Wow, nice. SodaGod has started a Halo news show over at Machinima.com; yes, these have been done before, but not with audio this good, or with SG’s whacky brand of humor. The video information listed is pretty much entirely wrong; the downloaded video is 48 mb, not 37, and the running time is 5 minutes, not 8:28 – but it’s a great watch. You can also snag it on YouTube if you don’t want to download it. Thanks, Adam Kovic.(Louis Wu 10:50:44 UTC)

Wow, nice work – KidWitPotential, over at Bungie.net, recreated the original Halo Combat Evolved box art using Halo 3, with a friend – and then they did the Halo 2 Multiplayer Map Pack art. If the screenshots disappear, we have local copies (Halo CE | Multiplayer Map Pack). Thanks, gijake.(Louis Wu 10:02:02 UTC)

Awesome – Walshicus noticed some tombstones on Valhalla, apparently tied to the date today (it is Halloween, after all) – in case the FileShare links he posted disappear, we’ve downloaded local copies (one | two). RVideo also took a pic.(Louis Wu 09:48:08 UTC)

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)