The results are in from IGN’s Best of 2005 and the Halo 2 Map Pack has walked away with two awards this year.

IGN’s Best of 2005 results are in and after Bungie’s near blowout of the awards last year, Halo 2 has still managed to walk away with two awards. Bungie’s release of the Halo 2 Map Pack in July has managed to scoop up two awards beating out such titles like Splinter Cell Chaos Theory and Far Cry Instincts. The Halo 2 Map Pack scooped up both the [url=http://bestof.ign.com/2005/xbox/18.html] Best Downloadable Content Award [/url] and also the [url=http://bestof.ign.com/2005/xbox/17.html] Best Xbox Live Game.[/url] IGN gave praise to the Map Pack’s features such as the new maps and improvements brought to the game not to mention how well the pack was delivered to the community. For the full story and complete articles you can visit IGN’s [url=http://bestof.ign.com/2005/] Best of 2005 page. [/url]

Happy Holidays from all of us here at Bungie. May you all have a great season, and enjoy bringing in the New Year! We'll be pretty much silent until next year, so enjoy some Halo 2 and maybe we'll see you online.

Happy Holidays!

Calling all writers of Bungie-related fan fiction! Now's your chance to enter your work in a community-wide competition. Read on for more.

The contest is being hosted by the [url=/fanclub/81533/Group/GroupHome.aspx]Bungie.net Fanfic Group[/url] and [url=http://www.bungiefansonline.com]Bungie Fans Online[/url]. To enter your fan fiction or poem, click [url=http://www.bungiefansonline.com/index.php?showforum=15]here[/url] and then select the category you wish to enter; but you MUST READ THE POSTING GUIDELINES! You do not even have to make an account, but you are nonetheless encouraged to do so. All entries must be posted by the 20th of January. After that date, they will be judged by a select panel. Special prizes will be sent to the winners; they will be contacted via email and asked for details and such when the time comes. That's all there is to it, and we look forward to receiving your entries. Please post all questions in the [url=http://www.bungiefansonline.com/index.php?showtopic=68]Q & A Thread[/url].

IGN has a poll running over at "Voodoo Extreme" containing a list of fansites. [url]http://halo.bungie.org[/url] has made the list, so go [url=http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/673/673505p1.html]vote for it![/url]

Louis Wu (with the help of community members) has been providing us with daily Halo news for over five years. This kind of dedication deserves a reward. [url=http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/673/673505p1.html]Click here to vote[/url]

Earlier today, we completed the update of the Halo 2 playlists as described in the weekly update. If you can still see Head to Head in your playlist selection screen in the game, you need to log out of Xbox Live and log back in until Head to Head is gone and the new playlists are showing up. Bungie.net is now also correctly showing the new lists. Have fun, and post any questions to Optimatch.

Please remember that for the next 24 hours, it will be possible for people to be playing with old playlists, which may make things a bit screwy. Most of it should be cleared up by this evening.

Do you have mad art skills? If you can draw something cool about Bungie, consider sending in to be judged. You might win some really cool prizes! More details inside.

[b][u]The Bungie Art Contest[/u][/b] [b]Summary:[/b] This is the Bungie Art Contest, where people from all around the forums can come and show off their art while competing against others as being the best artist in town. This is going to be high level art and very demanding. All pictures are accepted, but those of you who are used to drawing pictures with the pencil tool in MSPaint might get overwhelmed by the high standards we hope our artists will set. Please do your best! [b]Rules[/b] [*]All pictures must be Bungie related. [*]No profane content [*]You must draw your entry yourself. You can’t steal or copy anyone else’s work. [*]Only one entry per person. [*]Pictures can't be in folders, or .exe, or anything that could give us viruses. [*]You do not have to be from the United States to enter. You [i]can[/i] live in other countries if you are planning on entering. [b]Submitting Your Art[/b] [*]All art must be sent by 1/7/06 [*]Send art to [email]SeventhColumnArt@gmail.com[/email] so that it can be judged. [*]Include your bungie.net account and a title for your work. [*]As said before, all art has to be in a standard picture format or else it won’t be looked at. (No .exe files or folders) [b]Prizes[/b] The fine people over at [url=http://www.bungiefansonline.com/]Bungie Fans Online[/url] have agreed to sponsor this event. This means that the winner of this event will recieve some bungie stuff from [url=http://www.bungiestore.com/]The Bungie Store![/url] The prizes will probably be somewhere around the prices of the shirts over there. Once you win, send me a PM so that I can direct you in the right direction for receiving your prize. Prizes will not be shipped directly to you from the Bungie Store. It will have to go through the people from BFO first. [b]Judging[/b] [url=http://bungie.net/Account/Profile.aspx?memberID=1064982] Butane123[/url], [url=http://bungie.net/Account/Profile.aspx?memberID=454515]ODST1125[/url], and [url=http://bungie.net/Account/Profile.aspx?memberID=125218]GodsProphet [/url] have volunteered to be judges for this event. They will check all the emails sent on 1/7/06, and will make a decision on the three pieces they like best. Any questions? Go ahead and ask us in [url=http://bungie.net/Forums/posts.aspx?postID=5369927]this thread.[/url]

Anonymous Dark writes:

Wow. kd5shw has come up with an awesome database that displays every single group on Bungie.net. Prepare for your jaw to drop!

[b][url=http://www.thefilehut.com/userfiles/kd5shw/index.html]Wow! That's a lot of groups![/url][/b] And he says that if he gets 15 or so people to help, he can create a [u]member[/u] database!

PMS Clan, the worlds largest group of female gamers, get VIP treatment by MTV's Total Request Live. Host, Damien Fahey came down to party Texas style with PMS Clan and H20 Clan members on Halo2.

The footage says it all! We got to play Halo 2 with Damien on Xbox! Check out the link below to see our segment of the show which was aired before the number 1 video was played! http://media.putfile.com/PMSTRL

What do you think is the most [url=http://www.bungie.net/Forums/posts.aspx?postID=5403331]satisfying way[/url] to take down a multiplayer opponent? Tell us what you think about this and many other probing questions by participating in our official polls over in the [url=http://www.bungie.net/Forums/topics.aspx?forumID=8]Voting Booth[/url] forum!

Give us your opinion and provide valuable (and some not so valuable) feedback about your Halo 2 preferences. From time to time we'll update the Voting Booth forum with new polls to satisfy our curiosity. Stop by and let us know what you think! If you've got a good idea for a poll that we should add, let us know. You can get to the Voting Booth forum [url=http://www.bungie.net/Forums/topics.aspx?forumID=8]HERE![/url]

Today, the founder of Halo.Bungie.Org, Claude Errera (aka Louis Wu) celebrated his fortieth birthday.

Today, the founder of Halo.Bungie.Org, Claude Errera (aka Louis Wu) celebrated his fortieth birthday. Happy birthday to him, and congratulations on HBO's successful Blow Me Away Charity Auction, which raised over $10,000 for victims of Hurricane Katrina. Thanks for everything, Louis!

Nedus writes:

1UP has an exclusive interview with the outspoken head of Team NINJA, Tomonobu Itagaki, about DOA4 and his work with Bungie.

1UP has an exclusive interview with the outspoken head of Team NINJA, Tomonobu Itagaki, about DOA4 and his work with Bungie. Itagaki-san tells us about some interesting ideas that they had, and even the Spartan's real name, as well as many other things. A great read. [url]http://www.1up.com/do/previewPage?cId=3145772&did=1[/url]

On Thursday, 11/17, at about 3pm Pacific time, bungie.net will be taken offline for maintenance. This release is mostly just a few bugfixes here and there; there will be very little user visible changes. We expect the downtime to last between one and two hours.

This is a maintenance release designed to do two things. First, it fixes a bunch of little bugs here and there that mostly affect efficiency and stability. This continues our work we've done in the last few months to improve performance at bungie.net. The second thing it is doing is to upgrade our forum database structure to handle several features we'd like to include in future. Hopefully, we'll be able to talk about those soon.

Thanks to a problem with Xbox Live servers, many players reported stat and ranking losses in the last 24 hours. The problem has been located by the Xbox Live team, and will be fixed when the service is taken offline for maintenance in the early hours of Wednesday, November 9th. Ranks should reset to their pre-problem levels at that time.

Unfortunately, that means any levels gained (or lost) in the intervening period, will be reset to the pre-problem state. We apologize for the inconvenience. You can read more about it at [url=http://forums.xbox.com/250436/ShowPost.aspx]Xbox.com forums[/url] and we'll update as needed tomorrow.

[url=http://rop2005.thatweasel.tv]Rockets on Prisoner[/url], the ultimate (and only) Halo movies awards has finally reached it's climax, and That Weasel, the host, has released the final [url=http://rop2005.thatweasel.tv/index.php?site=O&pg=CE]Awards Ceremony[/url] for public download, showcasing all of the nominees and winners of the various categories.

Finally, after months of waiting, That Weasel proclaimed the [url=http://rop2005.thatweasel.tv/index.php?site=O&pg=CE]Rockets on Prisoner awards ceremony[/url] was finally finished. For those of you who don't know, the Rockets on Prisoner awards are for the best in Halo Movies. Started by Emil of Cobaltnova, then continued by Wolfy of Sector 7, and finally That Weasel, growing bigger and more professional each year. This year, there are snazzy prizes for the winners, and a [i]real[/i] awards ceremony. The [url=http://rop2005.thatweasel.tv/index.php?site=O&pg=CE]Awards Ceremony[/url] is a monster film, weighing in at about 230 megs (WMP9) and 300 megs (QT6), at 320 x 240, in either Quicktime or Windows Media. Fortunately, That Weasel has got some massive servers of doom, and is hosting this as a direct download. Also as a bonus, it features some pretty snazzy editing, is entertaining to watch, and is extremely useful if you're looking for some good Halo machinima to download. This is the best of the best, folks, and a suprisingly well put together video. Remember, you can download the [url=http://rop2005.thatweasel.tv/index.php?site=O&pg=V]nominees[/url] and the [url=http://rop2005.thatweasel.tv/index.php?site=O&pg=W]winners[/url] from the ROP site, too, for a first (or second) watch.