Heh, cool. Remember the Blind Wolf? It made its first appearance in ‘Evolution‘, a retrospective look at Halo’s development, and then showed up as concept art (screenshot, 60k) in the ‘Cutting Room Floor’ feature of the Halo 2 Special Edition DVD. This morning, F R sent us a shot taken from within the Creature Creator demo for the game Spore – nice start! (F R complained about the color palette and the lack of resources remaining – and hinted there might be more ‘Halo-esque critters’ coming later on. Even with the limitations, this looks great!) (Louis Wu 13:11:17 UTC)

Luke Smith and Shishka wrote up a joint blog post about the MLG San Diego tourney, and their involvement in it. Best news in the piece? Cold Storage art assets coming to Bungie.net later this week. (Louis Wu 13:03:56 UTC)

Worth Playing posted 3 new screenshots from the GamePro Halo Wars spread – when I was trying to figure out if these were authorized or not, I ran across three OTHER ones on GamePro’s website, posted last week. The WP shots look digital, which is a step towards the light side (they’re not scans, at least). Check ’em out! Update: Psychophan7 pointed out (correctly) that the Worth Playing shots came from last year’s E3 Demo (still available on the Halo Wars website). Bah. I hate sites that sleaze their way to pageviews. (The three shots on the GamePro site are definitely new, though.) (Louis Wu 12:49:09 UTC)

Adam Kovic reminded us that Inside Halo 17 was released a few days ago – eep, we missed it. (Especially bad, since it highlighted HBO…) Also contains some great flag-related screenshots, and potentially dead puppies. Go watch!(Louis Wu 12:48:30 UTC)

Hawty McBloggy found an auction on eBay for a Master Chief bobblehead… but a little digging around showed that Funko is releasing these puppies in the next month or two, and their street price is considerably lower than that eBay Buy it Now price. If you want one of these, preorder from a legitimate outlet, or wait until July/August (depending on the variant) to buy them. The three spartans (silver, red, blue) can be grabbed at the San Diego Comic Con – the green Master Chief will be available a couple of weeks later.(Louis Wu 12:47:17 UTC)

Dennis Powers sent word that Shipwrecked Episode 30 (‘Watched’) is now online (Johnston and Taylor are in a new valley, but still under surveillance), and Sane Intolerant told us that a new episode of Halo Toy Box is up, in which internet memes are torqued to fit the Halo universe. And K8lunch let us know that the latest Larry the Marine (‘Wish come true’) has been posted, as well – be careful what you wish for! Comics everywhere!(Louis Wu 12:43:15 UTC)

Spartanx5 is back with another weapon model (we last saw him in early May with an energy sword) – this time he’s worked on the Spike Grenade. Swing by his DeviantART page to see what he’s done!(Louis Wu 12:42:35 UTC)

Bungie’s posted a news item about The Cole Protocol, a new novel set in the Halo universe. It’s the sixth such novel, and it’s being written by Tobias Buckell. It’s due out this fall. This seems to be a followup to Ghosts of Onyx, though there’s very little information about the book itself in the news post. Thanks to CougRon for noticing.(Louis Wu 19:28:28 UTC)

BlueNinja has been working on some new panoramic shots – check ’em out.(Louis Wu 18:10:20 UTC)

Rooster Teeth has released RvB: Reconstruction Chapter 4 for sponsors (if previous releases are any indication, it’ll be up for everyone within the hour) – Caboose and Washington go looking for an old friend. Well… maybe not so much a friend, as an acquaintance. Co-worker. Mortal enemy? Dang. Go watch.(Louis Wu 17:10:59 UTC)

Another interesting series has been started over at Ascendant Justice – they’re calling it ‘The Architecture of War‘, and it looks at the factors of the Halo campaigns that make them so enjoyable to return to again and again. First up – Environments. Go see how your surroundings affect your playstyle! Upcoming chapters include ‘Sandbox’ and ‘Enemies’. Thanks to mendicantbias00 for the heads-up.(Louis Wu 16:09:49 UTC)