Today’s update for the Halo 3 Cutscene Library contains the cutscenes from the level ‘The Ark’ – but it also contains a cleaned-up version of the closing cutscene for ‘The Storm’. A number of people noticed that there was overlapping music in the first version we uploaded, so Cody kindly went back and re-recorded the cutscene. He had to do it a LOT of times; it seems that overlap is common. The version up now has a tiny bit of overlap, but it’s way better than it was. Enjoy – and enjoy the Ark scenes!(Louis Wu 22:40:36 UTC)

ninjakilpirate let us know about HaloUnofficial.com, which has leaderboards for the Campaign meta-game scores. Submit your scores, and see where you stand! (Louis Wu 22:38:55 UTC)

This is actually quite cool – The More Deluded created a sculpture of the Arbiter… in wire. Artistic!(Louis Wu 22:26:26 UTC)

Devrous stopped by for the first time in a while – looks like he had a pretty rough summer! He’s back on track with his Freespace 2: Halo total conversion, and has a new website online. Take a look!(Louis Wu 22:17:44 UTC)

Zeouterlimits pointed out yet ANOTHER Staten interview – this time at 1UP. Short – but solid!(Louis Wu 20:49:15 UTC)

ZZoMBiE13 has a new funni for you today, over at Another Halo Comic Strip – a mystery of the ages… solved.(Louis Wu 18:26:38 UTC)

Last Friday’s Bungie Weekly Update hinted at fun changes to the playlist roster around Halloween. Swing by Bungie.net right now for full details – they’re putting up an Infection-based playlist for 27 hours, starting tonight at midnight (PST). Full details (including ways you can use this information to get some of the harder-to-grab achievements out there, and neat tricks for downloading the gametypes for future use) are in the interview with Ferrex. Thanks, ViralSyris.(Louis Wu 17:52:01 UTC)

It’s clearly Joe Staten day (not surprising, since it’s the day Contact Harvest is officially released) – we got word that GameTap has an interview with him, as well. Well, Part 1 of an interview, anyway. It’s pretty meaty already – and there is more coming! Thanks, Jared Rea.(Louis Wu 17:46:07 UTC)

Bungie has posted the prologue from Contact Harvest – if you didn’t get a chance to read this in the current issue of Official Xbox Magazine, you can read it here, for nothin’. Thanks, Dry Ice.(Louis Wu 16:33:20 UTC)

Heh – there’s an interesting piece at the Weekly Dig; it originally appeared in Willamette Week, an alternative weekly newspaper in Portland, Oregon (my old stomping grounds). It’s a writeup of a grudge match between Michael Evans (who worked on Halo and Halo 2, but not Halo 3) and a friend of his (who plays Halo, apparently, about as well as I do). Some great quotes I can’t use here without breaking language filters for some readers… thanks, Pete.(Louis Wu 16:28:21 UTC)

Hoovaloov stopped by to point out the newest content at Tied the Leader – there’s an article from your favorite Halo General, XerxdeeJ, about the importance of rank, and a vid from Hoovaloov himself, LagtaculaR, a hilarious look at the vagaries of internet connections.(Louis Wu 16:16:22 UTC)

IGN has a podcast called ‘Three Red Lights’ – Episode 12 contains an interview with Joe Staten, about Contact Harvest (which is officially released today, don’t forget!). The interview kicks off about 53 minutes into the podcast, and has a lot of info about the book and how it was written. There are some silly questions (“While you were writing it, were you working close with the guys at Bungie?”), but mostly it’s a pretty interesting interview. Go listen! I found out about this at Planet Halo. (Louis Wu 15:57:39 UTC)

Heh – Kotaku points out a Halo billboard that’s… not really pulling its weight, advertising-wise. Thanks, KP.(Louis Wu 15:42:59 UTC)

We’ve posted a lot of fan-made armor over the years – everything from paper to injection-molded plastic. Spartans, mostly, but also Elites, Grunts, Hunters, Flood. Yesterday we got mail from Frank Carradine, who created an Elite costume for Halloween this year… it’s amazing. You’ve got to see it. I wish we had more pics.(Louis Wu 14:23:58 UTC)

We got word from Tim ‘343 Guilty Spark’ Dadabo – he’s willing to create, as he has in years past, a recording (using the voice of Spark) for the answering machine/voicemail of the winner of our Guilt O’ Lantern pumpkin-carving contest; if you thought the first-place prize package was just a little too small to tempt you to submit an entry… think again! You’ve still got well over a day – submissions close at midnight (ET) tomorrow. (Here’s an example from a couple of years ago – this one was for Michael Coffing, and was recorded by both Dadabo and Steve Downes.)(Louis Wu 13:57:44 UTC)

TTL Demag0gue has posted the next episode of his Reclaimer comic – Chapter One, Part 2 is called ‘Shut Up and Listen’. I’m already jonesin’ for the next ep! (Louis Wu 13:46:14 UTC)