Black Six pointed out a preview for the Halo 3 Official Strategy Guide, over at Xbox.com. It’s a 10 mb, 9 page PDF download, and it makes it pretty clear that this guide is GORGEOUS. Go look!(Louis Wu 15:50:32 UTC)

I visited Rampancy.net last night, and found a bunch of interesting articles I’d missed:

• Chevmeister on Bungie.net has gone to the trouble of removing all default objects from Bungie’s maps, so that you can start with blank slates for your Forge creations – what a bonus! (R.net story)
  
  
• The Sydney Morning Herald has an interview with Damian Isla, a Campaign Engineer on Halo 3, discussing how the AI works in Halo – with some nice examples. (R.net story)
  
  
• Pro-G talked to a couple of Bungie employees recently; Joe Tung stated that Halo 4 was not in development (R.net story), and Lee Wilson explained that Bungie’s not trying to recreate a photorealistic world (R.net story). Since these were posted, Pro-G has put up the full interview with these two guys; there are a number of other tidbits they get to (like how lousy Lee is with a non-grenade weapon).
  
  
• Wired posted an article about how Epitaph is based on Chartres, a medieval cathedral in France (R.net story). Since then, Wired has posted another article – this one looks at Halo 3’s AI, like the SMH article, except this time, it’s Max Dyckhoff discussing the issues they faced.

Just remember: Rampancy.net has been there since the very beginning of Halo fandom (they were the Core before they were R.net, and it’s not completely clear whether they, or we, were the first site on the scene) – if they’re not on your Halo rounds list, they should be.(Louis Wu 15:41:27 UTC)

News dump, yet again (I don’t know about you, but I’m looking forward to the day when coverage can go back to commentary on every item):

• The Seattle Post-Intelligencer thought Halo 3 was good, but not great; there were plot holes. Three stars out of four.
  
  
• 3of9 found a very cool UNSC logo shirt at MyTeeSpot
  
  
• Gamespot created a graphical comparison between the three games; it’s a little unfair because they did a far better job getting screenshots for Halo 3 than for the other two, but the general idea is sound (thanks, Marcus-626)
  
  
• Scott Hanselman reviewed the game for his blog, and declared it ‘balanced’
  
  
• Britain’s Telegraph reviews Halo 3, and says that “Halo 3 crosses into the “essential” category effortlessly”.
  
  
• TheStreet.com warns that enthusiastic launch events do NOT say anything useful long-term for investors; they’re taking a ‘wait and see’ approach.
  
  
• Apparently, the US Air Force took advantage of the launch to try to do some recruiting in a small town in New Hampshire
  
  
• Yahoo Games has posted a Halo 3: First Tips article
  
  
• The New York Times posted a ‘ho hum’ article; I must include this quote:

  For all its grand panoramas and its galaxywide narrative, Halo 3’s plot feels like a bit of a throwaway, a rather short adventure with a predictable story and dialogue that is sometimes as hokey as something from an old John Wayne war movie.

  The author felt that Halo 3 was simply Halo 2 with better graphics.
  
  
• Binary Bonsai thought the story was a little obscure, but that the game was really fun anyway

More news coming soon – this was just a way to TRY and clear out the bulk of the backlog.(Louis Wu 14:46:17 UTC)

Bungie’s got a Halo 3 Launch FAQ posted; the answers to some of the most common questions they’re seeing can be found in there. Worth a look, even if you’re not having trouble – you might learn something!(Louis Wu 04:19:00 UTC)

We got mail from a couple of people about some recent Halo 3 events in Singapore; Spu7n1k sent along info from his blog (17 September | 19 September | 22 September), showing the progress on his launch party costume – winner of best costume got a Legendary Edition, which isn’t even sold in Singapore; I don’t know if he won), as well as links to videos of the Believer 3 and Believer 4 events (these were filmed by Duelist). Finally, he sent along pics of the schwag from these events (a Halo 3 cap from 3, and a wristband from 4). Qdepartment went to the launch, and sent along a whole bunch of pics – the best of the bunch were a shot of a Master Chief statue at the event, and a pic of the nice bag all the schwag came in. Nice deal for those guys!(Louis Wu 04:13:39 UTC)

Sunburned Goose, from 2old2play.com, sent along this animated gif showing the Online World Map (visible with real-time data on Bungie’s Online page) over the course of 24 hours, from Monday afternoon through Tuesday afternoon. For a slightly different view of the same sort of data, Tieno, over at the Neogaf forum, put up a similar image from the night of the launch (thanks, GhaleonEB).(Louis Wu 03:42:32 UTC)

3Suns pointed out a couple of hot links at MLGPro.com – their Halo 3 Launchtacular page, and a recap page from Orlando, including a spotlight on Str8 Rippin, the 4v4 champs this time around. Check it out!(Louis Wu 03:24:02 UTC)

According to this story at 1Up, there is new content on Xbox Live Marketplace that’s free to Gold users. However, following the image shown in the story gets me to a page that has 5 theme/gamerpic items available – all of which cost money (well, points). There are supposedly also videos coming later this week – we’ll see what happens there. Thanks to Zeouterlimits for the heads-up. (Louis Wu 03:16:56 UTC)

Shacknews has posted an article about Forge, and what it can do. It’s a great read – go check it out! Thanks, Chris Remo(Louis Wu 03:04:18 UTC)

trigger119 pointed out the GTV Spotlight over at GamingTV – it focuses on Zukan, a longtime community contributor who is suffering from Hodgkin Lymphoma – he’ll be starting chemo soon. Stop by and give the guy some support!(Louis Wu 03:02:05 UTC)

Samir Patel pointed out Halomen, an adult-rated Flash vid at Newgrounds which comes up with an alternate storyline for Halo. Animation and artwork are great, story… not so much.(Louis Wu 02:59:37 UTC)

Kooberz let us know he’s finished his Lego Zanzibar video – you can see it on YouTube. It’s a 9 minute walktrhough, showing how closely he matched the Lego stuff to the in-game map. Even the bridge works! Insanity. It also contains tons of info about the building of the project – if you’re into Lego construction, this is amazing.(Louis Wu 02:47:52 UTC)

We’ve received news from a couple of fronts about the upcoming Halo 3 Official Soundtrack. SeannyD got email from Risa Malkinson, from Sumthing Distribution, letting him know that the release date will be in November. This is corroborated by Aj6627, who noticed that the Amazon listing for the soundtrack has a release date of November 16. (It also says ‘1 Disc’, and we know from last week’s interview with Marty O’Donnell on Music4Games that this information is probably wrong… so take it all with a grain of salt.)(Louis Wu 02:42:19 UTC)

You think YOU’RE devoted to Halo? You ain’t got NOTHIN’ on Alterb0y, a soldier in Iraq. He had his wife pick up his copy Legendary Edition copy and FedEx it overseas. Legendary Edition of Halo 3: $129.99 (plus tax). FedEx shipping: $326. The ability to play Halo 3 with your buds in the desert – well, not quite priceless. I’m thinking it’s closer to $600. (Louis Wu 22:57:43 UTC)

Major Nelson posted a press release about yesterday’s sales – Halo 3 is officially the biggest single-day sales event in entertainment history. $170 Million in the US, in 24 hours… not too shabby. Thanks, KP.(Louis Wu 22:46:39 UTC)

Comic roundup for Wednesday:

• LostRock11 noticed that SORE THUMBS had Halo 3-related strips on Monday and Wednesday – they both hit home
• Ure Paul let us know that ActionTrip celebrated the release of Halo 3 with a Muppets-inspired comic (I love those guys)
• Subnova comes back online with a new .Comic – and a mini-review of Halo 3 to boot

Good stuff!(Louis Wu 22:44:48 UTC)