Author: halo@bungie.org

Friday Caption Fun is back at Hawty McBloggy’s – great captions from last week’s pics, and a truly funky new pic just waiting for your words of wisdom are waiting for you just around the bend.(Louis Wu 13:34:28 UTC)

Aaron Greenberg, Microsoft’s product management director, believes Reach will be the biggest game of 2010. That’s big talk about a single-platform product… do you agree? Thanks, Avateur.(Louis Wu 13:31:06 UTC)

Willy’s back with another 20 Questions from CE United – the interview with bs angel is so important, it spans both November and December. Needs moar double entendres. Go read it anyway.(Louis Wu 13:28:39 UTC)

There’s a fascinating look back at the development of the Halo 3 multiplayer map Construct over at Bungie.net – the designers discussed how it started, what changed over time, and what they’d do differently at this stage. You can read it and think “oh, man, they should have stuck with this idea!” or “why did…

Twelve new pieces are up this week in the Fan Fiction section – it’s alive again! Go read.(Louis Wu 13:25:50 UTC)

IGN’s posted their latest Top 10 Kills of the Week feature – remember, you can win free stuff by submitting. Number 8 made me laugh. ANd Number 3 is some awesome golfing. Go watch!(Louis Wu 23:41:44 UTC)

Team Kootra put together another fun vid that machinima.com released today – Team Fortress 2 meets Halo 3. Those poor Spartans…(Louis Wu 22:10:58 UTC)

Bungie’s updated the Reach project page, in anticipation of the video to be shown Saturday night on the Spike Video Game Awards. There’s not a lot of new material yet (most of what went live today was structure, not content), but the hype is building – go get some!(Louis Wu 22:10:16 UTC)

Major Silva wrote to point out a newspost on Grifball.com – apparently, Winter League signups for Grifball are really low, and they’re desperately looking for extra teams. If you’re interested in playing, go now – signups close soon! (Either today or tomorrow, depending on which newspost is right.)(Louis Wu 22:04:39 UTC)

This week’s Double EXP Weekend playlist is totally new – ‘Prepare to Drop’ is an “ODST Inspired” playlist, smgs and magnums for the most part (though the VIP escort games have BRs in ’em). Head over to Bungie.net for full details. Update: ZaneZavin pointed out that this list ran once before – the weekend ODST…

Active Anime once again has the first copy of a new interview with Hiroshi Yamazaki, the director of the Halo Legends episode ‘The Duel’. Give it a read for insight into the development of the project!(Louis Wu 19:41:46 UTC)

Three new montages for you, over at Bungie’s Comm Chatter:whitesoxrule created a Community Tags montage he calls ‘Epic’ – screenshots culled from Bungie’s enormous Community Files collection. Edge whipped up his first Halo 3 montage – 100% MLG. Sniper Heaven.Chase built his first Halo 3 montage as well, this one full of MLG footage too.…

UNSC Trooper created a map of the Earth, broken out by 26th century politics (as discussed in various Halo sources) – swing by and see what he’s found!(Louis Wu 17:13:06 UTC)

A couple of very awesome features at Hawty McBloggy’s today – make some time. First up is HMB’s Offbeat Gaming Gift Guide – Halo Edition, a collection of goodies for the Halo fan on your list, in many price ranges (cheapest item is $1.50, most expensive is $50). All are pretty unique. Go look! Then,…

Stephen Loftus has revisited an old article he wrote – his ‘Halo-verse Planetary Scale’ has now been updated to include the Ark, from Halo 3. Swing by to see where it fits, sizewise!(Louis Wu 15:51:06 UTC)

Spartan-270 dropped us a note, wanting to wish everyone happy holidays (1024×768, 196k) – nice work!(Louis Wu 15:50:28 UTC)

A fan at Cheap Ass Gamer noticed that the Halo 3 Legendary Edition is selling for $39.99 (with free shipping) at Newegg – if you always wanted one of those helmets, but couldn’t afford the full price, this is your chance!(Louis Wu 15:48:59 UTC)

Last night, urk mentioned a short machinima miniseries (it’s three parts, but once you’ve pulled the credits, the actual content is about 5 minutes total for the three segments) called ‘Valor’ – created by Kootra Productions, it tells a powerful story from the point of view of an ODST. Go watch – Part 1 |…

Clantacular.com’s Favorite Files have been updated at Bungie.net – swing by to read about ‘Top Floor’, one of the newly-highlighted maps, and then by Bungie Favorites to see the rest!(Louis Wu 20:40:48 UTC)

Here’s a nice deal – Amazon (currently selling Halo 3: ODST for $47.49) will offer you a 12-month Xbox LIVE Gold membership for $29.99 when you buy ODST. ODST for under $50 – and a year of LIVE for under $30! How can you go wrong?(Louis Wu 19:53:19 UTC)