SnowJP 360 stoped in with word of ‘Beyond‘, a new video from DWT Productions. It’s all glitches and tricks in the Reach Beta, and there’s some funky stuff. (I think Bungie should be watching this one, too – there are some bugs that seem like they should be fixed…) (Louis Wu 13:55:50 UTC)

Pete Cooper let us know that the cast for the teaser for Operation Chastity (the fan-driven live-action Halo film) has been announced – swing by their website for full details! (Louis Wu 13:55:13 UTC)

Hawty McBloggy posted up a fitting farewell video to the Reach Beta – it’s just a clip of a corpse in the Swordbase mancannon… but it’s waving goodbye. For a while. Pretty funny!(Louis Wu 13:53:38 UTC)

It looks like a release date has been announced for Halo: Reach – an Associated Press article (hosted by Google, or Yahoo Finance) mentions that the game is out on September 14 worldwide (September 15 in Japan). A slightly different view (‘worldwide’ is swapped for ‘US and UK’) is shown by Computer and Video Games’ website (thanks, ElzarTheBam). Both articles also discuss the amazing reach (heh) of the Halo: Reach Beta – 2.7 million people experienced it, logging more than 16 million hours over 18 days. For the number fanatics among you, this release date means that there are exactly 117 days between the end of the beta and the launch of the full game…(Louis Wu 13:31:31 UTC)

BierWiser released a ‘Lawltage’ – funny clips from Halo 3 Matchmaking. Not the first time he’s done this – but the first time without a bunch of betrayal clips in it (they were funny to him, not so much to the rest of us). This one’s actually funny. Go see.(Louis Wu 18:23:13 UTC)

Over at Hawty McBloggy’s, the latest Grin + Bear It looks at spawning… in every sense of the word, I guess.(Louis Wu 15:28:34 UTC)

So if you checked the scenery closely on Powerhouse, you might have noticed a ‘Luminateboard‘ in the Office. Yesterday, RVideo let us know that he’d been poking through the game files, and found ANOTHER one of these, in the Boneyard map files – but this one wasn’t empty. In fact, it looks more like someone took a snapshot of a real whiteboard (maybe a Bungie whiteboard) and stuck it in the game. As far as I can tell, this doesn’t showup anywhere in the actual map (when you’re playing), though I could be wrong about that. In any case, it’s a pretty interesting board; there MIGHT be stuff you can dig out of it.(Louis Wu 15:28:07 UTC)

harabek stopped in with word of a machinima music video contest – the band Take It To Sunrise wants you to create a music video for them – any game, any style (of course, Halo is a fine choice), and you could win some MS points, the band’s latest album, and more. Basic details on this page, or in this YouTube video. (You have to register on a forum before you can actually read the rules and regulations – but if you’re interested, the links are all there!)(Louis Wu 15:27:33 UTC)

It’s a busy Sunday morning here, but this newspost is time-sensitive; if you read it in the next two hours, you’ve got a chance to bid on a fan-made Halo Reach helmet on eBay. Current bid is $217.50, closing time is 8:33 PDT this morning. Thanks, rolandk73 (who also found an already-purchased Spartan CQB Helmet (closed last night). More news later.(Louis Wu 13:37:07 UTC)

General Vagueness noticed (before I did, dangit!) the cake on our front page, signifying our 11th birthday today – in Internet years, that means HBO is ready for Depends and a steady supply of Ensure. Thanks to all of you for being here… we couldn’t do this without you!(Louis Wu 11:10:01 UTC)

Nabsuh stopped in with a teaser from Legendary, an upcoming project from AVCOM Productions – looks great!(Louis Wu 11:09:07 UTC)

NartFOpc noticed a video showing off a mod for Super Smash Bros Brawl – nice work to get Master Chief into the game!(Louis Wu 11:06:17 UTC)

Halo 3 Screenshots is looking at ‘Spawn Points’ in the latest Top Ten Halo 3 Screenshots collection. I wasn’t sure what this meant, until I looked at the pictures… but they’re shots of what you can make with the bright blue spawnpoint symbols in Forge. Very creative stuff!(Louis Wu 11:04:29 UTC)

If you were avoiding Halo Waypoint because you didn’t want your recent Reach Beta films to be cleared from the cache… avoid no more. Lots of good stuff coming this week. Today marks the kickoff of the full-length cut of ‘The Return’, the motion-comic version of the Evolutions story. If you missed it in its serialized version (or if you just want to see it uncut), swing by! Later this week is more Reach coverage, and on Friday is a behind-the-scenes look at the making of both ‘Midnight in The Heart of Midlothian’ and ‘The Return’ – how ONE turned these Evolutions stories into fantastically animated tales. If you’ve got a LIVE Gold subscription, this content is always available to you – so take advantage! (Louis Wu 11:04:02 UTC)

The Bungie Weekly Update is a quiet one this time around – a wind-down summarizing the end of the Beta, and what you should take away from it. Some great screens – and if you want more than they’re showing, get ’em now, they’ve already said they’re killing the Reach Beta content by the end of next week, probably. (Might be a good time to remind you of HaLo2FrEeEk’s Reach Screenshot Archive – an easy way to archive what you’ve already got, for when Bungie.net wipes that set out. If for any reason you aren’t happy reading the Weekly Update at Bungie.net, we’ve got it in our Weekly Update Archive (it’s certainly friendlier to lighter-weight browsers).(Louis Wu 00:04:37 UTC)