Dielectric broke down the credit and scoring systems – check this out if you want to see what playing online will net you. (Playing offline – or playing custom games – are a whole separate ball of wax.)(Louis Wu 20:23:13 UTC)

We haven’t been posting reviews of Halo: Reach, because there are lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of them (Metacritic currently lists 60 critic reviews, and 127 user reviews), but here are a couple of items – one local and one not – that are not quite reviews, but worth checking out. G4’s Adam Sessler talks about Reach in the context of the buzz it’s created – it’s a decent watch. (Minor spoilers, if you watch the screens behind Adam.) Thanks, Morpheus. And Cody Miller writes four thousand words on Reach, and how it feels to him. You can certainly disagree with some of his points, but you can’t deny he explains his positions. (Spoilers abound.)(Louis Wu 20:22:48 UTC)

Remember the ringcodes we mentioned a few days ago? DriverChief found another one in-game… but this one is sort of hidden. It is, in fact, a structure, seen from a viewpoint you don’t get except in Theater mode. Coolness!(Louis Wu 20:22:23 UTC)

NartFOpc created a film on B.net showing how to get to the Tribute Room easter egg (found by kornman00 in coop a couple of days ago) – give this a look if you’re curious but without friends to try it with. (There’s also an Achievement Hunter version put up by the Rooster Teeth folks – specifically Geoff and Burnie – all of the egg bits are nicely described in the video.)(Louis Wu 20:21:51 UTC)

IGN posted an article rating the 5 Halo FPS games, in terms of campaign difficulty. See if you agree with them! Thanks, Anton P. Nym.(Louis Wu 20:21:13 UTC)

Reach launched officially on Tuesday, September 14 – and the hallowed tradition of the Halo Humpday Challenge was revived on Wednesday, September 15. The first challengers were (fittingly) the boys from 343 Industries – and astoundingly, Bungie pulled off the first triple Steaktacular in Humpday history. (For the uninitiated, a Steaktacular occurs when the winning team beats the losing team by at least 20 points.) Go watch the films, and read the entertaining writeup!(Louis Wu 12:13:58 UTC)

MTV Multiplayer has an article called “The Anatomy Of An Ambush With The ‘Halo: Reach’ Audio Director” – it’s a fascinating look at a moment in the Halo: Reach campaign, and the challenges Marty (and crew) faced in making sure that the music always supports the mood the game is trying to invoke. It’s another “how does he DO that?” bit… thanks to Greg O’Connor-Read for the heads-up.(Louis Wu 21:22:49 UTC)

Bungie’s Jon “JonnyOThan” Cable has written up a Forge Required Objects Guide – it nails down what HAS to be in multiplayer gametypes, and what the other game-specific tags actually mean. If you’re at all confused about what “ctf_res_zone_away” might suggest, read this guide!(Louis Wu 21:03:30 UTC)

NeoGAF’s Shake Appeal is full of useful info these days. He’s got some basic weapons tips (I’m not sure I’d call these ‘basic’, in the sense that they’re useful to fair-to-middlin’ players too), and he put together a default weapon/vehicle timer chart for Reach multiplayer maps (all bets are off when maps are edited, though). Because he’s linked to Mediafire, and because his document is an Excel spreadsheet, I’m making a local PDF available, with the same information. It’s only 55k. Grab a copy. (Louis Wu 19:34:19 UTC)

Want to customize your Invasion experience? urk (and Bungie’s Joseph Ainsworth) can help. Swing by Bungie.net for a guide on Forging Invasion. Awesome!(Louis Wu 19:32:36 UTC)