Author: halo@bungie.org

It’s Friday, so it’s time for another Bungie Weekly Update – and this one is pretty meaty. There are a few extra tidbits, but the majority of the space is devoted to discussion of this week’s full-studio playtest of Halo 3: ODST. Absolutely worth a read! (As always, you can grab a copy in our…

Pete Cooner stopped by with a few pics of the early progress on their real-life Warthog. Check out the pics, and be sure to check out the blog!(Louis Wu 00:49:34 UTC)

The HaloTracks Map Database is the largest collection of Halo 3 racetracks on the web – go browse it for your next custom game night! Thanks, urk.(Louis Wu 19:21:36 UTC)

Bungie’s Blog has a tipoff to a Grifball highlights film – the gameplay is great, the commentary… not so much. Worth watching, though, because some of the plays are really spectacular.(Louis Wu 19:16:36 UTC)

TTL Demag0gue announced a new series of features for webcomics publishers – once or twice a week, articles containing tips and tricks will be posted on Halo3Webcomics.com. The first pair of articles are up now – go read about how to make good text balloons and where to find good comic fonts. Useful stuff, for…

Only a couple of new stories in the Fan Fiction section this week – go see what’s up!(Louis Wu 19:02:52 UTC)

TTL Demag0gue let us know about Reclaimer 137 – it’s never easy, is it?(Louis Wu 12:33:06 UTC)

Hawty McBloggy let us know that the latest round of Friday Caption Fun is now online – great captions for last week’s odd Miranda-based screenshot… along with a totally bizarre Arbiter shot this week. Go try your luck at creativity!(Louis Wu 10:53:31 UTC)

KP announced last night that irc.bungie.org is closing its doors. Those doors opened almost five years ago, over at Homelan… and it’s been a good run. It’s time, though, to move along. For the next few days, the name will redirect to irc.adelais.net, a server run by some friends and members of the Halo community.…

Over at the Bungie Blog, urk highlighted a video which I found to be hilarious and well-made – Pattythedog615 created ‘Halo 3 Everything you Know is Wrong’, a video that uses Halo 3, Gary’s Mod (a Half-Life 2 mod), and a Weird Al song to show you that nearly anything is possible in Halo machinima.…

Jeusoni stopped in with word of yet another Halo 3 screenshot-based comic; this one is hosted by Biohazard Productions, and is entitled ‘Reconnaissance Omega’. The series started on January 1, and there’s been a page a day posted since then. Go check it out! (Louis Wu 10:33:12 UTC)

The Breaking In series at Bungie.net continues – Rob Adams, Senior Environment Architect is next up. Some decent advice in there for folks looking to find work with your friendly neighborhood Halo creator!(Louis Wu 23:55:19 UTC)

Bungie has a note explaining that due to some rollout issues with the January update (which should be pretty cool!) there won’t be a Double XP playlist this weekend… but there WILL be a new batch of playlists on Tuesday. Seems worth the tradeoff to me!(Louis Wu 23:51:53 UTC)

Hawty McBloggy has tallied up the votes and created very pretty graphics for her 2008 Best of Halo Award Winners – go see who took each of the 10 categories! (Louis Wu 18:00:44 UTC)

Music 4 Games’ Greg O’Connor-Read pointed us to the press release for the Halo Wars Official Soundtrack – see details, a track listing, and the cover art. (Thanks also to Fuzunga, who noticed the release date of February 17 on Amazon’s page.)(Louis Wu 17:59:32 UTC)

Morpheus noticed that GameDaily has a feature called ‘Top 10 Things We Hate About Gaming’ – Halo makes the list twice. (Well, not really. The first time it makes the list, it’s because a picture of Halo is shown on a point card – it’s the CARD they’re complaining about.)(Louis Wu 17:58:35 UTC)

The Catfish stopped in to announce the second episode of his Halo 3 webcomic, 2501. Swing by and check it out! (Louis Wu 17:56:17 UTC)

Last month, we mentioned a court case in Ohio in which a teenager was on trial for shooting his parents – and using the defense that Halo made him do it. The judge rendered a verdict last week, finding that the boy was guilty of the shootings – I had decided to leave the story…

Thos put together a nice graphic that shows, visually, how the number of multiplayer maps for the various versions of Halo have compared over the years. I can tell this is something I’ll refer to more than once!(Louis Wu 17:54:45 UTC)

Shacknews has a list of the Most Rented Games of 2008 – and Halo 3 is third on the list. That’s a lot of renters!(Louis Wu 23:44:56 UTC)