For the 360 owners out there, there are even MORE goodies for you – a new Halo 3 theme and gamerpics to match. Go look.

If you’ve got a 360, jump on to Marketplace right now. You can download a 104 mb trailer for Halo3 there. (To the best of my knowledge, this is not available outside of Xbox Live’s Marketplace.) Thanks to many – looks like Dan Chosich was first.

Lo, the Hype Machine Cometh. Kotaku’s got a story about a Halo 3 shirt sighting – no guarantee that the person WEARING the shirt is not a fan who made it himself, but hey – it is what it is. Only a couple more hours until the MS press conference; it’s likely we’ll know SOMETHING more by the end of it all. Thanks, Dylan Crawford.

GT Juggler has just finished up his first year at WPI, and he and some friends have released a playable map of the campus, so that EVERYONE can enjoy fragging each other at his school. The download is 24.5 mb for HaloCE, or 25.7 mb for Xbox (you’ll need a modded Xbox to play this one). There’s a movie on the site, as well, showing a runthrough of the map – it looks amazing! (WPI is like any other college in America, it seems, except that all the faculty drive red warthogs.) Check it out!

The Valley of the Forerunners Part 11, the Conclusion of season 3, has been posted over at the Halo CE Chronicles website. A heroic sacrifice and some philosophical musings bring closure to this epic tale. Dennis Powers has posted a list of links to all parts, for folks who were waiting for the series to be complete before watching. Pick your flavor, check out how gorgeous Halo scenery can be merged with a thoughtful story.

Halo 3 Boards has an interview with our own distinguished Louis Wu, the “Godfather of HBO” (also known as the “Legal Guardian, Babysitter, and Annoyingly Wiser Cousin of HBO”). Anyway, check it out, and take a look around there while you’re at it!

A year ago, Archie Gates started creating Needler songs over at Gamespot. (Unfortunately, his profile is now private, so I can’t link you there.) He’s since created 4 (search our news) – and just recently, imSuck, of HollywoodHalo, submitted ‘Beautiful Needler’, a music video based on the first Needler song, to the MPRRS. The reviewers loved it. Go grab a copy. WMP9 version is 43.2 mb, QuickTime version is 41.9 mb. Awesome, classic song, perfectly synched to Halo action. Christina would be proud. (Well, okay, maybe not – maybe she’d be like ‘OMGWTF’, but she SHOULD be proud.)

A couple of days ago, Ross Mills pointed out that there was an advertisement for the Halo Graphic Novel in a Marvel product he was looking at. It’s a pretty nice ad, with some heretofore unseen pics in it – so we’re putting up a copy (189K). I have trouble believing Marvel would have a problem with the free publicity.

Thanks to all who preordered the first official HBO shirt, and entered our E3 raffles – I wanted to let you all know that the shirt is still available, but it’s no longer at pre-order pricing. (It’s now $14.89, instead of $11.29, and at the moment, only mediums and larges are available.) That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t buy one, though! The 3 DeanFest slots will be announced later this morning, by Mig – we’ll be picking the poster winners from the fest itself. (The raffles are now closed, if that wasn’t clear before.)

A number of minor Halo mentions popped up in the news today (probably because it’s E3 week); I didn’t think any of them were worth news posts on their own, but there are enough of them to warrant a compilation. Dean Takahashi talks about Xbox 360 development at 1Up, with a few choice Halo 2 tidbits – thanks, Tempus Fugit. Wired looks at Boss Battles, and [a potentially spoiling character class, for the 2 of you who haven’t played Halo] is used as an example – thanks, UberHax0r. And the New York Times discusses the difficulty of coming up with new content, using Halo as a great example of milking a valuable franchise – thanks, Annu MD. (As usual, bugmenot.com will get you into the Times website easily.) I’m probably missing one or two – apologies, it’s a crazy day.

Today’s One One Se7en is much funnier if you’ve ever played online with MereCatfish. Or maybe it’s not.

Ajay let us know about another MySpace contact box he’d created (we mentioned one a couple of weeks ago) – you can see it, and grab code for it, on his forum.

EchoZuluFilms has released Alonewinder, a HaloCE map designed primarily for the machinimas ALONE and Major Tom Diaries. It’s a 13 mb download. (Sounds like it’s sidewinder with new vehicles and weapons.) One of the new weapons is the Boomstick; it started life as a simple shotgun mod, but now is a totally separate weapon. Thanks, PsiMatrix.

Just a reminder: your last chance to buy an HBO T (and register for the poster art raffle and/or the DeanFest raffle) is midnight tonight, central time; that’s a bit over 14 hours from now. It’s 1 am on Tuesday EST, 10 pm PST, and 6am Tuesday UTC. After that time, the raffles will be closed (and the three spots for the DeanFest will be chosen), and the next time you see that shirt, it’ll cost a bit more. Supplies on certain sizes are running low (Large and XXL are both nearing the end of their supply) – so order now!

Cool. Saber-Scorpion, a long-time LEGO Halo fanatic (check our news for some older posts) has put up a nice summary page of LEGO-based Halo creations around the web. Thanks, Jono.

This is one of the stranger bits I’ve seen… but Elnea has created a Halo-themed Waltz – As Twilight Falls can be found on her .Mac space (with an explanation and lyrics), or via direct download from us (3.1 mb, MP3 format) If we bring down the .Mac page, we’ll host a mirror of it, so that the info is available. This one’s beautiful… in a really weird sort of way.

Wow. rockslider has discovered a new, untapped location for a megabattle in Halo – the dustbowl in Truth and Reconciliation (just before the gravity lift area). Go read up on it at the Bad Cyborg site!

This Spartan Life has a new video blog up – it looks at the subject of tiered internet service, and why it might be bad for you, me, and everyone except the large corporations with the cash to pay for premium service. Funny stuff about a serious topic! (10.8 mb, QuickTime format.)