2900d4u was the first of many to let us know about a new Halo Wars cinematic montage that can be seen at a Taiwanese Xbox site. (If you’re having trouble there, there’s a lower-res version at Gametrailers.com.) This is FULL of spoilers for the Halo Wars story (mostly inferred, but pretty clear)… but if you check that thread on our forum, you’ll see a whole lot of people who WERE on the fence about buying Halo Wars now firmly in the ‘preordering now‘ category. Some are saying they’re buying it for the cutscenes alone. Make of this what you will.(Louis Wu 02:20:10 UTC)

smick6 auctioned off a Brute Spiker replica last September – if you were interested then, but missed it, you’ve got another chance. He’s put up another one – starting bid is $275, close is just under 7 days. If you’re curious about what you’d be getting, we put together a gallery last August, showing his progress.(Louis Wu 02:18:18 UTC)

gender bombs (or Swimmer, or Solomon) sent us word that he’d posted an album of music for Halo 3 and the graphic novels over at B.net; It’s electronic, and he’s titled the pieces rather vaguely, so that you can decide for yourselves what tidbit of Halo inspired each one. It’s free, and the full download (including album art) is 23 mb… what have you got to lose? (If the first download link doesn’t work any more, there’s another one a few posts down.)(Louis Wu 02:15:01 UTC)

Michael “Fluffaluffer” Karlsson, the long-time manager of Planet Halo, is stepping down – we’d like to take a moment to say goodbye. It’s been a good run, Fluffy!(Louis Wu 02:14:07 UTC)

Rockslider is back to playing fun games in the Halo 3 Campaign – this time, he’s behind enemy lines on The Covenant. Go see what he’s come up with!(Louis Wu 02:13:32 UTC)

Hype let us know that Podtacular 178 is up – Callins and Tales from the Foxhole. Go listen!(Louis Wu 18:18:26 UTC)

Stuntmutt manages to poke fun at Halo Wars and Marvel, all in one totally unexpected bonus strip – go check out today’s One One Se7en.(Louis Wu 11:58:28 UTC)

naveeda stopped in to talk about IamDank’s latest creation – it’s a wonderfully-edited montage… with a 3 and a half minute intro. The intro isn’t just credits, though – it’s a cool collection of machinima shorts that work nicely to introduce the montage itself. A great way to spend a Sunday morning! (If you’ve got a Vimeo account, you can download the 720p version of this – definitely worth it.)(Louis Wu 11:55:56 UTC)

MasterCheifn was the first to let us know about Halo 3 Fails Episode 9 – mostly because he’s in it (as the first FAIL). Of course, he blames someone else. (In this case, he blames CYBRFRK – and since we blame him a lot too, maybe MasterCheifn isn’t exaggerating.) (Louis Wu 11:54:18 UTC)

The most-recently-announced Halo-related Game With Fame will be coming up on March 1, when you’ll get a chance to play with Southern/Christian Rock band Disciple. Swing by Xbox.com for full details.(Louis Wu 11:53:50 UTC)

Wow, this is just… silly. Back in mid-2006, Marvel announced that they’d be publishing a monthly Halo comic, starting a few months before the release of Halo 3. The delivery of these issues has become a joke – the fourth (and last) comic is STILL not out, having had its release date pushed back AGAIN, to March 4, 2009 (given that it’s been pushed back more than a dozen times, the chances that we see it in March are slim to none). With that horrible record, you’d think Marvel would stay pretty far away from the Halo franchise… but you’d be wrong. According to io9.com, they used New York Comic Con to announce that they’re launching not one, but TWO new Halo-based comic series, the first this summer (a five-issue run), the second, ‘Halo: Spartan Black’, next winter. Thanks to Bongo for the heads-up (and subsequent rise in blood pressure).(Louis Wu 21:17:57 UTC)

Psychophan7 put together a ridiculously detailed analysis of the management of resources in the Halo Wars demo. Read it if you’ve got a while.(Louis Wu 20:58:06 UTC)

A couple of movies for you this afternoon, brought to your attention by Master Ph0bia: Darkspire’s Matchmaking Episode 19 has been released, either streaming or downloadable in 720p, and stars a guy I met in Matchmaking last night. And Arby n the Chief Season 3 Episode 07 (“Panic”) is up – folks try and come to grips with the loss of achievements and unlocked armor (stick around to the very end for a funny moment).(Louis Wu 20:52:08 UTC)

Last night, ElusiveEagle519 did some searching and turned up some interesting information about Pete Cooper’s Operation Chastity. Pete had been hoping to dole out content a little more slowly, but since it’s been found, he was kind enough to summarize the useful stuff that was put up in several different posts across a couple of threads – swing by to see truly amazing concept art for the upcoming movie project. If they can live up to what their plans are suggesting, this is going to be one HELL of a fan project.(Louis Wu 15:55:52 UTC)

2900d4u used Halo Wars cinematic footage and audio from the GI Joe trailer to make a new video about Spartan Group Omega. He also figured out how to use the Elephant as a cannon. Check out both vids in his forum post.(Louis Wu 15:55:27 UTC)