A redesign is taking place over at the Bungie store–check out the work in progress.

Gamers With Jobs urges gamers not to expect too much from Halo 3, because nothing can live up to the hype. While examining the extent to which our appetites are dictated to us by the omnipresence of information about AAA must-sell titles, it does seem that some of Julian “rabbit” Murdoch‘s theses say more about his approach to gaming in specific and entertainment in general than the medium itself.

In response to having one’s expectations brought too high, Murdoch quotes Alice Walker:

Expect nothing. Live frugally on surprise.

However, if Walker had been a gamer, perhaps the more appropriate quote to choose for Halo 3 would be:

What the mind doesn’t understand, it worships or fears.

Thanks for the heads-up to Louis Wu at HBO.

XerxdeeJ at Tied the Leader interviews the Master Chief himself, Steve Downes, for the second time. Head right on over and download it!

The Hushed Casket has details on how some people with access to the Epsilon build of Halo 3 got duped into offering access to the game to unauthorized persons by getting access to those users’ gamertags on their own consoles, and using that gamertag to download the build.

Check the story for full details; there are no real plot spoilers in the story itself, but there are fuzzy image captures from both multiplayer action and campaign play from Tsavo Highway.

Back in August, gaming website Kotaku posted scans of what purported to be a leaked Halo 3 manual on their site. Not knowing if they were genuine, they put them up and let the readership decide whether to give them credence or not.

Now it seems that Internet Investigator James Young has sent Kotaku a rather odd letter. Kotaku has posted the entirety of the letter, but it’s worth pulling out a few select pieces for examination:

It has come to Microsoft’s attention that your website includes material which is in violation of Microsoft’s intellectual property rights. Content currently residing within your computer system infringes on the trademark rights of Microsoft Corporation and constitutes an unauthorized activity relating to Microsoft computer programs.

So, first off, disclaimers: I Am Not A Lawyer and This Article Does Not Constitute Legal Advice.

Secondly, trademark infringement. This usually refers to use of a registered trademark within a certain context. These are protected to prevent companies from creating me-too products to confuse consumers.

 Click here for the complete text.

John “JCal” Callaham has written another of Firing Squad’s quarterly updates on the console wars; the page on the Xbox 360 has a number of suggestions to Microsoft on how to win the console wars. FS thinks a flawless Halo 3 launch is important:

Even though the game has gone gold there are still things that could happen that could make the launch an issue. There could be copies of the game that are unplayable due to issues in manufacturing. Pirates could gain access to the game early. A rush of online players on Xbox Live on launch day could cause slowdowns in the network. Microsoft has pretty much everything riding on Halo 3 being a huge success. It can’t have anything happen that could cause the Xbox 360 as a whole to suffer.

That’s probably an exaggeration. The Public Beta had a few bumps in the first few days, mostly for Crackdown buyers. If some problem prevents everyone from getting online the first few days, somehow I doubt that will affect Halo 3 sales or the 360 platform that much.

The following article contains pictures, albeit fuzzy pictures, of gameplay from Halo 3 Epsilon. This includes multiplayer in-game shots, menu shots, and shots from one level of the campaign. If you do not wish to see them then go no further. Furthermore, THX and its staff did not participate in their procurement, nor do we condone the method in which they were procured. If you’re still with me, click ‘read more.’

Yesterday we received a tip that a way had been devised to download Halo 3 Epsilon on Xbox Live. Figuring something fishy was afoot, I still investigated because…well…we’re talking about Halo 3 here. I was informed that the story goes as such: A Microsoft employee got her son into Halo 3 Epsilon. Other gamers saw him playing it online and proceeded to pull a pretty dastardly trick. They pretended to have access to a beta of Project Gotham Racing 4 and promised the lad a redemption code to download it in return for his XBL login information so that they could download Halo 3 Epsilon. He agreed, giving them his account recovery information. They gave him a fake redemption code in return. They then recovered his account on each of their Xbox 360s and downloaded Halo 3 Epsilon. The total number of people that downloaded Halo 3 Epsilon is 8. It appears the joy lasted for about a day before Microsoft got wise and removed the ability of the illegitimate players to launch Halo 3 Epsilon or download it again. They were not banned from XBL, but the demo would no longer launch and it was removed from the download history of the compromised gamertag. In the short time they had it they shrewdly took some screen shots, and that is where the below pictures originated. As someone mentioned in another thread here on THX, Halo 3 is just too big to be contained. Something like this was bound to happen sooner or later. The source merely asked that BFG be given credit for the screenshots, and that I list his email address: cptbansheekiller@gmail.com.

Check out the Brute Mauler!

That’s some pretty leet looking armor on that…err…Elite.

An Elite manning the turret just feels wrong. Is that glass damage to the windshield?

Look at the gunner’s face!

What is Chief holding?

Ahh…the Forge.