Psychophan7 has put together a page containing all the Halo 3 player emblems, so that you can begin choosing your Spartan customization. simpsonsrule thought this was pretty cool, and sent us a link. He’s right, it’s pretty cool, but the HTML page contains 80 separate images, and weighs in at nearly half a meg total, so rather than drain Psycho’s host’s bandwidth, I’ve saved the resultant page as a single image (600×1920, 136k). Take a look!(Louis Wu 07:53:17 UTC)

Haloplayer let us know that Countdown Comic #5 is now up at Injured Knee Productions. I think Microsoft might have found a new superhero. (While you’re there, there’s also a link to a Guitar Hero Spartan he created, in that same post.)(Louis Wu 21:49:46 UTC)

Heh – Pedro the Penguin noticed that IGN visitors REALLY want some Halo today… because the ‘Most Popular’ sidebar on their homepage changes, we’ve screenshotted it as of about 5 pm, ET, on Saturday September 22.(Louis Wu 21:11:54 UTC)

Decent musings on difficulty levels… and how they affect reviews, over at PCWorld.com. (For the record – Bungie made me play through on Heroic.)(Louis Wu 21:00:11 UTC)

Hawty McBloggy’s activity of the day is drawing Mister Chiefs – go have a blast!(Louis Wu 19:31:25 UTC)

Rapper Lil’ John isn’t much of a Halo player – but his son is teaching him. Thanks, singkeo2002. (Louis Wu 19:13:42 UTC)

Marcelo Vega, of Xbox Today (a Brazilian website), let us know that there was a Halo 3 launch party in Brazil – Halo 3 is going to be the first midnight launch of a game in that country. They put up an article about the launch, as well as pictures of the Limited Edition’s Artbook, fully translated into Portuguese (a first for the Brazilian videogame industry). (That USB drive you see in the first article was given out to members of the press – it’s loaded with all the Halo 3 Believe ads, in 720p.) Nice to see other countries aren’t being slighted! (Louis Wu 19:08:17 UTC)

This is the funniest Halo video I’ve seen in a while. (Yes, that includes Halo Nights.) Go watch it. You’ll laugh. Thanks, Jim Bob. (Louis Wu 18:44:13 UTC)

Also from Anton P. Nym – ReportonBusiness.com (a part of Canada’s Globe and Mail) has an article in which Jerret West, Senior Global Product Manager for Xbox, talks about how the overall marketing campaign for Halo 3 was built the way it was. I must say… it seems to be working!(Louis Wu 18:35:48 UTC)

Wow, this is pretty cool. If you visit this website, you’ll see movies and photos of the Royal Swedish Ballet practicing for an interpretive dance on September 26, at the Berwaldhallen concert hall in Stockholm, Sweden. The Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra will be playing Halo music, and Halo machinima will be shown. Pretty amazing looking stuff! Thanks to Anton P. Nym, who found it at Kotaku.(Louis Wu 18:31:35 UTC)

ManKitten sent in a link to a YouTube version of a Believe ad I haven’t seen yet – it’s called ‘Hunted’, and it looks at a soldier reliving a frightening night during the war. It might be my favorite, so far… as far as I can tell, it hasn’t appeared in Hi-res anywhere yet.(Louis Wu 17:51:53 UTC)

Halopen has chosen this weekend to release Threshold Part 2, a new machinima. They’re very excited about it – so much so that they really want me to post a description of the movie that they wrote. We don’t usually do this, but I’ll make an exception this time:

A lone general known as Hypnos, endeavors to win the war against the humans. But there is one thing stopping him from achieving victory, himself. His dark side has gotten to know him more than he knew himself, and this has become a problem for Hypnos and his army. Can he fight through his insanity and continue to live or will he confront his demon and destroy it?

Finding the video is actually non-trivial – but if you click on the picture that makes up the top news post on their website, you’ll be taken to a Mythica page where you can download it. WMP9 format, 16 minutes long, 87 mb. Thanks, xbryboyremix.(Louis Wu 17:50:04 UTC)

DHalo was the first to point out the new Bungie Online section of Bungie.net – on the one hand, it might make you sad, because there are currently 1,325 Halo 3 players online, and the kill counts for the UNSC Campaign are already absurdly high… but on the other hand, most of us will be playing in full by the middle of next week, and those numbers will grow by orders of magnitude. Still – poking around shows some really cool sections and pieces… definitely worth a look! Warning: I probably should have remembered to post this earlier… but remember that snapshots on Bungie Online MIGHT CONTAIN SPOILERS. Browse the section at your own risk. Sorry for the late warning.(Louis Wu 17:34:21 UTC)

The Orlando Sentinel has an article on the PMS Clan, as they prepare for MLG Orlando. (The headline for this news post came from the PMS team captain, before I get accused of anything.)(Louis Wu 12:08:50 UTC)

The formatting is awful, but a new article in the Vancouver Sun has some new quotes from Bungie and Microsoft folks. (Louis Wu 12:06:13 UTC)

Ouch. Destructoid, among other sites, are reporting that folks on the NeoGAF forum are having major troubles with the Limited Edition of Halo 3; the clip that holds the discs in place inside the box is too small, and the discs are moving around… which leads to scratching. (I’m really surprised by this, because scratching was an issue with the Halo 2 Limited Edition (though for a different reason; there, two discs were piled one on top of the other) – you think they’d have found a way to fix it by now.) More on this when we know it. Thanks, Amy Veeres. (Louis Wu 11:21:40 UTC)