Victor Chavez is an animator for 343. He just updated his animation reel – and it includes some Halo 4 stuff (death animations, shooting animations). Go take a look! Thanks, Hypertrooper. Update: Looks like Victor no longer works at 343… now he’s at Bungie. Thanks, Veegie. (Louis Wu 19:30:44 UTC)

I stumbled across a YouTube account called ‘fatfinger’ – has some pretty funny game-related animation. Two of their videos are Halo-specific: Video Game Therapist was released last November, and has Chief and Cortana working out some… issues, while GameStain – Halo 4 (out this week) shows us what Halo 4 brings to the table. Not fully SFW… but they’re funny, and it’s the weekend. So go watch!(Louis Wu 18:24:45 UTC)

DeathMcGunz sent word of a trailer for a new Halo 3-based machinima series, ‘MLG’ – fine start! Keep your eyes open – ep one is coming in a week. (Louis Wu 18:18:57 UTC)

Kotaku reports how earlier this week, ‘Dual Survival’ on the Discovery Channel, featured an ammunition brand called ‘Halo-Point’ manufactured by Liberty Ammunition. If the obvious play on wording wasn’t enough, the ammunition box even used Halo’s signature font. As it turns out, Microsoft wasn’t too happy about the situation and it seems that Liberty Ammunitions went ahead and re-branded their ammunition. Be sure to check out the article for more details. (mastrbiggy 13:10:44 UTC)

Jack and Geoff from Achievement Hunter are back with another episode of ‘Fails of the Week’. Who knew ordnance could float? Watch it on YouTube or on AH.com. Thanks, Nikko B201(mastrbiggy 10:33:10 UTC)

Anoj released his latest Top 10 video – this one is titled ‘Unusual Kills”. These are some of the funniest Halo 4 kills I’ve seen! Thanks, Jordan Bell.(mastrbiggy 09:34:01 UTC)

Halo Waypoint has a video called ‘Making of the UNSC Raptor: Pt 1‘ – it shows off what Galpin Auto Sports did to build the custom Ford F150 Raptor that will go to the winner of the Infinity Challenge. (Well… it talks about what they did. You’ll have to wait for Part 2 to see the actual modifications.) Thanks, Havok.(Louis Wu 19:52:10 UTC)

Nak3d Eli has kicked off a new video series – he calls it ‘Breaking Halo 4’. It’s all about finding glitches in Matchmaking maps… and the first episode looks at an invisible walkway (well, probably more than one) on Adrift. Normally, we’d stay away from stuff like this, but if you get beaten because of this glitch, you deserve to know what actually happened. Here’s hoping it gets fixed soon. Thanks, MrGreencastle. (Louis Wu 18:53:40 UTC)

Skywalker DSP came by with another commentated gameplay vid – this was a four-player custom Regicide game. Fun editing… and entertaining commentary!(Louis Wu 18:51:04 UTC)

Our forum had a Secret Santa exchange (completely organized by JDQuackers, I just watched) – and NartFOpc dropped in last night to share his gift. I love you guys.(Louis Wu 18:49:28 UTC)

kornman00 stopped by yesterday to show off a video containing some fun mods for Halo 4. (You can’t use these unless you’re willing to mod your Xbox 360 – but you can certainly watch videos.) Those monstrous Spartans are awesome! Update: kornman says there was no modded box involved; he was able to tweak gametype parameters that the games UI normally hides. Noice!(Louis Wu 18:46:03 UTC)

Kotaku decided to take a shot at shooter montages – and Tashi’s Halo 4 inaugural montage is held up as a ‘sincere’ example. (In the context of this article, that might not be a good thing.) Agree or not, it’s a thought-provoking read. Thanks, Zeouterlimits.(Louis Wu 18:43:52 UTC)

The Forward Unto Dawn crew has released another podcast – it’s a discussion of the first five episodes of Spartan Ops, with special guest Kete from The Running Riot. Dani’s… salty. Thanks, Fuchsdh. (Louis Wu 18:41:10 UTC)

Goosechecka sent word of a new Top 5 list – this one was compiled by TacoPizzaHunter, and contains the best Grifball videos of 2012. Nice! (Louis Wu 18:39:01 UTC)

Tommy92l sent us a link to a video showing some trolling in Halo 4… and some reverse trolling. Always fun when you get surprised! (Louis Wu 18:36:54 UTC)

One new piece is up in the Fan Fiction section today – go read!(Louis Wu 18:33:40 UTC)

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Today we embark on our mini-series of podcasts. It would only be appropriate that we start with a campaign one. We will be releasing these segments as they are recorded and then release them as official episodes as they come together. For our first campaign show, we start on the first mission: Dawn. In this mission, you are woken up by Cortana only to learn you’re drifting around a Forerunner planet and that the Covenant are fighting you once again. Podtacular founder foomojive joins us for this mission. Enjoy

The Achievement Hunter guys are back with another episode of Halo HORSE (well, it’s still PIG, and will be until the Fileshare issue is resolved) – Jack and Geoff square off in a battle that’s reminiscent of the early days. Watch it on AH.com or on YouTube – your call. Thanks, Nikko B201.(Louis Wu 21:19:44 UTC)