The final Grin + Bear It on Hawty McBloggy’s site is up and live, along with a note from luke – because she’s moving to Waypoint, her personal site has to be shut down, and GaBI was one of the casualties. Except… not. We’ve provided a new home for the strip, and luke will pick up here where he left off there. Viva La Pez!(Louis Wu 15:32:04 UTC)

I’m not sure how much more press to give this – it’s just a popularity contest, after all – but The Golden Joystick Awards have just released a video showing off the Shooter nominees. Halo 3: ODST is in the running. The actual awards show happens on October 29, so I’m guessing we’re not done hearing about this yet. (If I sound skeptical, it’s because voting opened 3 months ago; how long does it take to pick your favorite game?)(Louis Wu 15:28:01 UTC)

Community
–Weekend Hunt

AH Videos
–Most Dangerous Game video guide in Mass Effect 2
–Easy money video guide in Plants vs. Zombies
–Wake Up Buttercup, If they Came to Hear me Beg, Your Heresy Will Stay Your Feet, Banshees, Fast and Low, I Didn’t Train to Be a Pilot, Lucky Me, Two Corpses in One Grave, and KEEP IT CLEAN video guides in Halo: Reach
–Never Surrender& Siege of Madrigal, Tribute Room, and Master Chief Easter Eggs in Halo: Reach
–World record video in Mafia II

Achievements
-Added achievements for WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2011
-Added achievements for Medal of Honour
-Added achievements for Kinect Joyride
-Added achievements for Dance Central
-Added DX Upgrade DLC achievements for Sonic Adventure
-Added Liars & Cheats DLC achievements for Red Dead Redemption
-Added secret achievements for NHL 11
-Added secret achievements for Toy Story 3

Trophies
-Added trophies for DeathSpank: Thongs of Virtue
-Added trophies for Cabela’s North American Adventures
-Added trophies for Truth or Lies
-Added trophies for Space Invaders Infinity Gene
-Added trophies for The Lord of the Rings: Aragorn’s Quest
-Added trophies for Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole
-Added trophies for WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2011

Kids are like little sponges… they soak up everything. Try pouring water on them!

The latest Red Dead Redemption DLC lands tomorrow, the “Liars & Cheats” pack will cost 800 MSP and features huge updates to the multiplayer and free roam sections. Attack and Defend games, new multiplayer skins including the single player characters and you’ll also get to play in horse racing, poker and liar’s dice online against your friends.

Also on the DLC front, the next Left 4 Dead 2 DLC pack, “The Sacrifice” will be available next week and as you may have guessed, it will give some back story as to what happened prior to “The Passing” DLC. More details on “The Sacrifice” pack as we get them.
If you haven’t played “The Passing” DLC yet, then more good news for you, it’s this week’s XBox Live Deal of the Week, Gold members can pick it up for 320 MSP instead of the usual 560 MSP.
If that’s not enough Left 4 Dead for you, you can check out the new free webcomic which covers the story of what happened to our original survivors after they were rescued at the end of Blood Harvest.

Looking for those last Datapads? Well you’ve come to the right place! Watch as Geoff, Jack, and I walk you through the process and make you ten Datapads richer.

GrifballHub.com is auctioning off a couple of cool items, with 100% of the proceeds going to Child’s Play. Swing by to read about their inspiration, and about the items for sale (a signed copy of RvB: The Recollection, and a Noble 6 figure signed by 13 Bungie employees). This community rocks!(Louis Wu 15:01:44 UTC)

Back in July, we mentioned ‘Orbidome’, a gameshow set in the Halo gamespace – get questions wrong, you get killed. itsmyyard is back with word that the show is now exclusive to Machinima.com, and rebranded ‘Last Man Standing’. First show is on YouTube now. Update: Apologies, Orbidome is a completely DIFFERENT gameshow set in Halo’s space – itsmyyard hopes to have that one up on Machinima.com soon too. (Louis Wu 15:00:57 UTC)

DHalo’s dad made him an animated Halo card for his birthday – pretty nice! (Louis Wu 15:00:26 UTC)

KP was the first to point out a screenshot-based History of Halo at Time Magazine. The piece itself is nothing special – but the fact that it’s 15 pictures long in a huge national magazine is pretty impressive! (Louis Wu 14:59:28 UTC)

Hawty McBloggy pointed out a pretty intricate leg tattoo someone got – it’s apparently still a work in progress, though it’s looking pretty amazing so far! (Louis Wu 14:57:08 UTC)

The New York Times has a lengthy article discussing a school in New York that focuses on teaching middle-schoolers with video games. Pretty interesting read! Halo gets quite a number of mentions (though it’s not actually used in the classroom, as far as I can tell). Thanks, Free at Last. (Louis Wu 14:56:42 UTC)

epicgamer7 created a short film to express his excitement for Reach – nicely done!(Louis Wu 14:56:10 UTC)

psh ikari sent a link to a video made in a mall while waiting for the midnight launch of Reach – Spartan armor + boredom leads to some odd filming options… (Louis Wu 14:55:55 UTC)

PlatformNation has a two-part look back at the Halo games leading up to Reach – while the series is called ‘Games That Nobody Plays Anymore’, it’s more just about looking back a bit. Part One covers Halo and Halo 2, Part Two covers Halo 3 and ODST.(Louis Wu 14:54:30 UTC)

MelkorTheGreat let us know he’d created Halo: Reach Tricks/Glitches – E.O.A. Episode 1 for DWT Productions – there’s more coming. (Louis Wu 14:53:51 UTC)

The DefendTheHouse crew has released Reach Mythbusters Episode 1 – and as they did for Halo 3, they present a number of interesting tidbits about the game in ‘myth’ format, and either confirm or bust these. Great stuff! Thanks, Minime637.(Louis Wu 14:52:55 UTC)

Free Weights pointed out a couple of recent Halo-themed strips from Optical Overload – pretty funny! If you go back through the strip’s several-month history, you’ll find a number of Halo-related strips. (The archive listing helpfully tells you what games are involved in each strip.) (Louis Wu 14:51:26 UTC)

We ALMOST made it through Talk Like a Pirate Day with no pirate references… thanks a LOT, c0ld. 🙁 Swing by our forum for pics of his Pirate Day CTF map – along with download links for the map and gametype. I can’t stay mad at him, because the map is really cool. Go grab a copy! My only consolation is that it’s going to be nearly a full year before you can play this and have a JUSTIFICATION for “Arr”ing all over the place. (Louis Wu 23:16:40 UTC)

I recently got my thumbs on a pair of FPS Freek Legendarys – they’re tiny add-ons you snap on to your controller’s thumbsticks. Swing by my mini-review to see pics and find out what I thought of ’em. (Louis Wu 15:51:09 UTC)