Okay, put your coffee down (and anything else nearby that might spill), and run, don’t walk, over to this directory. Randy Glass has made one of the funniest fan vids I’ve ever seen – a brilliant combination of Halo footage and miscellaneous sounds and music… it simply MUST be seen to be believed. (Remember, he did this without any of the kewl dev tools Bungie has at their disposal for making movies… this is straight gameplay, with a fantastic eye for capturing the moment.) There are two flavors: a 23 mb, hi-res version and a 10 mb lower-res version. The hi-res version will only be available at oz.net for the next 12 hours or so… but Psyjnir.com will be mirroring it shortly on its Hotline server (other mirror volunteers – let us know). The low-res version is actually quite viewable, so if you don’t get the big one in time, or don’t have the bandwidth to grab it, grab the small one. For those interested in making Halo vids – take heed. This film (like Aaron Suhr’s ‘The People That We Love’, before it) sets a standard worth striving for. Update: In case you had any doubt, this film just received Marty’s Seal of Excellence.

A couple of Wallpapers came in recently – the SocketError Team dropped off another one (sort of hurts my eyes after a while), and the BlargMaster whipped up a nice image using Strykerwolf’s new Counter-Strike skin. You can find both of these in the Wallpaper section.

Tom Murphy turns in Part 3… hmm, half of Part 1… well, the next bit of the ‘Casualties of War’ series. You can read the latest piece alone, or the series as a whole – whatever’s easiest for you. Don’t forget to tell him what you think!

The Halo SETI Marines continue to hold steady at 61 in the Battle of the Teams – the big mover today was Rogue Spartan IV, who leapt into the top 600 in his second week on the team. Are YOU moving? Check the 7 day stats page to see!

If you want a good laugh, check out the bottom of the boot of the new Counter-Strike Master Chief skin created by Strykerwolf. He’s made it easy for you… he’s posted a link to a pic in a recent forum post. (The REAL MC, btw, has Marcus Lehto’s initials burned in.)

The long-awaited Halo Story Page Level Transcripts are beginning to appear again… Level 5, Assault On The Control Room, went up about 3 minutes ago. Don’t forget – if you find/know of additional text, feel free to send it to the Halo Story Page crew! Update: Level 6 (343 Guilty Spark) has now been added, as well.

Thanks to DeAdLy_cOoKiE (whoa, did I just say that?) for pointing out a new Halo review at MGON – they loved it. We’ve added it to our Reviews section – total currently stands at 68 reviews, with an average score of 94.5%!

Metafire, aka Frogblast on our forum, has given us permission to mirror some of the tricks found on his Exploration pages. We’ve added four new collections to our Gameplay Tricks section – an illustration of a climbing route up Silent Cartographer (not requiring explosives), a route out of Truth and Reconciliation, and a pair of Assault narratives. Check ’em out on the Gameplay Tricks page!

potatorobot writes to say that he’s created a side-scroller called ‘Zalo: Combat Devolved’ – it’s a parody of Halo, “the world’s best game”. More information – and a download link for a Windows executable – can be found here. (The HBO staff hasn’t tested this game yet.)

Heh – Aaron Suhr made a short movie showing a pretty nifty way of killing a Banshee. I’ve never had that sort of luck…

Hibiki points out that the Counter-Strike skin that Strykerwolf has been working on is now finished, and posted at Polycount. Go check it out – if you play C-S, you MUST get this skin!

Kaworu Nagisa submits a gorgeous pair of images for use as wallpaper – they’re actually a bit small for my desktop, but they’re both really nicely done. Check ’em out in our Wallpaper section.

Some of you might remember a site called ‘The Online Universe‘ – it disappeared from the Halo scene last summer sometime. It’s back, renamed as The Gaming Universe, and there’s a new Halo Question of the Week – stop by and make your opinion known.

Matt Soell put a note up at the Tru7h and Reconciliation site to let everyone know that the Robert McLees interview is still going – it hasn’t been forgotten. Should be posted sometime next week… at which point they’ll be taking questions for ANOTHER Bungie employee. If you have a special Bungie dude or dudette you’d like to hear from, message Matt. (This was posted last night, but we somehow missed it, even though we noticed the new Halo content.)

Whoa. Metafire managed to get into the second Pelican on Assault on the Control Room (the one that flies over the bridge) – and he took some pics. Oops – guess Bungie should have renumbered one of those…

dyoung92 submits Part 1 of his ‘Halo 2 Story’, which picks up where the game leaves off. (Don’t read this if you haven’t finished yet.) Check it out in our Fan Fiction section!

Aaron Suhr stops by our forum to point out that he’s upped his ‘ultimate vehicle collection’ by several – he’s added another 7 shades, and one more ghost (albeit a broken one). There’s a new movie which shows off the collection better. The time this guy has… we’ve updated his Gameplay Tricks page with the new info. (This info is also available on Aaron’s mac.com page.)

An old friend returns… and so does the MC, in Gasmask’s last segment of the Strange Tale saga. Check it out in our Fan Fiction section!

Doum and Pat, a pair of Halo fanatics from Quebec, have made a series of movies to show how to get down to the bottom off the first bridge of Assault on the Control Room – it requires some tricky timing in coop mode. The films were encoded with DivX 4 – I found that they were viewable on a Mac with the newest DivX decoder (the Windows decoder has never been a problem). Quality is somewhat low (it was filmed off a TV screen), but you can certainly see what you need to be doing. Movies are hosted on Doum’s server.

• Part 1 (2.83 MB) – how to get under the bridge
• Part 2 (2.06 MB) – how to get on the edge near the ground
• Part 3 (4.28 MB) – where to go down
• Part 4 (3.16 MB) – how to go down

Using this trick, you avoid triggering any baddies – you’ll be traveling through a totally unpopulated level. You’ll need to use the Banshee on the ground to head back up to the bridge, since the door at the bottom is locked. Nice job, guys!

The Gameplay Tricks are pouring in… and the collection was getting pretty hard to navigate. We’ve made it a bit neater, hopefully easier to find what you’re looking for… and we’ve added three new collections. (All are mirrors of the creators’ collections elsewhere… but we’re hoping this becomes the central repository for this sort of thing – it makes it much easier to compare techniques if you don’t have to hunt all over the net.) You might notice, as well, the link to the One-Shots page… this, hopefully, is coming soon. Thanks to Cal and Aaron Suhr for this evening’s submissions – go check ’em out!