It’s Thursday, and it’s after 11 am Pacific, so it’s time for another Double XP Weekend. It’s Team Snipers again – go practice your long rifle skills!(Louis Wu 18:19:01 UTC)

IGN has a Hands-on with Halo Wars from the Leipzig Games Convention – no new vids or screenshots, but some discussion of gameplay. Go read!(Louis Wu 18:02:25 UTC)

mendicantbias00 has updated his Halo 3 screenshot/panorama blog, Breaking Boundaries – the latest update is here, but check the whole site, he’s been adding stuff every few days.(Louis Wu 16:56:47 UTC)

DocOctavius is selling his Halo 2 Evolution Boxed Set on eBay – there weren’t many of these, so if you missed ’em the first time around, here’s another chance!(Louis Wu 16:53:50 UTC)

Okay, so a couple of weeks ago, Hawty McBloggy forgot about Friday, and posted her Friday content on Saturday. That was fine by us – we’ve done our own share of forgetting to post regular content here. She seems to be making up for it today, though – she’s posted THIS Friday’s content on Thursday, so you can check out this week’s What If, Halo Style a little early. Fun answers to last week’s question (What armor permutation would you design?), plus a new question – are you jonesing for any vehicles not present in the Halo universe? You’ve got an extra day to think about it!(Louis Wu 14:23:49 UTC)

mrsmiley let us know that the season 1 finale of Master Chief Theater 3000 is now up on YouTube. If you register at pyrosmile.org, there’s apparently some extra content for this episode. Season 2 will start in a couple of weeks.(Louis Wu 14:16:40 UTC)

Over at the Escapist, there’s an interesting article about the inflation of game review scores over the years, and the effect this has on both the buying public and the developer community. (I hadn’t realized that some game developers base bonuses for employees on the scores their games get from reviewers.) Halo 3 is mentioned a number of times, in support of the thesis that game reviewers allow heavy marketing campaigns to influence their judgement. It’s a thought-provoking read – swing by! (How could you go wrong with an article that references Spinal Tap in its title?)(Louis Wu 14:08:56 UTC)

The Discovery Channel’s “I Love the Whole World” commercial is a favorite for folks looking to remake icons in the Halo universe – we’ve already mentioned a couple of instances of this (here and here). I ran across another one yesterday, though, that I thought did a great job with picking relevant clips. It’s old – but I liked it a lot!(Louis Wu 14:06:09 UTC)

Wow, that stings – in the midst of an article at News.com.au about how more Australians search for gaming links than for porn, there’s a nasty little shot at Halo 3:

There are more searches for Call Of Duty 4 than Halo 3 in Australia and the UK, most likely because it is a far superior game.

Ouch! (Then again, the article goes on to say that Australia’s leading the world in searches for ‘purple monkey dishwasher’, so maybe a little failure in objective journalism isn’t the biggest thing to worry about…) (Louis Wu 13:57:19 UTC)

Costume Supercenter, a national chain of costume stores, has released its “Top 10 Halloween Costumes for 2008” – and Halo 3’s Master Chief Jumpsuit made the list. Expect to see a raft of Spartans this October!(Louis Wu 13:55:29 UTC)

Hawty McBloggy noticed a Halo 3-themed custom Guitar Hero controller on eBay – current bid is $26, with five and a half days to go. Rock out as the Master Chief! (Louis Wu 13:54:24 UTC)

I’m not sure this is really a surprise… but it might be the first time I’ve seen it printed. eddie m found a writeup for the Leipzig Games Convention (in German) that described Halo Wars as “the first console title of the series,” implying a chain of sequels already in the planning stages. I suppose it would make sense to wait and see how the first one was received, though…(Louis Wu 13:53:49 UTC)