A new HBO-themed banner has been submitted to our Banners section…

A pair of desktops for you today – black Halo. Check out the Wallpaper section.

Bungie Fanfest 2003? Cybrfrk noticed that the Bungie Webcam has changed to a closeup of the white (paper?) that’s been in the left of the frame for days… is this a preview of the invite that will go out for, say, a fanfest that might be linked to E3 2003?

Couple of totally random images for you today – Wraith0x (winner of the Silliest Email Address Ever award) sent in this single webcam frame, captured last friday when Cortana stopped by the Bungie offices. And James Loosli, headed to a color guard competition (as he says, “think hundreds of girls in spandex”), made up a homebrew Halo t-shirt that fared rather better than he did in the lovin’ department. I love this job.

To all the people who have suddenly begun to send us ‘new ways out of Blood Gulch’ (after months of silence on the subject, we’ve gotten half a dozen messages in the past few days, from different people): The top of Blood Gulch is COMPLETELY tapped out, tricks-wise. To get out, you can use a ghost to climb the walls (Cal showed the technique, and then Geeoff and later Destr0yer expanded on it), you can tank-flip (described by Brizzle a long time ago; I’m not sure if it was ever documented on film), you can Sidewinder-sneak out of a whole bunch of locations. Finding a new location to get up, using one of these methods, does NOT constitute a new trick; they’re all documented, and people can experiment all they want. (I bet there are 2-dozen-plus sneakable places around the walls… we simply don’t need that many films of the same technique in slightly different locations each time.) I’m sure there are still tricks to discover with respect to BG – but climbing out of the map is no longer on the list. Thanks!

Wow. If you’ve got a phone with a polyphonic ringer, check this out. (Even if you don’t, listen to the midi file. It’s pretty dang impressive.) Thanks to Team Overkill for the heads-up.

There’s another Dogsounds Art Challenge brewing on our forum. Rules are here. (At some point soon, we’ll put up a page of the submissions to his first challenge – but as far as I can tell, he moved the deadline back because he hadn’t gotten around to entering himself, so it’s not quite over.)

Here is the last Fan Fiction update until I can get a user-operated form up and running. Luckily, it’s a huge number of stories – should keep you busy for a while.

• Jackal Interview, by Gasmask
• Earth: A Halo Tale, part 4, by Nike
• Changes Two, by Mark Boone
• Justification Pt. IV, by Rixor
• The Enigma II Campaigns, by Sarge
• And Raise Your Head With Pride! Part 3 and Part 4, by Arthur Wellesly
• HALO: Return Reunion Chapter 1, by Earth’s Redeemer
• Legend Hunting Part four, by Dispraiser
• Rebirth – Shade; Mind Games?, by KnightmareWolf/Shadow/Archangel’s Blade/Spartan415
• The Bane of the Universe: A Metroid/Halo Crossover, by Ultra Sonic 007
• The Battle For Sigma Octanus Chapter 5, by moniter101
• HALO: The Spartans – Part 2, by S7N
• Ring Of The Forerunners Part VI, by Locke
• Halo: Reunion from Destruction Part 3, by Frensa Geran
• Assualt on Edina, by Steele

More details when I know them.

I give up. Fiction is now coming in faster than I can actually process it. As of this moment (timestamp on this article), the fan fiction section is closed. Stories received before this point (and I think we’re up to 18, in the past 48 hours) will be processed sometime tomorrow morning (by 17:00 utc). After that, I’ll build a form for story input – there’ll be almost no formatting, but you can write to your hearts’ content. I simply cannot spend 6 hours per day formatting stories any more.

Whoa. The Trickstering continues. Two new tricks have popped up on our forum today – NJ_HitMan found a place on top of 343GS where the player becomes invisible, seen from the point of view of his coop partner (details and a movie in this thread, and more details in this one) – and xbill, long silent on our forum, has found a way to get a warthog and several marines past the first barrier in the Silent Cartographer ocean. Halo tricks are alive and well – there’s still plenty of stuff to find!

Posted last night – Bungie.net has updated their Wallpapers section to include a cool new desktop that uses the image that will be found on the new Halo novel to be released next month. (The original artwork can also be found in the Gallery.) Of course, if you’re still trying to avoid spoilers, don’t look at this…

Dinky has added a mirror for the small version of the Halo50K Framework film at HaloJuggaloProductions – and because the mirrors have handled the strain, we’re going to continue with the clearing of the movie queue. First up is a film submitted about a month ago (yes, it’s been a while) – it’s called Hackin Halo! (no relation to HackinHaloFun), and was made by HNN productions. It’s available in both WMP9 (11 mb) and QuickTime 5 (13.7 mb) formats at mythica.org, and both versions are mirrored at the Psyjnir Complex Hotline server. It’s basically another compilation of what can be done with a modded Xbox, much as the ones released last month were. (There are some new tricks shown here.) Enjoy this, and the Framework film if you haven’t grabbed it yet!

Johnny points out an interesting product at EB Games – preorder Brute Force, and you’ll receive a free Ultimate Halo Companion DVD Set. There’s a picture of the product (mirrored locally in case it disappears)… but no description. If we find out what this is, we’ll let you know!

Stosh has put up a new comic at blam.moap.net – I hope this one doesn’t prove to be true. (There’s also another Halo-related one that I hadn’t seen before…)

A user has just tracked down what had seemed to be a problem with the server here… and I thought it might be worth passing on the information. He’d recently found that images in some sections were disappearing. Further investigation showed that a single line of the navbar on the left of every page was gone, too. (That line was the banners link.) This all got traced back to the ad-blocking feature of Norton Internet Security. If you’re running this program, look to the left. If you don’t see a link to the Banners section, just below ‘Logos’ and above the Press Coverage section, you’re experiencing this weirdness, as well. (It might be killing all the thumbnails in the Miscellaneous Art section for you, too. It was for him.)

Hehe – Cybrfrk has been capturing Bungie webcam images automatically, and this morning, it paid off. Apparently, someone put an MC action figure in the picture for ONE FRAME – Cybrfrk noticed it while reviewing recent captures. You can find details (and the frame) on his site, linked from his forum post.

A group of halo players that gets together every Saturday night is looking to recruit players for their lanfests. The only problem is… nowhere in the email I was sent, OR on their website, do they list where they are! The website mentions gatherings in both Ecourse and Plymouth – both towns in Michigan. However, according to MapQuest, they seem to be almost 200 miles apart… so I’m not sure about that. Anyway, you can visit their website: the Dust and Echoes Halo League, and if what you see interests you, drop ’em some email and see where they are. Update: Moloch points out that according to their FAQ, they’re in southeast Michigan, in the greater Detroit area. (The FAQ link is on the RIGHT side of the top image, and wasn’t visible to me, in my 800-pixel-wide browser window… one of the dangers of framed sites.)

Last chance to get into Bungie’s pants… contest closes tomorrow. How much money IS in there?

Six Fan Fiction submissions in the past 24 hours – and zero rejections due to the new rules. Nice!

• Project RAVEN Chapter 1, by Jerry
• Dark Halo: Chronicles of Fright Part 3, by Wado
• The Battle For Sigma Octanus Chapter 3, by moniter101
• Halo: Reunion from Destruction Part 2, by Frensa Geran
• Chance, by Mr Bill Jr V
• Wrong or Right Part 3, by Harley

What are you waiting for?

Strato ran across a Master Chief model for UT2003 – you can find it at UT2003 HQ. The download is just over a meg, and there’s a screenshot (mirrored locally in case it vanishes) to show you what you’re getting.