Author: halo@bungie.org

It took a bit longer than expected, but the January Matchmaking Update is now live (it has been since late last night). Swing by Bungie.net for full details on the changes (they were posted before, but it’s nice to have everything in one place).(Louis Wu 16:33:00 UTC)

Over at Ascendant Justice, Vociferous has added another masterful article – this one is called ‘Unworlding’, and it looks at the Great Journey. It begins with a decent piece of fan fiction… and continues on to an exhaustive look at all the information currently available about the birth of the IDEA of the Great Journey.…

Narcogen’s posted the second half of Anger, Sadness and Envy Episode 6 – the Rampancy.net podcast looking at Floodgate. He and Blackstar discuss game details and motivations – an interesting conversation! 59 minutes, 41 mb. This is the AAC-encoded version… MP3 coming soon. (Louis Wu 16:11:11 UTC)

onebitrocket noticed that Amazon has posted a placeholder for Halo 3: ODST… and while you shouldn’t trust any release dates that don’t come from the company, it IS the first time we’ve seen anyone even GUESS at a date. (Amazon is listing October 6 as the release.) As things change, we’ll keep you informed.(Louis Wu…

TTL Demag0gue let us know that Reclaimer 139 is now online – and the Reclaimer learns more about a new player.(Louis Wu 15:25:22 UTC)

Morpheus announced that his ‘Communitage 2’ is now available for download – it’s 10 minutes long, and available in both standard and HD formats. (It’s pretty big; 219 mb in SD, 413 mb in HD.) YouTube is coming soon. It’s full of clips from folks who sent him their best stuff. Check it out!(Louis Wu…

Andrew Kleiner let us know that two new chapters of his Halo 3 screenshot comic, ‘Outbreak’, are now up – swing by his website for downloads. Volume 2, Chapter 4 (‘Recall’) is here, and Volume 2, Chapter 5 (‘The Calm Before the Storm’) is here.(Louis Wu 15:01:25 UTC)

Brad McMullen let us know that Stephen Loftus isn’t the only Halo fan obsessed with the Pillar of Autumn – his buddy AlmightyNabeshin, over at DeviantArt, has been posting his own cool PoA pieces. Check out a structural study, a cross-section of the ship (color-coded for functionality), and a pretty cool front-end view (not quite…

Ryan Hamilton stopped by to announce a Halo song he created – it’s called ‘Playing Halo (ODST Remix)’, and it’s available on his MySpace page. Unfortunately, the page doesn’t display correctly unless you’re using IE on a Windows box – which leaves a lot of users (Mac users, Firefox users, etc) out in the cold.…

Two new vids were highlighted yesterday afternoon on the Bungie Blog – Inside Halo Episode 29 is up at YouTube (typical Dead Pixel wackiness), and one of the ‘top 5 kills’ in that vid has its OWN vid – a father-and-son team rack up a pair of Killionaires in a Gauss hog on Standoff… great…

Monochron noticed yet another GameDaily article that mentions Halo – this one picks the top 25 game logos of all time (based on their potential for tattoos, apparently) – and the Halo 3 logo comes in second. (Quake takes the top spot.)(Louis Wu 14:41:34 UTC)

Hawty McBloggy found a plasma pistol montage – it’s all kills with the plasma pistol. No, not an overcharge and then a beatdown/headshot/whatever… but actual kills by being hit with plasma shots. Some of these you have to wonder about – they take him many, many seconds to finish off his opponents, who totally fail…

A million years ago (okay, really only 6.5 years ago), Karl “oldmano’theC” Nyman sent us a video he’d created using Pixels:3D and his own music. It was called ‘Halo Genesis•1’, and although it was tiny (320×180), it was gorgeous. Sometime in 2005, he remastered this video in a larger form factor (640×360) and newly-mixed audio……

The Average Joe series at Bungie.net claims another victim today – urk sat down with Ascendant Justice’s Cocopjojo to talk about Halo, speakers, and Rockets on Chiron. It’s a good read!(Louis Wu 20:37:57 UTC)

mans1ay3r combined Halo 3 and Fallout 3 to make a pretty fun little video – check it out on YouTube! Thanks, urk.(Louis Wu 20:33:11 UTC)

Hawty McBloggy noticed that the Halo Points program has finally kicked off over at McFarlane Toys – go see what you can pick up!(Louis Wu 20:18:52 UTC)

According to a post on the Bungie Blog, the latest episode of Chaos Theory is being released in pieces – Episode Eight: Part One is up now.(Louis Wu 20:13:47 UTC)

Dennis Powers let us know that Shipwrecked Episode 51 is now up – climbing can be hard.(Louis Wu 20:12:30 UTC)

urk highlighted a new Top 10 vid from KillPie, focusing on assassinations. Personally, it seems more like “10 Halo 3 Assassinations” rather than “Top 10 Halo 3 Assassinations”… but maybe I’m just jaded. Decide for yourself. (Louis Wu 20:10:21 UTC)

Link4044 (search our news if the name isn’t familiar – he’s made some pretty cool Halo paraphernalia in the past) sent along a few backstage shots from the ‘Match Made in Halo’ wedding that took place this weekend; he was there, along with some 405th Forum compatriots, to add some Marine backup in case it…