Xboxic previewed Halo 3. Lamely. (I say that because I can’t justify ignoring it, but they really didn’t do a very good job.) ‘First’ goes to Konrad, who next time shouldn’t post stuff this bad.

Red vs Blue Episode 77 – The Arrival – has been posted for sponsors. Currently it’s only available as a QuickTime – but other formats should be coming soon. I’m not even going to BEGIN telling you what it’s about – but more happens in 7 minutes than has happened in months. There’s a – um… and a – er… and Tucker – eep… and then Donut – oh, dang, just go download it. Why leave one cliffhanging storyline at the end of the season when you can leave a dozen? Looks like Kraken was first.

The HBO Helljumpers have left the HBO fold… and become the PMS Helljumpers. We wish them well. Thanks to MereCatfish for the heads-up.

It’s everywhere these days. The folks at DS-Play got word back from Bungie that they (Bungie) would be showing a new version, playable on the DS, at E3 this year. Swing by and read the email, check out the pics.

The Squadron, Episode 17 has been released – 6 minutes long, 2.8 mb. You can grab it in WMP9 format from their site, or in QuickTime from us.

Stuntmutt’s finally gone and done it; he’s compiled the first 200 strips into an actual book, tossed in some exclusive content – and is selling the finished product. Looks fantastic! For a huge dose of corn all in one convenient place, stop by his blog for ordering instructions.

NeuroKoNeza stopped by our forum to point out that No Remorse, a very cool-looking HaloCE map (we mentioned it here, and more screens showed up on our forum a few days ago), is now finished and ready for download. There’s a screenshot in the new forum post (more in the one from last week), and the download is 21 mb. Go get it!

We got a press release from Jagex, the Runescape guys. There’s a new MMO in town, folks! Check it out; not coming anytime soon, but geez… I’m drooling.

Team3D is getting back into shape after taking some time off – F13ND interviewed Hotshy about what’s coming up for them. Discussion of the MLG2006 season, and more. Go read!

Mintz sent us a link to an article on Halo: Portable that shows how a team of hackers got Halo running on a PSP. Check it out!

Devastator (who we’ve mentioned in the past) went to the I-Con Sci-Fi convention in New York last weekend – and won first prize for his MC costume. Check out the pics!

Two new movies of note over at Halo2Forum.com. The first is a dual montage from Wedow and Vinny Jones; it’s pretty cool, because Wedow did a fantastic job of color-coding the clips to let you know who was playing. (Watch it – it’ll make more sense once you do.) This one’s 128 mb, in WMP9 format. Then there’s another great gameplay vid from Xit Woundz – Killer N filmed a TS game on Ivory Tower against Str8 Rippin. 70.4 mb, WMP9 format. Go grab!

Pak noticed a Halo 3 mention in yesterday’s Press Start to Play. Don’t tell Shishka.

The Bungie Weekly Update is up – and though the date on the top of this page reads April 1, this update was posted on March 31 at Bungie.net – which means you should be pretty safe from April Fools-type jokes. Frankie debunks a rumor, sort of debunks a second one, tosses fans a REALLY nice musical bone, talks to Mat Noguchi, and finally – FINALLY – divulges a few tidbits about Bungie’s next project. You can read it at Bungie.net, or you can read it in our Weekly Update Archive. And who was first? Frankie, of course.

In honor of the 458th One One Se7en, Stuntmutt takes another look at Nicole… though not the look he’d like to take.

Well, after deleting the first 6 instances of The Meep’s first chapter (why do people have to go all postal on the submit button?), the solid blocks of unformatted text, and the speculation that belongs on the Story page or our forum, we’re left with 9 Fan Fiction entries this week. Go read.

Over at Subnova, Funkmon found an article with some stats about Xbox Live – and while it focuses mostly on how the 360 is more tightly integrated with XBL than the original box was, it contains a Halo stat that’s pretty amazing: one third of all hours logged on Xbox Live since the service went live in November 2002 – 500 million hours out of 1.5 billion – have been logged playing Halo 2. 500 million hours… that’s a pretty mind-numbing number. That’s more than 57,000 man-years.

Gah. When sites as big as IGN post rumors about Halo 3 release dates, our mailboxes fill up with speculation. According to them, Halo 3 will be released in March 2007, with more info coming at E3. This might be true, it might be garbage… we can’t say. Bungie is still keeping mum about whether or not they’re even DEVELOPING the title, much less when they’re releasing it. Nevertheless, IGN has put this up, which means unless we acknowledge that it’s out there, our mailboxes will CONTINUE to fill. When Bungie actually announces something, we’ll be sure to crow it from the rooftops… looks like Coolpengwn was the first to let us know.