Need something to pass the time until the Bungie Store reopens? How about voting for what you want? Remember that Bungie browses these forums…

Another mirror for Warthog Jump has surfaced, hosting both the low and high-rez versions.

The fruits of the Halo video revolution are beginning to bloom… Aikidoka and Halorigin have put together a piece named What Goes Up, featuring more Warthog tomfoolery in the style of the original Warthog Jump (although these guys claim prior art with this post). But, since the movie is 35MB, we have the same problem as last time, and are forced to put out the same call for mirrors. Any more benevolent bandwidth barons out there? UPDATE: The first mirror for this movie has appeared. We’ll be collecting them here.

Just a heads-up… I’m headed out of town for a bit. Count Zero’s on the case… but please don’t get on him if things take a bit longer than usual. Good help is SO hard to find. I’d hate to lose him because you folks chased him off…

Some good stuff over at the Halo Story page… even the homework assignment. Eep!

The One-Shots page gets a shot in the arm… or 4. Check it out.

Vector40 passes along another Warthog Jump mirror – it might not last long, but Electric Fuzzball is up right now. We’ve added it to the Warthog Jump Mirrors list.

A plethora of pulchritudinous parables… the Fan Fiction coffers runneth over. Gasmask continues his Strange Tale with ‘Return to Halo‘, Corbantis turns in the third segment of his Tides of War saga, and Vector40 sends us… something different. Go read up in the Fan Fiction section!

The Japanese Halo Release has been announced: April 25th is the big day. (It says that here, in the press release on the Xbox Japan site… but it’s in Japanese.) Cover art isn’t up yet… but word from Gothmog (Halo product planner) is that it’ll be different than the US/European box. Not quite in time for the Xbox launch there… but not too far off!

DOH! SO enthralled was I by the McLees interview that I missed the OTHER new stuff – Rob’s artwork is on display in the Weapons Gallery, and a seventh page has been added to the Concept Art section (MAJOR story spoilers). Check ’em out! (There’s some serious Story Page fodder in there, actually…)

Took a bit longer than expected… but the Rob McLees interview is finally up at Bungie.net’s Tru7h and Reconciliation site. There’s an interesting mix of material – gun stuff, mysticism, and getting set on fire – twice. Rob’s focus was on the guns of Halo, since he was responsible for most of them:

Q: What was your favorite gun in halo? Why?

A: The Elite’s energy sword. Because it’s the only one that behaves like a real weapon – you get hit with it, you die.

Overall, a very good read. Check it out! (Thanks to Lophan for the first heads-up.)

Frogblast, aka Metafire, in his continuing quest to go where no man has gone before, has touched the face of God. Wait… no, that’s not right – he’s touched the ceiling of the Truth and Reconciliation… from the inside of Keyes. (No, it’s not the same. Yes, it’s pretty cool anyway.) Check out the details in our Gameplay Tricks section!

Xerxes writes to say that Halo Orbit, a German Halo site, has put up a preview of Halo (out in just over a month in Germany). If you read German, check it out!

Confused about where you stand on Halo? poena.dare #CP#g created an updated version of his Ring Configuration graphic (originally posted here, a week ago), giving you some sense of perspective for the size of the ring, and your position on it. (The 300 km value at the bottom was chosen because that’s how far Cortana tells you the Truth and Reconciliation is from you at the end of the level Halo – it’s just used to handle the thickness details.) Incidentally, the first post, while having a now-outdated ring config diagram, also has a handy-dandy flowchart showing your travel through the various levels – this can be pretty helpful in deciphering where you are. Nice work!

Warthog Jump movie update: heavy demand has cost two mirrors – maserati.ca and the Junkyard have both dropped out of the hosting ring. (Lots and lots of you grabbed files at those two places – we’re seriously indebted to both of them for the bandwidth!) Additionally, Bravehamster has moved his copy of the movie to a new link. Our Warthog Jump Mirrors list has been updated with all of these changes. Update: Deimosâ„¢ tosses his bandwidth into the ring: from 2100 to 0730 EST, he’s got a Hotline mirror of the file running here. During the day, the server is doing other things… but at night (his time), go for it!

Lophan has posted a Halo @ Tweeter Day postmortem on our forum, detailing the goings-on this past weekend of the Philly Halo Anonymous chapter of the Seventh Column… if you weren’t there, you missed up to 15 players fragging each other on huge bigscreen HDTVs for over 6 hours. (Freewill, another attendee, posted a couple of pics recently.) Wow… a 2 hour, 6×6 CTF game… ouch. Go read it!

Nemesis_007 posted a detailed description explaining how to get to the top of Keyes… and Frogblast took him up on it and got up there, taking pictures all the way. Together, they bring you a pictoral record of the first melee attack on the Truth and Reconciliation (from the outside, anyway). The Gameplay Tricks section shows all.

Thanks to Aginor, who pointed out that the International Game Developers Choice Awards nominees were announced today – Bungie nominations are as follows: Halo for Game of the Year, Marty O’Donnell & team for Excellence in Audio, and Jason Jones & team for Excellence in Programming. Winners will be announced on March 21, during the Game Developers Conference. Kudos all ’round!

The One-Shots page of the Gameplay Tricks section is finally open for business. Sorry for the delay! We’ve added a number of images which have popped up in the last couple of months… I’m sure there are more that we’ve missed. (We’ll pop ’em in when we find ’em.) Feel free to submit your own, but remember… if it’s not something new or different, it probably won’t be posted. (Folks don’t want to look at 800 shots of the Blood Gulch bases being stuffed with vehicles, after all…) It should go without saying, but I’ll say it anyway… Here Be Spoilers.

Steve Campbell writes to let us know that both the Suicide Bobs vid and the Halobodies music vid have been mirrored at the Forerunners.org Hotline server. Thanks, Steve!