psyjnir) have been replaced with new versions; if you were having trouble before, grab it again. Apologies for the waste of time/bandwidth; I’ll try not to do this again.

Vern Shields put together a pretty nice speed run for Silent Cartographer. Yes, it’s on Easy… but there are some pretty cool aspects to it. First, he completed the entire level in 4:43, measured from starting to ending checkpoints. Second, as he leaves the underground area, he passes not one, but TWO gold elites. Third, at the top of the last ramp, there’s a nice example of mass scripted death – all the baddies simply fall dead on the ground as he reaches them. Fourth – the ending cutscene has a surprise in it… watch it all the way through. And fifth… well, he picked a piece of music that meshes amazingly well with the action. Nicely done all around. There are other nuggets worth seeing… grab the film at Mythica. (It should also be on the Psyjnir Complex Hotline server sometime later tonight.) It’s in QuickTime format, and weighs in at 23.1 mb. The Legendary Speed Runners have something to shoot for!

Somehow we missed it… but Gamespy has been building its ‘Top 25 Games of E3‘ list… and Halo PC made it in at #24. Now… I played a few of the other games listed (the top 10 aren’t up yet), and I’m not sure at all how they did the math… but hey, they can say anything they want, right? Tanks to Battleground: Halo (“Best Halo site on the ‘net”, according to Gamespy) for the heads-up.

DOH! I’ve got to set up some sort of email notification system to remind me about this puppy… but the next episode of One One Se7en is online (it’s yesterday’s, actually). I gotta say… these bring a smile to my face. If they do the same to you, drop Stuntmutt some mail.

ragereset points out that the IGN Insider article we mentioned a couple of days ago is now open to the general public. It’s definitely worth a read – there’s some interesting content that hasn’t been posted anywhere else, and now you don’t have to pay to see it.

Thanks to HemoGloben, who pointed out the new desktop at Bungie’s Truth and Reconciliation site. Nice ghost work by mehve!

For those interested in trying their luck (or trying their luck again), the E3 2003 Trivia Contest is back online – and the IP block has been removed. Remember; most of the answers can be found online!

We got mail from Elliott Zastrow about the RLXC Mad-City Halo Team Tournament, in Madison, WI in mid-July. 4-player team tournament, $80/team entrance, $2400 cash purse to split between the top 5 teams. You’ll find more details on the tournament webpage. Check ’em out if you’re in the area!

Nine Fan Fiction pieces for you, all bits of larger stories:

• Episode-II The Saviour awakens, by Jon Michael Marlowe
• Halo: White Battleground (Trailer), by ShadowWolf Forsythe
• Halo: Reclaimer- Part 2, by T. K. Niemann
• Chapter 1: Reveille, by Diamond Dog
• True Purpose(5), by Frensa Geran
• ONI Black Ops Part Seven, by Havok
• Training day, by Edward
• Croton 3, by Earl Hershberger
• Shadow’s Chapter , by Knightmare, Spartan 451, Archangel’s Blade, Shadow

Go for it!

For those interested in seeing how they stacked up against the competition, we’ve put the top 100 contestants in the online trivia contest up on our E3 Coverage page. Take a look! (The trivia contest itself will be up again later tonight, or tomorrow – and the IP ban will be removed, so if you’d like to try again, you’ll be able to.)

Tycho, of Penny Arcade, gave a quick E3 rundown in today’s strip… and Halo 2 was included. Covers the subject pretty well. Thanks to Ross Mills for the heads-up.