MR2NoShoes writes a long post in the HBO forum about how he was a Mac-using Marathon fan who drifted out of the Bungie community after the MS buyout, only to find himself roped back in by winning an Xbox. His return was solidified by attendance at a hush-hush backroom Bungie party at PAX. Check out the post for the sort-of sordid details.

Xbox.com's weekly newsletter points out an interview with Frankie about Halo 3. He says the focus in Halo 3 is playing it your way:

I hope that the main thing players take away is how much Halo 3 is their game. That is to say, it's a game that lets them play it the way they want to, whether that means joining three friends for co-op, or hooking up with eight friends to build a new Multiplayer variant in Forge, or simply share screenshots and movies with their own subset of the Xbox LIVE(R) community. We really have gone all out to make sure this game has more initial impact, and way more replay value than any other Bungie title to date.

There's also something about looking for two (or is it three?) hidden screenshots that littlebigman pointed out in the HBO forum.

Reverend Anthony at Destructoid wonders out loud how it's possible to have a satisfying ending to a game narrative that isn't just a boss battle without taking the sense of control and identification away from the player. He's got a good point.

The article mentions a wide variety of games, but the Halo series does get mentioned:

To put it bluntly, there will not be a game made in the next decade that cannot be sequelized. In our current "evolution, not revolution" gaming climate, we opt for sequels and spinoffs and clones more than we respect the standalone work of art, in the same way other genres do. As a result, games are almost required to have some sort of open end, which usually involves (A) the protagonist surviving, and (B) the possibility of conflict remaining. Gears of War ends with absolutely nothing solved. Halo 2 ends on a cliffhanger.

Halo 1's open-ended ending also is mentioned by some of the comments left on this article. Most users felt the combination of The Maw, as a level, and the understated cutscene that ended the game was pretty satisfying. So, Halo 1's non-ending ending was okay, but Halo 2's non-ending ending wasn't.

How will Halo 3 end? A little less than a month left before we find out.

Tex did a calculation over at Queen of the Hill to find out exactly how much her Halo obsession costs. The grand total? $2098 and change. Yowza.

According to Xbox.com, Halo 3 has gone gold, or been "released to manufacturing" according to the article.

Looks like RT mentioned it first in the HBO forum, and of course it's been picked up by HBO itself, Major Nelson, Xbox 360 Fanboy, GameSpot and the horse's mouth: Bungie.net.

In a short but sweet news post, Luke Smith writes:

We have to say thanks to everyone at Bungie who worked so hard to make this the best game we've ever made. We have to say thanks to everyone at Microsoft who helped us make it the best game we ever made. We have to say thanks to our tireless team of artists, designers, engineers, musicians, technicians, writers, directors, producers, thinkers, administrators, ninjas, specialists, gorillas, webmasters and pimps. We’re a family and we made this game for you, our extended family. We hope you like it. Nobody deserves any more recognition than anyone else, but an extra special thanks goes out anyway, to the test team who got it to this stage, in a pool of their own sweat, tears and blood.