In the last couple of days, there have been a rash of reports of people being permabanned from Halo 4 Matchmaking after playing the Crimson DLC. (Originally, it looked like it was people who’d downloaded the maps as part of the ‘Pay and Play’ promotion… but I’ve seen a number of reports of folks with the Limited Edition having this happen, too.) A post last night by the MM Systems Team on the Halo Waypoint forums says that if it’s happening, it’s a mistake – and they’re investigating. Don’t panic – if you were banned, and you don’t think you did anything wrong, hold tight, they’re working on it. Update: according to this post by ‘Forum Team’ at Halo Waypoint, the situation affected “less than 200 Halo 4 users” and has been rectified. (If the numbers are right, every single one of them posted about it on the internet – some more than once.) If we hear about similar issues, we’ll let you know.(Louis Wu 12:25:08 UTC)

Over on the Halo Council forums, K2Five posted some useful pics – they show the ‘red reticule’ range on various maps, for DMR and BR. (This is the range at which you can see the reticule color change to red, to indicate a headshot.) To be clear: these maps do NOT show the range of the weapon – they show the range of your ability to see whether you’re targeting your enemy’s head or not. Thanks to CyReN for the heads-up. (Louis Wu 12:21:57 UTC)

Grifball is now five years old – and the folks at GrifballHub are celebrating with a birthday vid! They did some awesome planning to bring this off. Also, they’ll be running four one-night tournaments this week, in honor of its old-age status! (Five is, like, 93 in Internet minigame years.) Go play!(Louis Wu 12:17:23 UTC)

Sometimes, cool stuff makes it to us way late. MrSolidSnake745 creates music by feeding MIDI tracks to an Arduino controller that manages the stepper motors of 8 floppy drives. (Are you old enough to remember what a floppy drive is?) If this concept makes no sense to you… go watch the video. (It was released in August, but we didn’t hear about it until Tashi mentioned it at NeoGAF.) The beginning is pretty wild, but the true wonder kicks in around 40 seconds in. (Louis Wu 12:11:58 UTC)

MoltenSlowa stopped in to announce Episode 5.5 of his crew’s Spartan Ops-themed podcast, Ops-Cast. This is a collection of outtakes that didn’t make it into earlier shows. They’ll be back in January, when Spartan Ops is back – in the meantime, you’ve got silliness! (Louis Wu 12:04:04 UTC)

For their 117th video, defendthehouse decided to revisit Halo 3 and bust some myths. I had no idea that the Arbiter could pick up skulls – wow! Thanks, mattroe. (mastrbiggy 08:45:29 UTC)

What happens when you combine an enclosed spherical map with tweaked gravity settings, plenty of weapons and thruster packs? You get the Episphere! Looks fun, but be sure to bring your motion sickness pills! Thanks, Gabotron ES.(mastrbiggy 08:43:36 UTC)

t00lbox posted a video showing off some really cool tricking. Plenty of neat spaces to check out as well as some funny glitches. Go watch! (mastrbiggy 08:40:46 UTC)

Malukah is a composer and singer from Mexico – she’s covered a number of video game songs, but her most recent one is her first Halo-related release. It is simply spectacular. ‘Frozen Sleep‘ is a tribute to Cortana – it combines existing Halo themes, some incredible instrument playing, and a vocal track that needs to be heard to be believed. Go listen. More than once. Thanks to The Lionheart for pointing this amazing piece of work out.(Louis Wu 18:41:01 UTC)

uberfoop went back to Halo 3: ODST’s campaign and found quite a bit worth appreciating. His post is dripping with cool screenshots and fun videos – nostalgia is growing! (You may have missed some of the clever little bits Bungie put into this game, the first time through; uberfoop will help you see them now.) I may have to run through that campaign again soon…(Louis Wu 18:31:47 UTC)

Pete Cooper is still selling off assets built up for the now-defunct Operation Chastity project… if you wanted to get your hands on some high-quality Halo props, this is your chance! Swing by to see a link to what’s being sold, and how much each piece costs. (Louis Wu 18:22:15 UTC)

NartFOpc stopped in with a ‘Christmas Minitage’ – a bunch of HBO regulars got together for a bunch of games, he pulled some fun clips from these games. Go watch! (Louis Wu 18:20:28 UTC)

Edge let us know about Halotracker’s latest Halo 4 weekly montage – these clips are all from King of the Hill games. Check it out!(Louis Wu 17:18:05 UTC)

Bry posted this a couple of days ago, but I accidentally passed over it when I was posting news: he’s finished the first five episodes of his Spartan Ops series. We mentioned the first episode a couple of weeks ago – now he’s got all five episodes up. These are there to show you the story – they include the cutscenes, and pared-down gameplay, with no commentary. A great way to experience the tale of you’re not able to play! (Louis Wu 16:54:42 UTC)

Clicked continues to document jumps in various Halo 4 maps – check out his latest vid! (Some of these look pretty tough.) Thanks, CyReN.(Louis Wu 16:34:11 UTC)

Fails of the Weak 117 is the first of the series to focus on Halo 4 fails. There are some funny ones. Watch it on AH.com or YouTube. Thanks, Nikko B201.(Louis Wu 21:42:25 UTC)

pete_the_duck put together a small film explaining why he thinks Extraction is a better option for an Invasion replacement than Dominion. Interesting stuff!(Louis Wu 21:09:40 UTC)

Firestorm12 let us know that Halopen is back with a film called ‘The Spider and the Web‘ – it’s a Reach-based horror short about a man who wakes up alone in an empty city. Check it out!(Louis Wu 21:07:06 UTC)

Robowski misses one of the critical pieces of Xbox LIVE – a piece which seems to have retreated to the background. Go see what he’s talking about… and let him know what you think! (Louis Wu 20:58:05 UTC)