Stuntmutt was taken with the cover for ‘Contact Harvest’ – check out today’s One One Se7en.(Louis Wu 15:10:29 UTC)

Chris Burke, of This Spartan Life, is asking the Democratic candidates in the ’08 presidential race where they stand on Net Neutrality; you can see a Youtube version of the video in This Spartan Life’s 1UP club. It’ll be interesting to see if he gets any responses! Thanks, Sgt. Hartsock.(Louis Wu 15:03:04 UTC)

Adreniline is putting together a Flash collaboration, set to the Halo 3 E3 trailer. It’s not finished yet – but there’s some pretty nice work so far!(Louis Wu 14:57:57 UTC)

It’s nowhere near Christmas – but Nox Invictus has written ‘The Twelve Days of Halo‘ anyway.(Louis Wu 14:56:29 UTC)

Wow. There’s a pretty astoudingly rude editorial over at Daily Game today – I can’t call it news, because it reads more like a forum rant than anything else. I’m actually sort of surprised to see something like this on a big-name gaming site.

But you, in turn, must fully understand that online co-op was quite the only feature missing from Halo 2 that we wanted in Halo 3. Well, and an ending. Recorded videos? Optional. Shiny, HDR-lit barrels? Optional. New vehicles and weapons? Optional. Give us online co-op, Bungie. Prove to us that you’re not so wrapped-up in your own perceived greatness that you actually listen to your consumers.

As one of those consumers, I’ve got to say that some of those ‘optional’ features are NOT optional for me – but the difference is, I understand that I speak for me, whereas the author of this piece believes he speaks for the Halo community. (There’s nothing wrong with making your wishes known. DEMANDING features in an upcoming game – with an empty threat of brand abandonment behind the demand, and with snide comments about how Bungie’s not actually doing anything except eating pizza in their studio – is just plain foolish.)(Louis Wu 14:07:25 UTC)

Congratulations to Carbon, who beat Final Boss 6-2 in the MLG Championship at Dallas!(Louis Wu 23:28:31 UTC)

Ms. Valentine will be at the San Diego ComicCon this week – and on one day she’ll be going as Cortana. If you have a Red vs Blue account, you can read her journal entry about the changes she’s made to the costume – but if you don’t, here’s the bottom line: This is what it used to look like (64k), and here’s what it looks like after a 7+ hour paint job (full body, 56k | closeup, 100k). AWESOME!(Louis Wu 18:52:33 UTC)

Sigafoos sent along his weekly notice about The Riot Podcast – Episode 57 is now out, 35 minutes (14 mb) of community news, plus word of an exclusive Treeskunk video and a new composition from Sean Mortensen, composed for Second Foundation. Go listen!(Louis Wu 18:43:45 UTC)

Back in Late June, Skavenger kicked off a puzzle on our forum – it was a word search, but the writeup made it clear that there was more to it than that. The deadline for the solution was a bit over a week ago – he’s now sent in a full solution, for those who are interested. (And there’s a bonus – goatrope got the right answer, but not the way Skav intended him to get it. Details are at the bottom of the solution page.)(Louis Wu 16:18:13 UTC)

ratboy stopped by to point out a new website from his stepbrother, Ross Gemuend – it’s full of new renders and movies that should be of interest to the Halo community. Check ’em out!(Louis Wu 15:45:23 UTC)

Sane Intolerant let us know about two new Halo Toy Box episodes (The Day That All Are One and Destroy The Evil Forces), continuing the Halo/Transformers story. (Louis Wu 15:09:07 UTC)

If you’re one of the people who’s heard of the Iris ARG, but aren’t sure what’s been going on, DHalo and Ibeechu put together a video summarizing the scope to date. You can find a link on our ARGs forum.(Louis Wu 14:46:40 UTC)

NartFOpc came up with the solution to ManKitten’s Halo Treasure Hunt last night – for his troubles, he got a gorgeous certificate, and (for everyone else) a listing of what all the clues meant. Whee!(Louis Wu 14:43:13 UTC)

Big Goalie Dan mentioned that Podtacular Episode 120 Part 2 of 2 is now out – another 40 mb, more discussion about the E3 goodness.(Louis Wu 14:39:57 UTC)

It’s been an awfully long time since we added scanned material to our Press Scans section – but this weekend, Ryan-117 sent along two articles he’d scanned from Singapore magazines. The first is old – it’s an October 2004 issue of PlayWorks magazine (from what I can tell, they’re not even in business any more, at least not as a magazine seller), and it covers Halo 2. The second is more recent – it’s the July 2007 issue of GameAxis magazine, and it’s about Halo 3. Go read!(Louis Wu 14:10:20 UTC)

CVG has a nice interview with Chris Rippy and Graham Devine, of the Ensemble team putting together Halo Wars – go give it a read!(Louis Wu 21:01:13 UTC)

Hoovaloov, a TTL Gunslinger, spent 40 days or so refining the Halo 3 Beta gameplay footage of his clanmate TTL L askan, coming out with a montage that’s actually really nicely put together. (Some of the music choices I might question… but the editing is great.) Check it out – there are a number of links for downloads or streaming flash viewing in his forum post.(Louis Wu 20:15:22 UTC)

Rob Oplawar posted an update for Scythopolis, his single player level mod for Halo 2 Vista. There’s even a new screenshot to look at (though it’s linked from the main page, rather than the Photos page, of the Scythopolis website. Take a look!(Louis Wu 19:00:12 UTC)