Robert Valdes has written a Halo 3 Wish List for the Games section of Stuffo, a part of the HowStuffWorks website. A lot of the wishes are standard: XBL Cooperative play, bots, the flamethrower; and many of them are illustrated with modified versions of Bungie's own screenshots. Thanks Frankie.

Louis Wu, courtesy of Dan Chosich's tipoff, points us to Gamasutra's freely-availably printer-friendly version of Handling Complexity in the Halo 2 AI, the GDC 2005 presentation by Bungie's Damian Isla. Lots of interesting diagrams.

The newest community Spotlight over at The Junkyard is on Richard "Sep7imus" Heppner, Jr. It's worth reading for bits like this:

You know how Anne Heche wasn't really a lesbian, she just liked Ellen Degeneres? That's me: not really a hardcore gamer, but in love with Halo.

This week's What's What Update is a one-note songbird: where's the downloadable content? Frankie says the date will be known soon. In addition, he disavows any knowledge of the recently-discovered Maji skull.

In other news:

• Frankie turned the tables on Claude "Louis Wu" Errera of HBO, interviewing him about the whys and wherefores of the site and about the Halo 2 review that has not yet surfaced. Guest appearance by the battle rifle model and the evil dog.
• c0ld vengeance posted a list of 50 things he wishes Halo 2 multiplayer had over in the HBO forum.
• MasterToad says Alex Garland told Empire magazine that he is, in fact, working on a Halo movie script, and the lack of any serious kind of denial from Bungie is suggesting to community folks like Finn and Louis Wu that this might, in fact, be the real deal...

Bungie took on Pioneer Electronics in the last Humpday Challenge and won all three games-- and quite handily, too, by the look of it, despite Frankie's show of self-deprecation.

Slashdot is reporting that Bungie's audio team of C Paul Johnson, Marty O'Donnell, and Jay Weinland won the Best Audio award at GDC 2005 for Halo 2. In most other categories, though, Half-Life 2 stole the show. Thanks Louis Wu.

[image:9067 align=left hspace=5 vspace=5 border=0] Frankie posted today in the HBO forum that the webcam image we spotted last month was, indeed, the Pippin version of Super Marathon.

Just as other sites (DailyGame, TeamXbox, SPOnG) are picking up the same rumor promulgated by a quote of Microsoft's J. Allard in a Seattle Post-Intelligencer article we heard about from HBO, Louis Wu lets us know that Bungie has deflated the tires on this one: Bungie is not increasing its staff any time soon.

Other news of note:

• First Halo 2 Championship in the UK
• Major Nelson: This is not the next Xbox
• Microsoft to give Japanese developers free rei: Eurogamer
• Another interview with Brian "SketchFactor" Jarrard from his tour of Asia; thanks again Louis Wu.

Microsoft's J. Allard commented rather off-handedly, in an article about the size of Microsoft Game Studios, that Bungie will double in size (currently 65 people) in order to work on the "next installment" of Halo. Thanks Louis Wu at HBO. (Remember, though, Allard isn't technically Bungie, even if Bungie is technically Microsoft --Ed.)

Bungie's Mat "shunji" Noguchi wonders in his blog how much of the success of endeavors like video games is a result of training, education and methodology, and how much is from unquantifiable elements like talent.

[image:9096 left hspace=5 vspace=5 border=0]Only slightly more than three years have passed since the Xbox brought Microsoft into the console wars, and the next generation, if rumors are to be believed, will be upon us by the 2005 holiday season. Ahh.. Xbox. A console of infinite games... assuming they're all made by Bungie.

Here's a look at recent items about upcoming consoles, as well as goings-on in the Bungieverse:

• Xbox might have a removable hard drive as an option that could double as a music player.
• News.com put up a FAQ about the next-gen hardware.
• DigiTimes interviewed Brian "SketchFactor" Jarrard, who admitted that Bungie "developed some games" before Halo, but "most of them were not successful." (Ouch! I seem to recall-- no pun intended-- the award-winning Myth and Marathon series, but nevermind--Ed.)
• Blackstar notes the Hurt, Agony, Pain video he did with Arashi for HBO Lekgolos, lovingly hosted by Nof at Enraged Creations.
• Start of a new mini-series at Halo Babies that explores Bungie's various penchants.
• Frankie dishes some more details (but not too many) on what Bungie is doing to counter glitchers and cheaters. Looks like about a month (but maybe more) before solutions are forthcoming. (And don't forget MonkeyChief.
• Bungie.net also has a new top story about the use of the Havok physics engine in Halo 2.
• Bungie loses another Humpday Challenge, but this one is understandable: their opponent was the US Army.
• MLG notes the Best Gamer on Campus competition.

In the British Academy of Film and Television Arts Interactive Entertainment awards, the sequel to the PC game Half-Life beat out the sequel to the Xbox game Halo in every category in which the two games competed head-to-head, leaving Halo 2 with the only award that Half-Life 2 couldn't possibly win: best Xbox game. Thanks BDGamer.

IGN is spreading a rumor that Bungie is already hard at work on Halo 3, and that it will be timed for simultaneous release with Sony's next-generation console, the PlayStation3, just to try and steal the wind out of Sony's sails. A nice idea, but not much other than unnamed sources to back it up. Thanks HBO. (Pass the sodium chloride. Also, do we now have to officially start calling the Xbox a 'this-generation console'? --Ed)

Today's news summary:

• Bungie's poofingers got flung by the Pooflingers in the latest Humpday Challenge. (Here's hoping subsequent challenges are less scatological. And once again, no Ferrex --Ed.)
• Lee Wilson is supposedly the 'new guy' at Bungie, but he's worked with them before, doing storyboard art for Halo and Halo 2.
• Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be m4d h4x0rs.
• People still buy PC Halo. Thanks Louis Wu.

The bane of my existence, the news roundup, is back again. Lodged between the rough incisors of the news roundup beast are the following remnants of its recent meals:

• Bungie wants to know how you feel about randomness in XBL playlists; random vehicles, weapons, etc. (I like ice cream --Ed.)
• Alex "The Man" Seropian of Wideload again gets interviewed, with more questions on his Hollywood business model than on the upcoming game. Not surprising since the interviewer is the Hollywood Reporter. (What's everyone else's excuse? --Ed)
• Xbox 2's standard controllers might be wireless. (What I want to know is, will the Duke return? --Ed)
• Stuntmutt turns art critic in One One Se7en.