Author: halo@bungie.org

Bruce Shelley, a designer for Ensemble Studios, posted in his blog yesterday, and there’s a bunch of info about Halo Wars. It ranges from interesting observations about gameplay and strategy to the lunch menu provided to the team during the crunch leading up to E3. Thanks to Planet Halo for the heads-up.(Louis Wu 09:52:55 UTC)

Installation05 is holding another giveaway – this time, it’s a 2-figure Actionclix promo pack, and entering is as simple as sending an email entry. In fact, you can send an entry each day (but don’t exceed that, or you’ll be disqualified). If you identify yourself as coming from HBO, you get a double entry! Swing…

Dennis Powers let us know that Shipwrecked Episode 33 is now up – looks like the ring is providing, again.(Louis Wu 09:51:41 UTC)

Over at the Bungie.net blog, there’s a call from a fan that all players on LIVE should change their armor emblem to either the 7th Column symbol, or the number 7, for next Monday’s Bungie Day celebrations. Nice idea!(Louis Wu 09:51:23 UTC)

Red vs Blue: Reconstruction – Chapter 5 has been released for sponsors – it’ll be up for everyone else later this evening. Washington does his best to get Church and Caboose into places they shouldn’t be going… and to a meeting with an old friend. Lots of backstory in this one!(Louis Wu 02:41:34 UTC)

The Mix Foundation has announced the nominees for the award for Creative Achievement in Interactive Entertainment Sound Production at the upcoming 24th Annual TEC Awards. Halo 3 is up against Bioshock, Call of Duty 4, The Orange Box, and Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune. Winners will be announced on October 3. The full press release is here.(Louis…

BlueNinja pointed out that he’s updated his ‘Views from the Edge’ blog with a bunch of new panoramas – there are even some Halo 2 versions! Go look. (If you’re looking for stuff since the last time we mentioned the site, it looks like the ‘Campaign: The Covenant’ link about halfway down the June list…

Tony “ubald” Marcotte let us know that he’s created a new Halo render – this one is called ‘First Kill of the Day’, and it’s a pretty nice piece of work! The subject material is a little… disturbing, but maybe that’s just me. We’ve updated his local gallery here.(Louis Wu 13:58:37 UTC)

TrueDarkFusion pointed out that the third part of Forge Hub’s Forging Retrospective is now online. This one looks at Forge’s long-term popularity, in the face of not only other aspects of Halo 3, but other GAMES. Go read!(Louis Wu 13:45:28 UTC)

TTL Demag0gue let us know that Reclaimer 60 is now up – with word of a whole new cast of characters. Things are getting complicated!(Louis Wu 13:39:28 UTC)

Yeah, so if it had been anyone but ZZoMBiE13, I’d have said no… but hey, Another Halo Comic Strip is his baby, and the Guest strips that run on Sundays are his choices. I say this so that you don’t blame me for what you’re about to view.(Louis Wu 18:36:49 UTC)

If you want to keep track of how the 7 billion by 7/7 challenge is going, some folks over at WoW United (yes, a World of Warcraft website) have put together a nice tracking page – time, enemies left, day’s target, and more. (There’s a separate page that keeps track of the official Bungie.net total…

Demented Decoy sent word that he’s been working on a series of screenshot-based comics called ‘Demented Weekly’ – so far, there are 4 issues (well, 3, the first one is more of a preview of the series). They’re downloadable in PDF format, and they follow the antics of the Across the Waves crew in Matchmaking.…

kr-1426 let us know that Arthur Wellesly has posted this week’s Fan Fic Pick of the Week for June 27 – swing by and read it!(Louis Wu 14:54:01 UTC)

John_117 pointed out a thread he started on Bungie.net, with an interesting picture comparison. (While you should visit his thread here, or his thread there, in order to comment, I’ve archived a copy of the picture for posterity – so that when someone goes back and reads this news post down the road a ways,…

A few days ago, we mentioned a pretty fun goal the Halo community could shoot for – 7 billion campaign kills by Bungie Day (July 7). GhaleonEB, over at the NeoGAF forums, has been crunching the numbers each day since this challenge started… and it’s not looking good, at the current rate. Unless we pick…

Today’s edition of Another Halo Comic Strip shows what happens when people with odd minds play too many video games. Careful, ZZoMBiE13.(Louis Wu 19:08:55 UTC)

Obie let us know that a Halo 3 machinima series he started back in December has been updated with a second episode. Little Red Adventures: Episode 2 follows Little Red and Goosey as they continue their search for hacks for Halo 3 – and meet some new friends! Great cinematography, lots of fun. You can…

Hawty McBloggy found another Halo-themed 3D Steregraphic video – this one shows some cool action on High Ground, and if crossing your eyes is too much work, there’s a section of the video that let’s you see the action with standard 3D Glasses (Red and Blue lenses). Check it out1(Louis Wu 13:41:45 UTC)

Wil, from Mindquirk Software, let us know that there’s a new version of Xbox Live Friends, with new Halo 3 features (screenshots, recent games stuff) – if you’re running Mac OSX 10.5 (Leopard), grab this! It’s free, and it’s cool!(Louis Wu 13:39:12 UTC)