Major League Gaming's website notes that they will hold two Halo 2 mini-tournaments at Giants Stadium in New Jersey this weekend, on July 23. Details including prizes are in MLG's announcement.

Dyslexia at Major League Gaming interviews Str8 Rippin. Thanks Louis Wu at HBO.

Players who want to compete in Major League Gaming's Philadelphia events in Halo or Halo 2 need to register online.

Bungie.net has a couple of updates today; SketchFactor has posted that the last Humpday Challenge pitted Bungie against Team Korea where Bungie won a best four of five match; next they'll take on Taiwan and Hong Kong.

Meanwhile, Sketch has also posted that the playlists have been updated to include the new maps.

Rumble Preview has Slayer on all the new maps except Containment, as well as some slayer variants as well as two oddball games and two hill games. The first batch of small new maps-- Turf, Sanctuary, and Warlock-- now appear in the regular Rumble Pit playlist. There's also a note about banning cheaters and the next autoupdate-- basically, until the next AU comes out, the addition of these new maps to ranked playlists will likely mean that things will "get worse before they get better".

• Bungie's latest What's What Update is all about cheating and assuring players that the situation is going to improve; apparently another auto-update is on the way.
• Bungie is also looking to hire artists, animators, and programmers.
• GameSpy compiled a list of Xbox Live's top 25 games; Halo 2 was number one, and Halo 1 number six. (Who is number one? You are number six--Ed.)
• Matt Soell reminded HBO forumgoers not to forget Mike Salvatori when praising music in Bungie games like Halo and Halo 2. Salvatori is also working with Wideload Games on the soundtrack for Stubbs the Zombie.
• Every Friday, the Frag Dolls are going to take on Xbox Live subscribers, starting on July 15 with Halo 2.

[image:9494 align=left hspace=5 vspace=5 border=0] Infernus has released the Macintosh version of his Halo 2 Experience Calculator application. It allows you to enter your Bungie.net level as well as the levels of players you win or lose to, and it will calculate the change in your experience points. You can download Mac Halo 2 Experience Calculator here.

• The Xbox 360 is currently beating the PlayStation 3 in Voodoo Extreme's poll.
• Joe "Dyslexia" Renaud wrote a review of the Xbox 360's MTV unveiling two weeks ago, but we missed it.
• MLG has announced the 4x4 Online League as well as the St. Louis Halo 2 tournament brackets.
• Kiziko also asks what's up with Halo 3 and Xbox 360.
• Peter Cohen at MacWorld wonders how to get people to play games on Macs with the increasing popularity of consoles.

Dolbex has noted at MLG.com that due to certain issues, MLG online 4x4 league play is being delayed until May 30.

Regional winners for most of the 24 countries competing in the Halo 2 Worldwide Xbox Live Tournament have been announced; the only countries without finalists so far are the United States and Japan. Read the full press release for the list of regional winners.

Dan Chosich of 2070Films has put up links to what looks like this week's Humpday Challenge; Bungie won two out of three of the official games, and then heaped on an extra, unofficial victory just for emphasis.

UPDATE: SketchFactor has posted Frankie's summary from Bungie's perspective.

MLG's rather lengthy and detailed list of rules, regulations, gametypes and guidelines for their MLG St. Louis event are now up on their website.

PlayMyth turned three years old earlier this week. Check PlayMyth for all the latest Myth news. Speaking of Myth news, the annual Myth tournament, the Myth World Cup, will be happening sometime later this summer; word on the MWC05 forums is qualifying rounds sometime in June. Stosh posted the MWC'05 announcement at Bungie.net.

Bungie's put up their side of their loss to the Xbox Live team in the Humpday Challenge; they allege that XBL used a ringer. And according to SketchFactor, Major Nelson Suxorz.

UPDATE: Major Nelson is denying the charge of ringer leveled by Bungie against one member of the XBL team that played in the Humpday.