MR2NoShoes writes a long post in the HBO forum about how he was a Mac-using Marathon fan who drifted out of the Bungie community after the MS buyout, only to find himself roped back in by winning an Xbox. His return was solidified by attendance at a hush-hush backroom Bungie party at PAX. Check out the post for the sort-of sordid details.

XBOX.com is offering a good deal to XBOX Live Arcade fans. Select games are 50% off.

Zuma Deluxe: 400 points!
It takes a quick hand to unlock the treasures in this addictive puzzler. Fire magical balls to make matches, then collect coins and power-ups to clear the path.

Gauntlet: 200 points!
Get ready for multiplayer fun in this retro coin-op classic. Explore mazes together, destroying vile beasts and claiming gold, as a Warrior, Valkyrie, Wizard, and Elf.

Small Arms: 400 points!
Cyborg tabby cats, assassin truffle pigs, and mutant chimney sweeps come to life in this multiplayer shooter that’s a “must-have” for anyone with an itchy trigger finger.

DIG DUG: 200 points!
Experience the fast-paced action of this quarter-cruncher from 1982 as you take control of Dig Dug himself and vanquish Pookas and Fygars.

Xbox.com’s weekly newsletter points out an interview with Frankie about Halo 3. He says the focus in Halo 3 is playing it your way:

I hope that the main thing players take away is how much Halo 3 is their game. That is to say, it’s a game that lets them play it the way they want to, whether that means joining three friends for co-op, or hooking up with eight friends to build a new Multiplayer variant in Forge, or simply share screenshots and movies with their own subset of the Xbox LIVE(R) community. We really have gone all out to make sure this game has more initial impact, and way more replay value than any other Bungie title to date.

There’s also something about looking for two (or is it three?) hidden screenshots that littlebigman pointed out in the HBO forum.

Reverend Anthony at Destructoid wonders out loud how it’s possible to have a satisfying ending to a game narrative that isn’t just a boss battle without taking the sense of control and identification away from the player. He’s got a good point.

The article mentions a wide variety of games, but the Halo series does get mentioned:

To put it bluntly, there will not be a game made in the next decade that cannot be sequelized. In our current “evolution, not revolution” gaming climate, we opt for sequels and spinoffs and clones more than we respect the standalone work of art, in the same way other genres do. As a result, games are almost required to have some sort of open end, which usually involves (A) the protagonist surviving, and (B) the possibility of conflict remaining. Gears of War ends with absolutely nothing solved. Halo 2 ends on a cliffhanger.

Halo 1’s open-ended ending also is mentioned by some of the comments left on this article. Most users felt the combination of The Maw, as a level, and the understated cutscene that ended the game was pretty satisfying. So, Halo 1’s non-ending ending was okay, but Halo 2’s non-ending ending wasn’t.

How will Halo 3 end? A little less than a month left before we find out.

There’s been an awful lot of community discussion around the first version of Microsoft’s recently released Game Content Usage Rules. Most likely a result of Halo 3’s upcoming Saved Films feature, Microsoft is the first game publisher to openly publish such rules, instead of simply remaining silent over copyright violations that do benefit them insofar as they help promote the games.

Shortly after the rules were noticed, some machinima studios claimed that its restrictions against “adding to the game universe” and prohibition against usic “music and audio effects” forced them to close down.

Machinima For Dummies has two news articles on the rules: one, two. Hugh Hancock provided an analysis of the rules, stating that they do need revision but are mostly positive.

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Tex did a calculation over at Queen of the Hill to find out exactly how much her Halo obsession costs. The grand total? $2098 and change. Yowza.