Nicolas Bouvier is an artist currently working on Halo 4 for 343 Industries. He also created the cover art for Halo: Cryptum. Kotaku has a nice little retrospective of some of his work (including a Halo sketch I’ve never seen before). Thanks to PooBone, over at NeoGAF, for the heads-up.(Louis Wu 14:02:22 UTC)

Yesterday, Halo Waypoint gave away 4 3-day PAX badges on Twitter (folks just had to tweet back a pic of themselves holding a sign reading “I want to go to Halo Fest!”, winners chosen at random). They’re doing it again today (and tomorrow, and Friday). Keep an eye on their feed for full details! (Louis Wu 14:01:35 UTC)

Elzarthebam noticed a short article at Eurogamer that hints at the Kinect features that will be available in Halo: Anniversary. Key points: they’re optional, they’re cool, they’ll enhance your overall experience but will not affect your core game experience. (Louis Wu 13:59:54 UTC)

Stewie2552 and the Funny Halo 3 Productions crew put together 10 Years of Halo in 10 Minutes – a tribute to Bungie’s games, shown in the order they were made and compiled from cutscene footage with a soundtrack that’s made from various Halo pieces (some really nice combining here). Overall, a great look back at the series! (Louis Wu 13:58:49 UTC)

FyreWulff collected all the posts Jeremiah made in the Bungie.net Optimatch forum concerning changes to the Matchmaking playlists – and now that the Optimatch forum is offline, he’s made the collection publicly available. Nice!(Louis Wu 13:57:37 UTC)

OXM UK speculates about Cortana, and her importance in Halo 4, in a recent article on their website. Thanks, INSANEdrive. (Louis Wu 13:56:45 UTC)

If you visit Bungie.net, you’ll notice a new layout, for the first time in a month. And new news, even – a reminder that the upcoming ViDoc will hit the interwebz on Thursday, and a small note about the facelift itself. Go explore! (I like the new Halo Universe page.)(Louis Wu 22:30:30 UTC)

It’s big, it’s beautiful, and it needs caressing.

New look. Same great taste!

IESUproductions stopped by with a link to ‘Iridescent‘ – a Halo retrospective, set to Linkin Park’s Iridescent. Cutscene footage from all Halo games is matched to the song’s lyrics in a tribute to the official passing of the Halo torch from Bungie to 343 today. Go watch!(Louis Wu 20:08:55 UTC)

Daniel ‘Tyrant’ Morris sent word that the last chapter of his Legendary ODST saga, covering Coastal Highway, is now online – the most difficult mission on Halo 3 or ODST has now been beaten – with no deaths! (Can you find the easter egg?)(Louis Wu 18:09:22 UTC)

Sniper94 painted a Halo screenshot. With paint. He wanted you to see it.(Louis Wu 17:58:49 UTC)

Greenskull put together a song called ‘I Less than 343‘ – it’s an ode to the franchise overseers, and it’s full of Halo love (and far too much tongue). Check it out! (Louis Wu 17:56:46 UTC)

Mid7night found a fan-made space-based RTS called ‘Star Wars vs Halo’ – you can see a trailer (story-based, no gameplay) here, an announcement trailer showing promo gameplay here, and a gameplay demo made by the Funny Halo Productions crew here. The Alpha can be downloaded from MediaFire (89 mb). Intriguing!(Louis Wu 17:49:15 UTC)

Brute Honour Guard pointed out a document (originally posted by its author on Bungie.net) showing one fan’s attempt to do some translating of the language we hear from the Sangheili in-game. At the very least, he gets kudos for the systematic approach! Check this out. (If the mediafire link goes down, let us know; we’ll put up a local copy.)(Louis Wu 17:05:31 UTC)

CaptainTony is back with another find from DeviantART – NOBLE 06 is not QUITE as epic as the stuff he brought us yesterday, but it’s still pretty cool!(Louis Wu 17:04:20 UTC)

Red vs Blue Season 9, Episode 7 is now online for everyone – nice mix of Freelancer drama and Caboose silliness. Go watch! Thanks, mattroe.(Louis Wu 17:03:29 UTC)

Minor Harry Potter spoilers… but CortanaVII showed us a video that shows off the ending of Harry Potter vs Halo. I giggled. (Louis Wu 17:02:29 UTC)