2011 is a huge year for Bungie. It’s the 20th year of their formation as a game company. It’s the 10th anniversary of their most powerful creation – the Halo franchise. It is also the year that they are turning over that franchise to the 343 Industries team at Microsoft, and heading out for a new universe. To celebrate all this, they’re having their biggest Bungie Day blowout ever. In-game gifts, connectivity tools, information, awesome buying options, and even the possibility of a full steak dinner – for real. They love you – and they want to show you how much. Visit Bungie.net and get all the details… and prepare for the ramp-up to July 7 – a ramp-up that starts in just 10 days!(Louis Wu 02:40:21 UTC)

Two decades and a whole mess of sloppy community love.

Want a Star nameplate in matchmaking? A new playlist, kicking off on June 24 for a limited time, seems like the easiest way to get one! According to Jeremiah, if you play in the BTB ALL STARS list when it’s live, you’ll be rewarded with a Star nameplate (and triple jackpots)… but you have to qualify first. You need at least 5 Invasion games between June 13 (that’s today!) and June 20. Thanks to Myyke and Decommissioner for the heads-up!(Louis Wu 23:42:19 UTC)

Yes, I did steal the title and all the copy from Jeremiah’s post in Optimatch.

There’s an app for that.

Pete Cooper stopped in with updates about Operation Chastity – there’s a preview of a big spread in the UK Official Xbox Mag, and a new t-shirt design. Go check it out! (Louis Wu 17:59:00 UTC)

Colin Carlisle is a gamer who spent most of his time at E3 with a camera on his shoulder, filming hours and hours and HOURS of material from the show floor. It was streamed on Gamespot’s site (here’s the 7 hours of Day 3 footage, for example) – but Halo fans have cut out just the couple of minutes in which he interviewed Frank O’Connor. You can find a few different versions on YouTube, but SIX min WHISTLE pointed to this one. It’s got a few questions that haven’t been answered elsewhere – go listen!(Louis Wu 17:57:58 UTC)

FyreWulff let us know that he plans to hold a 12-hour Bungiedayathon, a couple of weeks before Bungie Day, to raise money for the Brian Morden Foundation. Swing by his post for an itinerary, and more info! (Louis Wu 17:57:24 UTC)

Arithmomaniac updated a couple of his GreaseMonkey scripts to make your HBO browsing more betterer. His HBO Forum Enhancer now closes run-on broken tags in Guestbook mode (this will keep an entire thread from turning bold if someone forgets to close their bold tags), and his HBO Time Adjuster now auto-adjusts time on both the front page of the site and on archived forum posts. Try ’em out! (Louis Wu 17:56:53 UTC)

Post Game Carnage Report released Episode 79 (their E3 show) at the end of last week – plenty of Halo coverage, mixed in with the profanity. Go listen! (Louis Wu 17:35:21 UTC)

RVideo thought you might enjoy LaCoz3’s Vicious Traditions, a Halo 3 montage. It was released last week… but I’m still a bit behind on email notifications. Sorry! Nice intro, heavy editing and a desaturated look. Pretty nice work! (Louis Wu 17:35:05 UTC)

Andy Deck is a Halo fan who lives in Cincinnati, OH – and he will be hosting a Halo REACH LAN party on the weekend of June 24th and 25th. It’s the 7th event he’s hosted like this – but some of his regulars can’t make it, so he’d like to open it to folks who’ve never been. If you’re in the area, drop him an email! (There’s a bunch more info in a Facebook post – but I don’t have a link.) Update: If you’re logged into Facebook, you can see the LAN page here – Andy just let me know that he’s got 5 spaces available at this time.(Louis Wu 17:34:44 UTC)

FyreWulff sent us word a few days ago about a new Fire Team Zulu challenge – ‘Hotel Reservation’ has you beating Halo 2’s Outskirts with the Sputnik skull on (and without a Warthog). You have to kill every single enemy to complete this challenge. You can do it on either Halo 2 Xbox or Halo 2 PC – and once you do, you’ll receive the FTZ site achievement ‘A Monument To All Your Sins’. More info at FTZ! (Louis Wu 17:34:26 UTC)

Among the things we missed in the last week – Morpheus provided a couple of links (here and here) for lists that include Halo. Dorkly.com put together their 10 Most Depressing Endings in Videogame History, and Reach made the top 3. (I’m not sure I’d agree that ‘Depressing’ is the right word for this…) And G4 decided that Peter Moore’s unveiling of Halo 2’s release date was among the 5 most shocking E3 moments (of all time). And while we’re talking about lists, Sl’askia pointed out a Cracked.com list called ‘The 6 Most Ominous Trends in Video Games‘ which includes the Halo series in #3. Whee! (Louis Wu 17:34:02 UTC)

We’ll certainly get to the rest of the Halo news today, but I’d like to spotlight the latest pages of ‘A Fistful of Arrows’, Leviathan’s graphic novel set in the Halo universe. He dropped off nine new pages last night, along with a ton of no-text variations (for folks who want to use the artwork for wallpaper, or whatever), and some bonus work-in-progress demonstrations. You can find them all in the forum thread, but if you’d rather read them in standard webcomic format, they’re available at The Fistful of Arrows site (all bonus art included). We are nearing the end of this tale; the next update will be the last. I will be truly sorry to see it end.(Louis Wu 14:30:42 UTC)

Frank O’Connor and friends gave me a healthy chunk of their time at E3, and answered a bunch of questions about the Halo: Anniversary release coming this November. Go give it a read! Update: We’ve added a few new questions, culled from our forum, along with their answers – jump to the bottom of the article for the new content.(Louis Wu 00:37:47 UTC)

In other news, TD Spiral apparently built a device that instantly illustrates the deepest images and dreams trapped in the recesses of bs angel’s mind. Don’t believe it? Try. Me. When you wake up from your awesome-induced coma, tell him what you think on our forums. Amazing…(GrimBrother One 21:48:36 UTC)

Bryan Simon passed along news that the new episode of Master Chief IRL has gone live. This time, Chief make his way to the grocery store. Really funny stuff, reminds me of things that have gotten the Grims thrown out of stores on various occasions. Definitely give ita watch, and then decide where Chief goes next!(GrimBrother One 21:19:52 UTC)

I’m a pretty talkative guy. But sometimes, I find things that leave me speechless, and this time, I’m not sure if that’s good or bad. Take “Ode 2 Noobz,” a defiantly, borderline-obnoxiously happy song about how great it is to be a noob. Skullkruncher13 and patfan8326 have created a poppy earworm that won’t leave my head. Check it out!(Hitmonchan 20:40:11 UTC)