John Olin at Xbox Evolved interviewed Wideload Games' Matt Soell about how he came to Wideload, about Hail to the Chimp, and also about Stubbs the Zombie. Stubbs, it seems, may be getting a sequel:

Stubbs is near and dear to all of us, and we’ve heard from lots of people who would like to see more of him. I can’t say anything specific right now, but it’s safe to say he’ll be back. They say you can’t keep a good man down, and that goes double for the ones with an insatiable hunger for brains.

For more info on Hail to the Chimp, be sure to check back regularly at the animal news station, GRRNews.

The admin of uber community file hosting service Mythica.org has posted a note that the Useruploads service, which allowed Halo fans to host files for free, is ceasing in February of this year due to high costs and a lack of time and interest. A shame to see such a wonderful service go, but given the huge amount of bandwidth required for such a site, it is understandable that it could not have continued forever.

Since the trailer was released, the time frame of events in the upcoming Halo Wars RTS have been hot topics for discussion. Did it happen before the Halo FPS games or after? Over a long period of time, or a short one? Where did those battle rifles in the trailer come from if Halo Wars is supposed to chronicle early Human-Covenant conflicts?

Now, Ensemble has published a two-page timeline for the Halo universe (one, two) that gives the backstory. Also, starting with this month's Update, they'll be posted on the front page of HaloWars.com instead of in the forums.

Currently the timeline covers the period from 2160 (early civil conflicts) through 2552 (the events of Halo 1-3). The ship featured in Halo wars, UNSC Spirit of Fire, was built in 2473 and refitted in 2520.

Curiously enough the timeline doesn't actually say when Halo Wars begins or ends, although previous statements have indicated 2531, which on the timeline corresponds to the Battle of Harvest.

Ahead of NPD data, Microsoft is claiming that Halo 3 has sold over 8 million copies so far worldwide, and the 360 console 17.7 million, according to GameDaily.

Second Foundation, home of the Halo community podcast The Riot, is holding its 2007 community awards. Voting will be open until midnight GMT on January 13.

In the interest of full disclosure, yours truly was nominated under "Biggest Community Contributor (Individual)" but I'm up against Louis Wu so if I don't win, no hard feelings. Then again, if you want to vote for me, don't let me stand in your way.

The website for GRR, the animal news network, has officially launched. The lead article is a blog entry about a Las Vegas-based scandal touching one of the candidates in Hail to the Chimp. Looks like [i][Ed. Omitted][/i] is the new [i]censored[/i].

Be sure to check it out! It's already 2008, and coincidentally, that's the year Hail to the Chimp is being released in-- in the first quarter, no less. Not long to wait now!

Myself and some guys over at Bungie.net have been kicking around this idea of starting up a monthly community newsletter. Basically it will contain lots of content from the community itself (like fan art, fanfiction...) Bungie and gaming news etc: Not everything is finalized yet but we are hard at work in an attempt to create a good newsletter that, hopefully, people will enjoy.

But we need content for the newsletter and thats where the community (you guys!) come in. So if you want to share your artwork with the rest of us please send it to maximumfear@gmail.com We'll take any form of art as long as it is Bungie related. The best submissions every month will be published in the newsletter along with the other content such as articles and interviews, and all submissions will be displayed online.

If you have any questions feel free to email me, and if you are sending artwork then please use the subject title: Fan-Art Submission. Thanks a lot guys!

Bungie's "big news" for Monday was, as many predicted, the official announcement of the first installment of downloadable content for Halo 3. In this case, three new maps: Standoff, looking quite similar to parts of Tsavo Highway or The Storm, Rat's Nest, based on Crow's Nest from the campaign, and Foundry, based on the warehouse interior from The Storm and Floodgate and designed to be a Forge-friendly map with a highly configurable interior space.

Oh, and the date? Just under a month-- December 11, 2007.

Along with the Xbox 360 dashboard update due out on December 4, you can pick up classic original Xbox games through Xbox Originals. 1200 MS points will grab you games like Fable, Psychonauts, or even Halo.

Note to potential purchasers: while what, if any, Xbox Live features have been added to these games are as yet unknown, HBO's Louis Wu has it on good authority that Halo 1 will not be getting Live multiplayer, so don't get your hopes up for that.

Amazon.com has a page up for the two-disc Halo 3 Original Soundtrack, due out on November 20, 2007. It will include the music created by Marty O'Donnell and Michael Salvatori for Halo 3 and be published by Sumthing Else Records. However, it will also include a track by the lucky winners of a contest being run at Halo 3's Myspace page. Submissions will be accepted until midnight on October 22. For contest details see the myspace page.

Those of us steeped in Halo 3 and Bungie Breakaway news might be forgiven momentarily for forgetting that online communities for Bungie's Mac and PC RTS games, Myth, are still hanging in there a decade after the game was released.

Unfortunately one of them, PlayMyth, has now shut down. Server administrator Blades, apparently posting as elusivemind, says he no longer has the time or energy to keep up with it.

Those looking for their online Myth multiplayer fix can still visit Mariusnet, and if you need Myth related files, including updates to Myth 2, visit Project Magma.

Thanks Gholsbane at MBO.

Just a reminder-- now that Halo 3 is out, if you've played it, you'll want to edit your spoiler settings so you aren't missing out on posts that include spoilers.

Login, go to My Account, click Roles, then choose one (and only one) item that reflects your preferred default spoiler display for the front page.

Also, if you've played Halo 3, why not submit a user review?