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)

News roundup:

• The New York Times wrote a pretty long article about Halo 3 – not a lot new in it, but significant for the column space in a paper like the Times (thanks, Usul)
• TalkXBOX wrote up 10 Reasons they’re Pumped for Halo 3 – thanks, Rishi Modha
• ESPN (really? ESPN?) checks out what makes Halo 3 special – thanks, revan09
• Master Chief rang the final bell at NASDAQ yesterday – Major Nelson has pics, Xbox Scene has a story (thanks, RVideo)
• You can buy a pretty nice Brute Spiker replica on eBay (auction ends in less than 4 days) – current bid is $250 (thanks, Dualist)
• TeamXbox posted all 300 pictures distributed to journalists by Bungie a couple of weeks ago – I’m sure they’re elsewhere, too, but most folks put up representative samples. These are scaled to 1000 pixels wide.
• Roger Travis has talked about the epic nature of the Halo story before (we mentioned him in May) – he’s back, with an update for Halo 3
• Heather Newman of the Detroit Free Press gets a reader to help with Halo 3 review (they completed the whole campaign in 4 hours with 2-player coop; they must have been playing easy or normal)
• Data Mining looks at Halo mentions in the blogosphere compared with Resident Evil (the top video game release from last week), the Bourne Ultimatum (one of the largest movies of the summer)… and the iPhone.
• Drost, of 2Old2Play, posted a full Halo 3 review a couple of days ago – he says “it’s the most fun I’ve ever had playing a game.”
• Entertainment Weekly reviewed Halo – both reviewers gave it an A
• Techtree.com (in India) previewed Halo 3 – and liked it
• Apparently, Walmart in Canada plans to sell Halo 3 at price parity with the US, which will make the game cheaper at that store than at most stores in Canada (their price for the standard edition is $59.83 – about CDN$10 below everyone else)
• MTV wrote up an interesting piece on Saved Films – check out how a cool screenshot came to be
• A Guardian Unlimited blog discusses how many cliches were hit in the Halo 3 coverage
• Joystiq is giving away some amazing stuff – go visit and see if you can win (thanks, Engadget)
• Business Week wrote a really nice piece on the social aspect of Halo 3, and where it might be leading us (obDisclosure: I have a quote in this one)

Good lord, that’s a ridiculous list. Unfortunately, that didn’t even clear out the queue; there’s more coming. I’m not sure if I can get to it right away.(Louis Wu 20:46:10 UTC)

Darkphibre created a “walkaround” viewer which runs in Windows – you can use it to see really cool pics of the Limited Edition Scarab ActionClix Figure (he took the pics at PAX). (Louis Wu 20:13:10 UTC)

Wow. So I was going through mail that came to email addresses other than halo@bungie.org, thinking that I’d make a summary of all the news that hadn’t gotten posted in the last couple of days before I STARTED posting – but the list is so enormous that I’ll never get through it unless I just start. So – I’ll do my best to combine like items, but beware the news flood! First up, some release night shenanigans around the country (and the world):

• iRTsuki made a cake for her local Gamestop: Top | Side (thanks, Thorn Harvestar)
• A Random Act of Kindness in Reading, PA – when a teenager dressed up as the Master Chief shows up to buy Halo 3, and it’s learned that he doesn’t even own a 360, someone buys him one – thanks, VelocityTino
• dogsounds described a lower-key event in the UK – you know you’re not in the US when those in the queue are offered eclairs while they wait
• Crispy got himself a pair of tickets to the big London gala – the woman he invited wrote up the experience
• zakguy wrote up his Gamestop’s Midnight launch for the magazine he works for
• Dry Ice took some pictures at the Gamestop in Grandville, MI
• Comics Alliance wrote up THEIR local Gamestop event – thanks, singkeo2002

I think we should probably call it a day after those; I’m sure there are HUNDREDS of writeups of local launch things (there were, after all, over 10,000 stores in the US, 1,000 stores in the UK, and uncounted numbers in other countries all open for this event), but we’ll say this is representative. (Louis Wu 20:00:23 UTC)

Check out this Halo bundle on eBay. Zowie. Got a bunch of spare money, anyone? 😉 (Thanks to MffnMn for the link)(mnemesis 16:10:02 UTC)

The HBO forum is now back online – if you haven’t finished the game, I’d caution you to be careful. We ask that folks not post spoilers without warning (and not to put spoilers in subject lines); we’ll do our best to remove or relabel spoiler posts if it does happen (and we’ll ban folks who think it’s funny to try and ruin others’ games) – but we can’t promise you won’t see something you don’t want to… so if you’re worried, pretend it’s still closed.(Louis Wu 16:08:58 UTC)