Just got finished organizing the entries so far for the 343 Guilt O’ Lantern contest – I have to say, I’m really impressed. There are currently 37 entries… and some are AMAZING. The contest is still open for another 36 hours or so; at Midnight EST tomorrow night, we close the doors to entries. Then, sometime Monday, or Tuesday if Monday is REALLY awful, the entire collection will go up for voting; folks will have about a week to pick their favorites. Then give US a few days to tally the votes – and sometime soon after Halo 2’s release, we’ll announce the top three entries. I’m looking forward to this one!

Very nice – BOLL extracted one of the more interesting pictures from the Halo 2 Montage now available at Halo2.com (it’s PC-only, to save you a download if you’re on a Mac). Now, if you’re one of the people who felt that the mere existence of a creature not present in the first Halo should be considered a spoiler, DON’T LOOK AT THIS – but it’s the same baddie that’s popped up in a bunch of places now, and you STILL don’t know much about him. We have a regular jpeg (67k), or, if you want to use this in artwork, BOLL’s original PNG file, with nice transparency (432K)… and the same image, without the glow border (317K). Enjoy!

Another review comes back perfect – this one is OXM UK’s Halo 2 review, another 10/10. So far, of the OXMs, only OXM US has rated Halo 2 less than perfect… Thanks, Andy C.

A couple of Halo community regulars have pulled screenshots out of the hi-res 60-second commercial – you can find rapture’s faves over at cookedgamers.net and BOLL’s picks on 7708.net. Speculation will have to be amongst friends, or on other forums – ours is still offline, for another week and a half. Sorry!

Bah. You might have noticed that there’s been an absurd amount of news recently – and sometimes, things fall through the cracks. Yesterday’s One One Seven is one of those things. It’s posted now… sorry. (Hmm… upon reflection… maybe you’d have been better off spared that particular pun…)

Tina Leyk dropped by last night with another incredible piece of artwork – this one’s called ‘Close Call’ – she says it started out as a random doodle (unrelated to Halo), ended up as that. You can find it on her art collection page here (last picture). All I can say is… wow.

Two new IGN articles for you today – a VERY high score in a Japanese Xbox magazine for Halo 2, and a ridiculously high-end version of a Halo 2 readiness guide (this one might be Insider-only, I’m not sure). $640,195 – plus tax. Plus the game. Wonga.

We finally got an official announcement from Aspyr about Wideload’s new Halo-engine-based game, Stubbs the Zombie. The press release can be found here, and you should visit the game’s official website for more info.

Gruntkilla found a new Halo 2 writeup over at Canada.com – sounds like they had fun playing it. (He also mentions a contest being run by their Montreal broadcast station – if you live in Quebec, you can enter to win a free Xbox with a copy of Halo 2 by sending your mailing address, phone number and the words Halo 2 at iwin@globaltv.ca.)

Adam Daniel extracted the new screenshot snippets from the nilerogers.com Listening Station interface (we mentioned them yesterday – you can see them here, here, here, and here. He also composited them into one image, if you’d rather grab that. Thanks, Adam!

Owm points out that Halo2.com has been updated again – the previously off-limits sections (password-protected) are now open. You can find screensavers (mac and pc), a short (15-second) new promo movie (wmp9 format), and more. Go look! (Scroll around the middle ring until you see the prophets – they’re behind that.)

For folks who want direct downloads of the large QuickTime version of the featurette we posted last night, community members have come to your rescue. Nick has posted a copy on HaloDev (though you’ll ONLY be able to access it through that link – pasting that anywhere else will lead to a redirect), and Coylter has put up a copy on Gamingmatrix (rar format, right-click or option-click to download). There’s also, now, a smaller version (320×240, 25 mb) hosted by us. The WMV links in Sketch’s Bungie.net post are still valid, for folks who DON’T want QuickTime. And yes, about a million people noticed the small clip that has Chris Butcher talking about XBL has a Blood Gulch evolution on the screens behind him. (Starts about 5:16 into the movie.) Enjoy!

Small update on the Halo for Charity drive… I think some care needs to be taken here. We got mail from KilaOne (the person who started the idea on the Bungie.net forums) saying that talks were underway with ESA, but that a little time would be needed to straighten things out – and then we got more mail from Richie McKee, who said that over on the IGN boards, they’ve already decided to go with a different charity, and they’re pushing for direct donations. It’s laudable to want to help… but unless you don’t care whether one BIG push is made or lots of LITTLE ones (less effective, in my opinion), you shouldn’t try to take over setup of this process… it looks like KilaOne and the Electronic Software Association has it under control at the moment. Thanks! More news when we know it.

A little off-topic, but… Spideroptics sent us another example of journalists cutting a few corners to make a point. His local paper, the UK Guardian, put up a couple of articles recently about GTA: San Andreas (here and here), mirroring content in the print edition. What amused him was the picture (150K) that was published in the paper with these – not only is the guy in the pic not actually PLAYING a game (he’s watching a promotional video), but he’s holding an Xbox controller – and as of right now, GTA: SA is a PlayStation2-only game. Again, the Xbox is unfairly dragged into a discussion of violence (it might actually have a PLACE in the discussion, but it should be brought in fairly, no?). Following the recent Today Show silliness, it’s making me think less and less of mainstream press with respect to gaming news.

There’s plenty more news, but it’s gonna have to wait until morning – I’ve got stuff to do. In the meantime – I have a Hi-res version of the Multiplayer Featurette for you, in QuickTime format. It’s a bit washed out when compared to the original – but I was in a hurry. 😉 We’re a bit short of large bandwidth this close to the end of the month, so I’ve BitTorrented it. If you really hate it (or you can’t use BitTorrent), there are other options – IGN has put up both a high and low res version… but they’re both HUGE. (The high-res is 640×480, 209 mb, the low-res is 320×240, 53 mb.) Gamespot, as well, has a couple of QTs up: 152 mb for the high, 71 for the low. (Thanks, JHawk.) You have to be an Insider or a Gamespot Complete member, as well, to get to those. That torrent file? It’s 51 mb. Grab it now! (I’ll have a 320×240 version – in the range of about 20 mb – up by tomorrow.)

Man… take the kids to a couple of Halloween events, the mailbox just FILLS. Many, many people wrote about the two newest pieces over at nilerogers.com – Ghosts of Reach and The Last Spartan. Again, the Listening Station is wonderful… if you’re on a fast connection – otherwise, the snippets are here and here.

Today’s Weekly Bungie Update is over at Red vs Blue, in honor of the RvB team visiting Bungie this weekend. Unfortunately, that means that a significant chunk of Halo fans can’t actually see it – because viewing posts on the forum requires that you be registered on their site… and being registered requires an email address that is NOT Hotmail or msn or other large, free provider. Because of this, we’re doing something we’ve not really done before – we’re mirroring the update so folks can see it. I think both Bungie and RvB would understand. Go read it – at RvB if you can, here if you can’t – because it’s a fun read. The team (those that are back from vacation, that is) seems far more relaxed now that the game’s in the can. The community team is busy… but then, they’re always busy. What else is new? And oh, yeah… Happy Birthday, Shishka! (I think he’s 13 now.) Update: It’s now on RvB’s front page, and so viewable by all (thanks, Ross). All you miss is the Mister Chief art.

New video, straight from Bungie – the new trailer (both long and short versions), in English, French, German, and Italian… last summer’s movie teaser… and the bonus of bonuses, a multiplayer featurette yanked off the Making of Halo DVD (high and low res, 88 or 44 mb, WMP9 format). Go watch the fantastic fllmmaking of Jim McQuillan and Film Oasis as they turn Bungie opinion and chatter into a work of art. Yeehaw! (While we’re mentioning the launch ad, we should mention that the German version is also available in DivX format from HaloUniverse.) What are you waiting for? (Mac users – we’ll do our best to get a QT version out in the next day or so. This came as a total surprise, though, so it’s not ready yet.)

According to the Digital Bulletin, Microsoft has paid FHM.com a quarter of a million dollars for a partnership, with promotion on the site the payoff. Loading times are pretty horrible right now, so I can’t actually see the Halo 2 minisite… but much of FHM’s content seems to be not safe for work. Interesting choice of venues…