Heh – this is pretty cool; Evlmidget25 built a Foundry map in which he and a plasma grenade start at the same point, take entirely different paths, and end at the same point. It’s a pretty complicated suicide. Check it out!(Louis Wu 12:10:49 UTC)

Planet Halo’s mrtitan has written up a short review of the Heroic Map Pack – looks like it wasn’t a particularly good buy for him. (He liked Standoff, found Rat’s Nest fair, and hated Foundry.) Your mileage may vary.(Louis Wu 12:00:07 UTC)

We got some more pics from Xavier, MLC’s friend, showing off the chest plate of MLC’s armor. The new pics start here – or you could just visit the armor page for an overview of what’s already up. More to come soon!(Louis Wu 11:57:12 UTC)

Elnea’s posted Episode 104 of her Halo Action Figure Theater – I’m feeling a little bad for Lois at this point. For the zombie guy, though… not so much. Take a look!(Louis Wu 11:44:12 UTC)

Second Foundation has posted The Riot 79 – it’s a pre-Christmas show, and shorter than usual (23 minutes, 9 mb) because they still need to do their shopping. Still plenty of goodness, though – go listen! They’ve made some (permanent) changes to their RSS feed – but they don’t have any way to automatically update it for subscribers… so come back and resubscribe.(Louis Wu 22:07:55 UTC)

Today’s One One Se7en Advent offering (yes, this is the second post of the day) is somewhat wooden…(Louis Wu 17:45:10 UTC)

Natesuter22 pointed out that JibJab’s holiday eCard, “In 2007“, includes Halo 3 among the high points of the year. Right up there with Scorsese’s Oscar. Nice!(Louis Wu 16:21:00 UTC)

If you had a really talented friend who was into Halo… you might get Christmas presents like these: a custom-painted controller (check out the brushwork!) and a custom-made Halo action figure, with one of the oddest Weapons of Destruction, ever. Elnea created these for her friend (and ours), OboeCrazy. Are you jealous yet?(Louis Wu 16:14:31 UTC)

appSafari.com has a small web app you can use to check your Halo 3 Stats from your iPhone. Take a look! (You can use it from any browser, actually, but it’s formatted nicely to fit an iPhone screen.)(Louis Wu 15:56:04 UTC)

IGN’s posted it’s Best of 2007 – Halo took Best Online Multiplayer Game and Most Innovative Design, and Bungie’s separation from Microsoft took Biggest Surprise. These are all Xbox360 awards – they haven’t announced the Overall awards yet (and won’t, until January 11). Thanks, Grey Wolf. (Louis Wu 15:38:47 UTC)

Narcogen found a story at Kotaku about a really, REALLY ugly Halo-branded shoe… and speculates that absurd licensing deals might be the rationale behind Microsoft’s allowing Bungie to become independent. After all, if Bungie were still fully in control of the Halo IP, would they ever allow the Halo name to be attached to this silly-looking sneaker?(Louis Wu 15:25:37 UTC)

Haloplayer stopped by with word of a Christmas Comic from Injured Knee Productions – The Newbs #9 looks at the McFarlane controller. (I dunno – I sort of like it…)(Louis Wu 15:18:47 UTC)

While we’re discussing missed comics, I suppose I should apologize (AGAIN) for neglecting to announce a One One Se7en Advent offering. (This going-live-at-noon thing is really hard this time of year; by noon, I’m gone.) Don’t think too much about this one – you might get queasy.(Louis Wu 13:46:03 UTC)

It’s quite late – it was supposed to be posted yesterday – but there’s a Christmas-themed funni over at Another Halo Comic Strip – ZZoMBiE13 reaches out to Stuntmutt in the spirit of the season. Unfortunately, Stunt found those spirits weeks ago, and is now well-pickled… (Louis Wu 13:44:13 UTC)

Wow. Voting took a bit of work – but we’ve whittled down the 127 entries to the Seven on the Seven(teen)th contest to our 7 top choices… you can find the images on the Results page. Congrats to the winners – and to EVERYONE who submitted; almost 50 images got votes from at least one of our dozen judges.(Louis Wu 18:31:03 UTC)

Gametap has a Q&A with Graeme Devine, lead designer of Halo Wars, with some great info and a few brand-new screenshots. Give it a read! Thanks, Avateur.(Louis Wu 13:38:53 UTC)

DarkSim found a link to a German page with pictures of a paper pelican – along with a download link containing a 10-page PDF you can print to make your own. Very, very cool! (My German is nonexistent, so I’m not sure how I’d ask permission to link to this, or mirror it… but if we do any damage to that website, I’ll put up a local copy. If a German-speaking HBO reader wants to help out, the webmaster’s email is on this page.)(Louis Wu 13:31:32 UTC)

TeamXbox has posted thier Game of the Year Awards for 2007 – and Halo takes the Best Multiplayer Game of the Year. (It lost to Crackdown in the Action category, CoD4 in the Shooter category, and Mass Effect in the GotY category.) Thanks, Narcogen, at Rampancy.net.(Louis Wu 13:22:27 UTC)