GU Comics takes a shot at the recently-unearthed Halo MMO today – thanks, Ross.(Louis Wu 15:33:43 UTC)

TTL Demag0gue pointed out that Reclaimer 91 is online – the Reclaimer gets to work on his plan to learn about Ferial and Viper.(Louis Wu 15:30:34 UTC)

Halo has won yet ANOTHER advertising award – this time, though, it’s not the Believe campaign. IAB’s MIXX Awards were given out last night – and the Bronze award in the ‘Brand Awareness and Positioning’ category went to Universal McCann for the U.S. Army Halo 3 Experience campaign. Thanks, MarketWatch. (Louis Wu 14:57:16 UTC)

Yesterday, we mentioned that folks who didn’t have the Security helmet or the Katana were finding that these armor permutations unlocked with gamerscore increases from NEW achievements. Upon closer examination, there are actually two requirements, not just one: you need to have 1000 gamerscore from Halo 3 achievements (as we said yesterday), but you ALSO need a total of at least 49 Halo 3 achievements. They don’t have to be the ORIGINAL 49 – but a gamerscore of, say, 1030, and a total of 46 achievements (where I stand at the moment) will not do it. All examples of people succeeding in unlocking the extras that I’ve looked into have shown both features – 1000 GS, and 49 achievements. If you’re upset that you’re over 1000, but don’t have the goodies yet – earn a few more. (Caveat – even BEFORE the achievement increase, there were people who had trouble unlocking these features, even though they’d met all the requirements. This is probably still true.)(Louis Wu 14:45:09 UTC)

Kotaku posted a huge collection of concept art, ostensibly from the scrapped Halo MMO we mentioned yesterday. These range from interesting to downright silly. gunluva was the first to notice, but the thread I started (I hadn’t seen his post) got a lot of heated responses. Join in and add your own comments!(Louis Wu 14:39:42 UTC)

Fyrewulff confirmed that the added achievements available as of today have a side benefit – if you are below 1000 gamerscore, you can use the new options to get hold of that Security helmet. (There’s no guarantee it’ll work for everyone – but it worked for him; he got two achievements that pushed him over 1000 points, without completing the first 49 achievements, and both the Katana and the Security helmet unlocked for him.)(Louis Wu 19:36:09 UTC)

Gamasutra has posted a short piece that investigates a cancelled Ensemble Studios project… and concludes that it was a Halo MMO. Go check out the details!(Louis Wu 13:44:16 UTC)

Tied the Leader, quiet on the blogging front for a bit, is back with a sizeable update. There’s a reminder about the Tied The Leader Foundation, and the latest fan-driven efforts to aid its mission. There’s a huge, picture-filled recap of ChicagoLANd 3.0, a TTL lanfest that took place over Labor Day weekend in (um… duh?) Chicago. And there’s a video highlight reel of some of the fun Gunslinger moments captured over the course of August matchmaking. Go read, go watch – these folks embody the spirit of the Halo community!(Louis Wu 13:16:53 UTC)

Red vs Blue: Reconstruction Episode 15 has been posted – and in between stupid Caboose games and deep Grif philosophy, some intriguing discoveries are made by Church and Wash. The scene at the first checkpoint was classic. Go watch! (Louis Wu 12:58:52 UTC)

Bungie isn’t just focusing on the title update, or the upcoming Mythic maps – they’ve been revealing tidbits of the Superintendent story for a while now. And yesterday, the latest piece came along – check out PARDON OUR DUST, a transcript posted last night that suggests that command might be disintegrating… geekinabox was first on the scene with this one. (This was posted earlier in the evening – but it’s fan-driven, not from Bungie. The poster was active during E3, as well… it’s fun, but I’d like to ensure that there’s no confusion; it’s not an official part of the Superintendent campaign.)(Louis Wu 12:27:54 UTC)

The big news today, of course, is TU2 – the second Title Update for Halo 3. It went live this morning at 2 am PST (about 3 hours ago), and there’s already quite a bit of info around the net about it.

• Bungie.net has a story about it, explaining the 10 new achievements that go live today (one will not be accessible before Thursday, and a second will actually not be accessible before October 7), along with playlist changes, ratings, and other stuff. (Conversation on our forum starts here.)
• Gamerscoreblog talked to Brian Jarrard about the new achievements (thanks, MangoTru7h).
• IGN talked to Brian Jarrard about the Title Update, the upcoming Mythic release (see below), and beard-growing – thanks, Lord Osiris.
• Xbox.com has listed the 30 new achievements that are either available now, or WILL be available when the Mythic maps are released – you can see them by logging into your profile there, or by check out this image (764×2446, 108k). There is some (confused) discussion here.

The Mythic maps are now formally listed (see the Xbox.com achievement stuff – we’re waiting for Assembly, Citadel, Heretic, Longshore, Orbital, and Sandbox), but no date has been set for their release. 500 of the newly-unveiled points are locked to those maps – the other 250 are available now (or soon), with TU2. I’m sure there’ll be more news as the day goes on.(Louis Wu 12:20:22 UTC)

BSG Surgeon stopped by to point out a couple of blog posts at Buddy System Gaming – there’s a writeup of a clan night with The Panic Attacks, and a discussion of how tomorrow’s changes will affect us. Check it out!(Louis Wu 21:10:35 UTC)

Aang Avatar sent word that Spriggs Episode 12 Part C went live yesterday on YouTube. After watching, I’m wondering if there were hallucinogens in my coffee.(Louis Wu 21:10:14 UTC)

OddGodHMK let us know that The Biased Chapter 1 Page 5 is now online. Blue’s nervous… (Louis Wu 16:48:09 UTC)