Jamie98s is back to Machinima-making, and this one’s a little… different. He’s got a full explanation for it – but you’re better off watching it, and seeing what you get out of it on your own. It’s called ‘2’, and it’s available on his site either streaming (via YouTube), or downloadable (from RapidShare). Because we like his work, we’re making the downloadable .AVI available from our servers… as well as a QuickTime and a WMP9 version. (All downloadable versions are about 40 mb.) Go watch!(Louis Wu 18:22:09 UTC)

It’s Monday, so Bungie’s got another Tag and Release feature for you. Today’s tag: ‘Night’. Did they find some cool pics? You bet your nightvision they did! Go see if you can grab anything better!(Louis Wu 17:45:29 UTC)

Ready Up Live is giving away ANOTHER pair of Mythic Map codes – all you have to do is come up with a good acronym for ‘MYTHIC’. Swing by the Bungie Blog for details (or go straight to RUL’s contest page).(Louis Wu 17:43:41 UTC)

skullkruncher13 and patfan8326 put together a Halo 3 rap called ‘Halo 3 Rimz‘. Some of the rhymes are a little sketchy, but overall they did a nice job! Thanks, urk.(Louis Wu 17:40:26 UTC)

Hawty McBloggy found a life size Halo 2 Master Chief for sale on eBay… being sold by an adult film star. Not sure why that’s relevant (except that she shows up in the image pics, with clothing)… but hey, if you’re looking for a reason to browse this sort of listing… there you go.(Louis Wu 16:08:24 UTC)

gunluva noticed a post at Kotaku that contains a large collection of Halo Wars concept art. They got it from conceptart.org, where it had been posted by Marco Nelor, apparently an artist with Ensemble who didn’t want to see this material lost when the studio doors close. The conceptart.org versions are larger – but I’m guessing the Kotaku bandwidth will last longer. Go look – because some of these pieces are amazing.(Louis Wu 16:02:30 UTC)

We’re going to shift the way we report Halo-related comics; there are simply too many of them to provide a newspost for each. So: every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, there’ll be a summary of all releases since the last update. This should keep total comic-related posts to a tolerable level, while still keeping readers informed of updates to their favorite strips. Therefore: comic updates since the last comic update –

• Bloogyo stopped by yesterday with worf of Rat’s Nest and Vendetta, two new strips at Halo3Webcomics. Rat’s Nest is a comedy, and is 6 strips in. Vendetta is a downloadable PDF-style comic, and is two episodes in.
• TTL Demag0gue announced the release of Reclaimer 163 (“Nodal Disruption”) – and things go boom.

Okay, the next comic update will be on Wednesday!(Louis Wu 15:58:04 UTC)

chris10023 was the first to let us know about Halo 3 Fails, Episode 12 – but be aware that this is the first episode since Episode six that has earned the Hawty McBloggy seal of approval (she’s really happy they’ve gone back to clips that we all can connect with, and that haven’t been totally overdone in other videos). Go watch!@(Louis Wu 13:56:01 UTC)

Missed this yesterday – and sorry I did. Hawty McBloggy discovered a cake created by a DevianARTist that looks AMAZING. Halo in all its glory… and edible! (Louis Wu 13:55:44 UTC)

A couple of fans on our forum have provided some help with the Halo Wars timeline – HaLo2FrEeEk transcribed the beginning of the ‘Halo Timeline’ available in the main Halo Wars game menu, and Bry unveiled a document that contains not only the full timeline, but detailed biographies of the characters, as well. Nice work!(Louis Wu 13:55:20 UTC)

Missed this yesterday – Xbox360Achievements.org is giving away 10 Mythic Map codes – email them with the answer to a relatively simple question, and you’re in the running. Thanks, urk. Update: ran across two more. ViP Gaming (a CoD blog) is giving away a code to the funniest ORIGINAL Halo joke – swing by the 360Junkies forum to enter. And Ripten has a code available, as well – swing by to see how it can be yours.(Louis Wu 13:54:53 UTC)