Bruce Shelley, a designer for Ensemble Studios, posted in his blog yesterday, and there’s a bunch of info about Halo Wars. It ranges from interesting observations about gameplay and strategy to the lunch menu provided to the team during the crunch leading up to E3. Thanks to Planet Halo for the heads-up.(Louis Wu 09:52:55 UTC)

Installation05 is holding another giveaway – this time, it’s a 2-figure Actionclix promo pack, and entering is as simple as sending an email entry. In fact, you can send an entry each day (but don’t exceed that, or you’ll be disqualified). If you identify yourself as coming from HBO, you get a double entry! Swing by the Events page for full details. (You can also pick up McFarlane Halo 3 Series 1 vehicles pretty cheap, if you want ’em!) (Louis Wu 09:52:06 UTC)

Dennis Powers let us know that Shipwrecked Episode 33 is now up – looks like the ring is providing, again.(Louis Wu 09:51:41 UTC)

Over at the Bungie.net blog, there’s a call from a fan that all players on LIVE should change their armor emblem to either the 7th Column symbol, or the number 7, for next Monday’s Bungie Day celebrations. Nice idea!(Louis Wu 09:51:23 UTC)

Red vs Blue: Reconstruction – Chapter 5 has been released for sponsors – it’ll be up for everyone else later this evening. Washington does his best to get Church and Caboose into places they shouldn’t be going… and to a meeting with an old friend. Lots of backstory in this one!(Louis Wu 02:41:34 UTC)

The Mix Foundation has announced the nominees for the award for Creative Achievement in Interactive Entertainment Sound Production at the upcoming 24th Annual TEC Awards. Halo 3 is up against Bioshock, Call of Duty 4, The Orange Box, and Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune. Winners will be announced on October 3. The full press release is here.(Louis Wu 21:00:46 UTC)

BlueNinja pointed out that he’s updated his ‘Views from the Edge’ blog with a bunch of new panoramas – there are even some Halo 2 versions! Go look. (If you’re looking for stuff since the last time we mentioned the site, it looks like the ‘Campaign: The Covenant‘ link about halfway down the June list is the first new one.)(Louis Wu 15:14:05 UTC)

Tony “ubald” Marcotte let us know that he’s created a new Halo render – this one is called ‘First Kill of the Day’, and it’s a pretty nice piece of work! The subject material is a little… disturbing, but maybe that’s just me. We’ve updated his local gallery here.(Louis Wu 13:58:37 UTC)

TrueDarkFusion pointed out that the third part of Forge Hub’s Forging Retrospective is now online. This one looks at Forge’s long-term popularity, in the face of not only other aspects of Halo 3, but other GAMES. Go read!(Louis Wu 13:45:28 UTC)

TTL Demag0gue let us know that Reclaimer 60 is now up – with word of a whole new cast of characters. Things are getting complicated!(Louis Wu 13:39:28 UTC)

Yeah, so if it had been anyone but ZZoMBiE13, I’d have said no… but hey, Another Halo Comic Strip is his baby, and the Guest strips that run on Sundays are his choices. I say this so that you don’t blame me for what you’re about to view.(Louis Wu 18:36:49 UTC)