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You guys have asked for it, and how we’re giving it to you. We start our trio of podcasts looking at the history of Master Chief in the Halo franchise starting with Halo: Combat Evolved. Halo was has been defined as one of the pivotal moments for first person shooters on the console and it has lived up to that name ever since. In Combat Evolved, we are greeted by Captain Keyes and his crew being run down by Covenant and have ended up near a ring world called Halo. While captured on the surface of Halo, the captain overhears conversations the Covenant have about Halo being a weapon of some kind. The objective to take control of Halo turned out to be an adventure of mystery, as the secrets of Halo unfold before your eyes and reveal and even greater thread than the Covenant: the Flood. Halo was originally designed to wipe out all sentient life to starve the Flood to prevent them spreading, which 343 Guilty Spark tries to convince Chief of doing as a “Reclaimer”. After discovering Spark’s true intent, the goal was no longer to control Halo, but to disable and destroy it at all costs. Enjoy

The latest Halo Bulletin is now online at Halo Waypoint (and locally in our Halo Bulletin Archive) – it’s full of tasty info, including views (and video) of the last new Multiplayer map, Vortex, details about Forge, and mysteries for you to solve. Go explore!(Louis Wu 22:45:54 UTC)

Infonaut has put together a documentary of Rooster Teeth – the first 9-minute segment is online. It’s awesome. You should watch it.(Louis Wu 20:06:05 UTC)

Leviathan is celebrating the one-year anniversary of the completion of ‘A Fistful of Arrows’ with a final Adjunct page – it’s a fitting conclusion to an amazing story. The website for A Fistful of Arrows has been updated, as well.(Louis Wu 19:00:05 UTC)

We got word from Paul Ference, of HighCharity.org, that their second annual High Charity Halo Marathon, benefitting Child’s Play Charity, will kick off on Friday, October 26th. Last year’s event raised over $2500 during 72 hours of gaming – they’re shooting for a MUCH bigger number this time around. The goal for 2012 is $25,000 – can you help them get there? From the press release:

Viewers of the event will have the ability to unlock "skulls," at different benchmarks of charitable donations, causing the group to play longer. "Aside from giving to charity," says Ference, "our donators will also be challenging us by making the games harder and harder with the more money we raise."

Heh. Sounds like fun! Check out the website for details, or visit their stream page.(Louis Wu 18:57:20 UTC)

Halo HORSE has pretty much stopped being about Halo – I think the actual gameplay discussion takes about 30 seconds in the six and a half minute Episode 98 (AH.com | YouTube). Fun maps, though. Thanks, Nikko B201.(Louis Wu 17:48:25 UTC)

IGN continues its Halo 4 Multiplayer map walkthroughs – today the spotlight is on Exile. You can watch the vid on IGN.com (thanks, ChrisTheeCrappy) or on YouTube (thanks, CyReN). We’ve seen this map before – but it’s nice to have 343’s Kynan Pearson describing the ins and outs.(Louis Wu 17:19:42 UTC)

The Tyrant let us know that he’s released the last level of his Halo 2 Legendary Walkthrough (the hardest) – Gravemind. He made it a little easier (okay, a lot easier) with the Envy Skull glitch, but he will probably be adding a non-skull version at some point. If you want to see the entire guide, the playlist link is here. Nice! (He also sent us this fun little tidbit from a run-through of Metropolis… I laughed.(Louis Wu 16:49:06 UTC)

Eurogamer has a thought-provoking (if inflammatory) article about the current state of game journalism, and how it got to where it is. Posted here on a Halo site because it’s built around an image of Geoff Keighley amongst Mountain Dew/Doritos Halo 4 promotional material. Thanks, Beckx.(Louis Wu 15:41:12 UTC)

Sometimes, Halo is fun. (Who am I kidding – it’s almost always fun. But sometimes it’s funner than other times.) pete_the_duck and iMonkey777 team up for a flag cap that deserves a toast.(Louis Wu 14:41:36 UTC)

Ibeechu stopped in last night to announce the completion of a labor of love – check out Cookin’ With Chief. Delicious!(Louis Wu 14:39:41 UTC)

Penny Arcade’s Tycho had some thoughts about the monumental task of building on the Halo franchise yesterday. Food for thought. Thanks, HiredN00bs.(Louis Wu 14:36:42 UTC)

If you’re curious about what comes in the Limited Edition Halo 4 Soundtrack, swing by and watch the Little English Halo Blog’s unboxing video. Nice package! (twss…)(Louis Wu 14:34:32 UTC)

Polygon posted ANOTHER Halo-related bit yesterday, as well – a remix video they call ‘The History of Halo’. I loved it. Thanks, Monumental.(Louis Wu 14:33:01 UTC)

Polygon has a fascinating article about the user testing Microsoft and 343 have done with Halo 4 – it gives you some unique insight into how some flow decisions are made, and why it’s worth putting this much time and effort into ensuring that the team’s original vision can be appreciated without too much frustration on the part of the player. There are two embedded movies – one discussing a campaign playtest (minor spoilers, though if you watched Frank play through part of Level 3 at Eurogamer Expo in September, you won’t see anything new here), the other showing off a multiplayer playtest. I love this stuff. Thanks to Tashi, over at NeoGAF, and Arithmomaniac, on our own forum.(Louis Wu 14:27:14 UTC)