Wham!  Bam!  Pow!


Seems TTL Demag0gue isn't content with having his own sweet Halo 3 Webcomic.  He wants you to get in on the action.  If you were thinking about firing up your own sweet series, but just don't know where to begin, hit the links below and bookmark the site.

From the man himself, by way of HBO:

"Halo 3 Webcomics is beginning a feature series called Tips & Tricks for webcomics publishers. Once or twice a week, the site will be updated with new articles on how to make a better webcomic. There are currently two articles in the series with more on the way:

HowTo: Making Good Text Balloons

Comic Style Fonts: Blambot

Feel free to check them out!"

Start your engines.


HaloTracks.org presents an easy to navigate database of racetracks produced by their very own "Map Makers."  The  maps are organized alphabetically and each section (organized by map name) offers a simple to view list and links to download to your 360.  But that's not all, they've also begun testing and rating tracks for you so it's easier to sift, sort, and find the cream of the crop.

"We at HaloTracks.org hope that the community can effectively use HaloTracks' best resource."

HaloTracks Map Database

If you're looking to strap on a helmet and drift your way into the ever growing Halo 3 racing scene, here's a great place to start.

Playing the fool.


Reclaimer 137 is wide awake and physical for your Friday morning read.  The Reclaimer is getting a little tired of the run around, but that's not stopping his companions from asking him to keep on spinning.

Reclaimer 137 -  Security Feature

CabooseKilla678 writes:

Like Grifball? So do we.


Mikinater, and avid fan of Halo 3 and Grifball, comes from the Grifball community over at Roosterteeth.com to bring you the Top 10 matchmaking Grifball highlights from the month of January! The plays are generated from the Grifball community players, and are compiled by Mikinater for your viewing pleasure.




YouTube - The Grifball Matchmaking Top Ten Highlights for January

Black is white.  Up is down.


Halo 3 meets Gary's Mod and Wierd Al in this bizarre music video.  Warning: this video may cause space and time to collapse and make you crave Kentucky Fried Chicken.

All weekend long, earn ONE ENTIRE  POINT for winning games in any playlist you choose! Hey, wait a minute...


Due to some necessary processes taking longer than we had anticipated, we were unable to release the January update at the date we had scheduled internally. Unfortunately, that update included this weekend's Double EXP playlist (originally scheduled to be 3 Ball) and as a result no Double EXP weekend will be available.

Not to worry! The bright side of this little delay is that I can say with confidence that the January update (which includes Social Team DLC, Rumble Pit becoming Legendary-required, and DLC BTB transforming into Social BTB, among other changes) will go live next Tuesday. Further, we'll forego Legendary Brawl next week for 3 Ball.

We apologize for the inconvenience and hope you all have a lovely weekend.

357 nominations. 13,072 votes. 10 winners.


The votes have been counted and the winners have been announced.  Head on over to Hawty McBloggy to check out the best of the best.  And thanks for the "Best Social Site" nod.  We're really just renting out space.  What you guys do with it is what makes it the carnival of fun rides and funnel cakes it is.

From Hawty herself:

"The results from the 2008 Best of Halo Awards are finally in. 357 nominations. 13,072 votes. 60 nominees. 10 winners. First I’d like to offer my congratulations to everybody who won but more importantly, I’d like to say a sincere thank you to all the nominees, everybody who voted, and each and every individual who continues to make a positive contribution in this amazing and talented community. Without further ado, your votes have been counted and I’m proud to officially announce the winners of the 2008 Best of Halo Awards!"

2008 Best of Halo Award Winners

We all have our bad days.

The boys from BSG break out of the cage.


Last week we were supplied with a sweet video of all Buddy System Gaming's offerings, but this week we're going to have to rely solely on verbiage.  We caught up with BSG Alekat and picked his brain about his Forge creation "Cagey" and solicited some insight into what he feels could help improve the Forge toolset going forward.  Scroll down for the Q&A.

Q. What was the inspiration behind Caged?

A. Originally I had this cool idea of making a zombies map where the infected would spawn above the humans that were hiding in the structure. There would be all kinds of scary places for them to jump down and yell surprise before slicing away. It sounded a lot better in my head and ended up quite a bit different.

Q. How long did you have to tinker with it before it was ready to go?

A. The main structure is pretty basic, still it took about 3 hours to get something people could actually play and have fun with. After that it was about another 3 to 4 hours of tweaking and that doesn’t include play tests.

Q. What aspect took the longest to tweak?

A. Spawns. Understanding how the zones interact and how that translates to gameplay was quite a challenge. It really was silly at times. In the very beginning I had a lone defender spawning behind the offensive team right at the start of the game and no clue why. Luckily there are some good help articles out there from people who have spent more time in Forge.

Q. How could The Forge be improved?

Anyone who’s used some sort of editing or drawing software knows that the “snap-to” feature is your friend. It would be great to have object placement in Forge be more intuitive. For instance, if I’m placing walls in Foundry I probably want them all standing straight up and down perpendicular to whatever surface I’m working with. Most of the time I don’t need to have objects floating in the air. That sort of freedom does lend to some interesting creations but it would make Forge more approachable if object placement was easier.

Easy Peasy.  So ends our time with Buddy System Gaming.  If you're looking for some good games of Halo 3 where camaraderie and cover fire take precedent over expletives and absconding with your own team's Warthog, you know where to enlist.  Bungie Favorites is now up to speed with Buddy System Gaming's second round of offerings.  Check 'em out.

Stop asking questions.


Episode 136 of Reclaimer is up and ready for your viewing.  Reclaimer gets some of his questions answered and gets ready to get things unstuck.  Get going and hit the link below for details.

Reclaimer 136 - Suspension

Thanks to HBO for the linkage.

Hallaer writes:

Splash damage.

Steve does not seem to be making any new friends.  Could his dual wielding lasers possibly destroy the Elite-Human alliance?

Chronicles of ODS Steve #10 - Down Comes Elite, Phantom and All

It's cold on the icy plains.


It's Tuesday, people who clicked the link to check out what was written inside this blog post.  First, thanks for that.  Second, check out the text description, link to Chaos Theory Episode 7, and telepathy showdown issued below.

"Hey Bungie and Friends,

Sleep? Never! And so I, Adam Susskind, continue to bring new episodes of Chaos Theory to you every Tuesday. This one is actually longer than I expected it would be, it's closer to 30 pages than 20 as they usually are.

This one is called Episode 7: All The Things We Never Knew

Sir Urk, master of all things Bungie Blog, believes that I underestimated Bungie's ability to predict my story as per his statement in my last post. (I don't doubt they could...) But in the spirit of making a fool of myself, I challenge Lord Urk to a Comic-off! If it's mono-a-mono I can't really do worse than eighth place right?

Peace,
-Adam Susskind, Writer and Producer, Chaos Theory."

Urk's Prediction:  The next episode will be the eighth in the series, feature screenshots from the hit videogame title Halo 3, and be made available in PDF format.

Am I getting warm?

Tommy, no!


Anoj is back at it with another installment of his "Top 10" Halo 3 series.  This time out, it's a best of the best recap.  Check it out below.




Machinima.com - Top 10 Halo 3 Moments: Season 3, Episode 21

"Kind of like Sweeney Todd or something."


Though we highlighted ForgeHub.com in our Group Spotlight just before the winter break last year, Average Joe deals with individuals. The opportunity to interview one of the more rabid members of the site was too tasty to pass up.  This week we caught up with Insane54, who you might already know as a ForgeHub staffer.  But don't define him by his affiliation.  Though he's quick to give props to his online Alma Mater, he's got plenty to talk about besides blacksmithing.  Read on to to look upon Insane54 with your own eyes.

Q. Who are you and what do you do?

A. Why, hello there good sirs. I’m Aaron (Insane54 online) and I work as a web developer for my dad's company part-time. Obviously, my biggest hobby is gaming, having nearly 11,000 games played on Halo 3. I also play basketball, football, Photoshop, play my guitar, and am generally awesome. I’m also a Staff member at ForgeHub.com.

Ever since my dad introduced me to Mad Dog McCree on the Macintosh I've been playing games as a hobby, starting on the Mac and then moving on to consoles like the N64 where I got addicted to games like Super Smash Bros and Starfox 64. My friend had an original Xbox and when he got sick for about six months my two friends and I would walk over once or twice a week and play Halo 2 split screen for hours.

Eventually I bought my own Xbox 360, but not Live. When Halo 3 came out, I bought it on the first day and was hooked instantly by its community and the customization possibilities in Forge.

Q. So when you made the move to Live, how did your settle on the gamertag?

A. My first online game was “Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy” on the PC. Some friends an I thought it would be funny to group us into a fake clan called “.:MOO:.”, which we did to the reaction of people calling us 'insane'. It stuck form there.

When I got Xbox Live, I was super sadface to discover that the gamertag 'Insane' was taken, so I decided that 54 was a cool number and tacked it onto the end. Plus, it’s easy to type.

‘Insane' is also a word you could use to describe me. Kind of like, Sweeney Todd or something. Except I can’t sing for my life. Believe me, I try.

Q. All the good tags are always taken.  Someone's been squatting on "urk" for years.  If we wanted to find your squat online, what haunts should we search?

A. A month or so after Halo came out I downloaded a map containing a link to a Wordpress blog – ForgeHub - for more such maps. I stalked there for a while until ForgeHub upgraded to a .com site with a forum. I've been an active member ever since and I've gotten up to my Staff rank for my dedication, hard work, and general awesomeness. Other sites and groups I frequently visit are halo.bungie.org, Ghosts of Onyx, B5D, UNSC Dawn Under Heaven, Real7alk and all the other affiliates of ForgeHub. I'm obviously very attracted to the custom content aspect of Halo 3, so I find areas such as ForgeHub and sites alike to it more interesting than purely competitive games. But I love how the Halo community is so diversified. IT’S OVER 9000!

Or something equally cliché like that.

Q. Sounds like you spend quite a bit of your time gaming.  Do you ever game with friends and family?

A. Not much else to do around here in Detroit. Plus, I'm completely addicted to Forge and Halo. I've tried playing Halo with family, but that went nowhere, but I do play every now and again in an 8 player LAN with some friends (not very often). I usually just play with my imaginary friends over the interwebs.

Q. What was the first Bungie title you played with your crew of imaginary peeps?

A. My first Bungie title was “Halo: Combat Evolved” on the Mac. I got it for a gift or something, and it was pretty enjoyable even without the online aspect. I played the campaign a few times which definitely got me hooked. Without internet at the time, I couldn't really get into the custom content possibilities of Halo, but I've certainly gotten my fair share in H3.

Maybe it’s just me, but I think that music at the main menu of Halo is some kind of hypnotizing device that keeps you addicted to the game. I’ve had it running through my head for weeks at a time, the whole wooaaaa-oaahhaaaahaa thingy that won’t go away until you play Halo, and then it comes back when you get off! Uh…anyway…

Q. Even though you're convinced hypnosis is involved (send cash), are you still surprised by your level of engagement with the community at large?

A. Yeah, definitely. I just picked up the game to play some matchmaking and pwnz0r sum n00bz lul, but the community is so much better than any others that I've ever experienced. You feel like a part of the big Bungie machine, creating Forge maps and such. Even when starting out in the community, I never thought I'd be getting on Bungie Favorites and occasionally playing with Bungie Employees (<3 JonnyO, Achronos, and uh, Urk too).

Q. Do you get that same feeling from any other online communities?

A. I still occasionally go on Jedi Academy, though the community's pretty much dead.  Other than that, not really. No other game really compares to Halo 3's perfect balance, as much as I may yell and scream at it while losing in matchmaking.

Q. Screaming, eh? Wanna make any shout-outs?

A. Go check out ForgeHub.com, even if you’re not really into custom content. There are forums for all kinds of stuff, like Graphics & Arts, debates, screenshots, and discussions for gaming or just general stuff.

Oh man, there are a lot of people I'd like to give a shout out to. I have to give a hand to Shock Theta and Sir Toppum Hat1, who have been my Forging partners over the past year or so.  You guys are awesome. Look for mine and Toppum's new map, coming out in a few weeks, on my file share, and while you’re there, go download my stuff!

Roche178 (So there I was…), Mini Waz (CAKE TO THE FACE!), Xanon/Shan0n (NO…U!), TheYavimayan, Dom says Oi, TrueDarkFusion, darktiest and everyone else on my friend list and on ForgeHub, I love you all. Lastly, Urk and Bungie as a whole for making this whole thing happen, the interview and Halo's awesome possibilities. I’m making a note here: HUGE SUCCESS.

Thanks to Insane54 for the words this week.  And for the props.  This was a triumph.

Round One.  Fight!


The good folks over at The Final Fight are spinning up a Clip of the Week contest and they're asking for your submissions.  If you think you have some Halo 3 clips that make the grade and you want to tack another three months to the end of your current Xbox Live subscription, check out the write-up below.

"Submit your clips to win three months of Xbox Live Gold Membership. The Clip of the Week contest will have three rounds: You can submit two clips per round. On Friday, a video will be made with all the submissions from that week. All you have to do is register on TheFinalFight.com and submit your clips in the COTW Topic.

The themes are: Splatters, Multi Kills and Freestyle.  Good luck!

Round 1: Submitting clips: 01/12/09 - 01/16/09
Round 1: Voting: 01/16/09 - 01/18/09

Round 2: Submitting clips: 01/19/09 - 01/23/09
Round 2: Voting: 01/23/09 - 01/25/09

Round 3: Submitting clips: 01/26/09 - 01/30/09
Round 3: Voting: 01/30/09 - 02/01/09

More information on The Final Fight."

Master of the Spider


At first glance, this might look like any other montage you've laid eyes on.  Not so.  Stick with it at least through the segment that begins around the two-minute mark to see what we're on about.  Thanks to HBO and MLG member Magni Harvald for the link.

MLG Top 10 User Videos of the Week #73 - Bawney Montage 2

DTA MoonDawg writes:

The key to victory is good communication.


Teammates of Genius is back.  Pet turtles, Taco Bell, and Flag caps.  Check it out below.




Teammates of Genius - Mr. Private Chat

You can subscribe to MoonDawg Productions for future episodes here.

Philip Willis writes:

Be a contender.

Looking for a way to spice up your Halo 3 campaign play for shiny HaloCharts.com prizes?  Hit the jump below and have at it.  They've already made the run through the opening level, Sierra 117, but they're looking for combatants willing to give Crow's Nest a go without earning a single headshot.  Time to get creative.

Halocharts.com Campaign Challenge

jdars1804 writes:

This wallpaper wraps around.


Since we're already highlighting wallpapers today via Tag and Release, we might as well give you the heads up on Jdars1804's fanmade hotness.  It's obviously been heavily modified with external software, but the effect is pretty snazzy and he's even whipped it up for you in a panoramic flavor.

Fair warning, though the wallpaper itself is totally harmless, the hosting site offers up some adult content.  Browse at your own risk - the Internet is a dangerous place.

Smack Down Wallpaper

Smack Down Panoramic

Insane54 writes:

Tug-of-War,  Territories-style.


Looks like Forge Hub is hosting another map making contest.  If you think you have the skills to compete, read the contest rules and description below and hit the link to get started.

"In this contest, forgers will make a map designed for the gametype Conquest. Conquest is a game variant of Flag Rally. In short, its a symmetrical territories game with non-locking territories. The gameplay pans out in the form of a tug-o-war match for the center ground and beyond. Traditionally, the Sniper Rifle is the only power weapon allowed in Conquest, with the rest of the weapon loadout consists of a couple BR's, plentiful duals, and some support weapons such as the Brute Shot or Needler.

You can find rules, guidelines, and any help you need at the official Forge Hub thread.

All submissions must be in by 12am PST on the 21st of February, 2009. Any submissions that do not follow the rules will be disqualified. Judging will take place over a period of five days or so. The results will be announced after judging has taken place."

No glue required to spruce up your desktop.


This week's Tag and Release eschews the narrative-focused themes of previous entries and moves into utilitarian territory.  Tags aren't only useful in identifying the content's subject material - they can also function as broad categories that help other players locate the kind of content they are looking for.  Enter the Wallpaper.

Many a folk like to dress their desktop in flowery duds.  If you're looking for a few candidates to fold over the crook of your arm and tote into the dressing room, look no further.  Scroll down for a trio of suggestions.

Would you prefer it if Dracula took over the Universe?


The eighth installment of DigitalPh33r's "Hard Justice" has been posted.  If you're interested in Esoteria's ongoing shenanigans, check it out using the link below.

"While Max is absent dealing with the situation that started at the Esoteria Shopping Center, the next morning Bernard and Eddie inform Howard of the events at the Esoteria Gentleman's Club. Bernard is then suspiciously ordered by Roman to embark on a suspicious solo mission."

YouTube - Hard Justice: Episode 8 (Harsh Language)

Think you can do better?


If you've been browsing Halo 3 webcomics and think you could give it a go, here's a sweet tutorial from Chaos Theory creative mastermind, Mr. Adam Susskind.

"Hey Bungie, it's-a-me, Adam Susskind with a special update from the comic world.

I just finished a tutorial on how to make comics, replete with inside information on the process that leads me to a completed episode of Chaos Theory every week. It's so detailed, you'll learn more than you want to know. A lot more. If you've ever been interested in making a comic series, check it out.

http://chaostheory.halo3webcomics.com/the-tutorial/

And expect some new comics very soon from Halo3webcomics.com. There are things in the works far more sinister than (dare I say it?) even Bungie could comprehend! Mwuahahaha!

Peace,
 
Adam"

Sounds sweet, but I think our friend underestimates our comprehension.

paulmarv writes:

Cash prizes and Halo swag galore!


HBBO, HaloBible.Bungie.Org, is having a contest designed to complete their goal of a full documentation of all canonical elements in the Halo Universe. Contest ends June 1st, 2009.

Prizes:
First Place includes:
$100 USD
1 12-month subscription to XBox Live
1 copy of each Halo novel (The Fall of Reach, The Flood, First Strike, Ghosts of Onyx, Contact Harvest, and The Cole Protocol. If a seventh novel is released before this prize is claimed, it'll definitely be included!)
1 copy of Halo 3: ODST

Second Place includes:
$75 USD
1 12-month subscription to XBox Live
1 copy of Halo 3: ODST

Third Place:
$50 USD
1 copy of Halo 3: ODST

More Info