eToychest.org is reporting that Stubbs the Zombie has gone Gold Master (at least for the Xbox). Aspyr's Project Status page confirms it.

Bungie.net is now confirming the Game Informer story that GhaleonEB pointed out earlier in the HBO forum; that a character from the Halo universe will make an appearance in DOA4. Neither developer is stating which one, as of yet, although the Bungie.net story has an impressive display of Cortana's own unnatural formations, which is either a blatant hint or a huge red herring.

According to another story at Inside Mac Games late last week, the Macintosh and PC versions of Stubbs have now reached alpha status, while the Xbox version is in beta, according to the Project Status page at Aspyr, which is publishing the Macintosh and PC versions. The game is due out in November for those platforms and in October for the Xbox.

HBO forumgoer GhaleonEB labeled this as "please tell me this is a joke." We can only hope. Game Informer Online is reporting that a character from Halo will be a "secret character" Tecmo's upcoming game, Dead or Alive 4. Given the franchise's dependance on the rendering of supple female forms, that seems to make the choice rather obvious.

(I can just hear Cortana now, looking at the lineup of combatants in DOA4, muttering something about how all these formations aren't natural--Ed.)

Kotaku got their hands on the newest copy of Xbox 360 World, the magazine that currently has the words "Halo 3" and "PS3 Is Dead" on its cover, along with a picture of the Master Chief. As many predicted, there's no official announcement or even new information in the issue at all:

As it turns out, there’s nothing new in Xbox 360 World, just as we said there wouldn’t be. The cover (see image) refers to a six-page feature at the end of the magazine of readers suggesting what should be included in Halo 3.

Gamasutra today has an interview with Wideload Games' Alexander Seropian. He talks about how Wideload's outsourcing model has worked out, the modifications they made to the original Halo engine, and dealing with the challenges of a cross-platform release:

Having an engine that has already shipped on all three of those platforms certainly helped, as did having a partner in Aspyr Media, a company that has lots of experience with Mac and PC development. We also spent a lot of time early on getting our codebase operational on all three platforms.

GameSpy has put up a preview of Stubbs The Zombie. They liked how the ability to create more zombies that you can make follow you made otherwise straightforward killing far more interesting:

These simple dynamics turn the repetitive combat into a shambling, decomposing chess game, since your inability to singly defeat the large crowds couple with the NPC zombies' natural ineptitude necessitates strategic manipulation of each situation to come out of it in your mostly-intact state. Often I would find myself using zombies as walking shields, hanging back until I could slip in behind the enemies and chomp them, or sending a diversionary swarm towards a machine-gun nest while I hid and send my arm off to possess a shotgun-toting redneck who could take care of the situation.

HBO pointed us to what the guys at TeamXbox have done to the Origen site-- namely, they found the XML file that contains the dialog between the two rabbits. It also reveals the first three of the four contests that will determine who gets to go to Origen. Places 5 and 6 will go to the top eligible Double Team playlist player and his or her usual partner. Unless you live in Portugal or Greece, apparently.

Well, a few minutes ago, the Flash countdown at origenxbox360.com reached zero (at least on my screen). Nothing else seems to have happened. There's been no change in the page's source code, no new clickable items have appeared, no other flash files have loaded. Looks like a dud, or else whatever is happening doesn't work on a Mac.

UPDATE: It looks like other countdowns before it, this one uses the computer's local time, so overseas users are not seeing it properly. Some users report seeing three hours left, others twelve or more. My understanding is that the countdown was supposed to end at 12 midnight on September 27, in approximately one hour. So we'll check back then.

UPDATE: Well, by my clock it's past 1:30 AM on the West Coast of the United States now, and there's still been no change on the Origen site. Anyone else see something different?

UPDATE: The Origen site has changed. Now the tree, the fruit, and the rabbits are gone, replaced with a single rabbit running in a wheel and what looks like a meter of some sort, filled with green leaves. It appears as if this is some sort of loading screen. At the moment, on my screen it's about two-thirds full.

UPDATE: Eventually, a link to Xbox360.com appears. Then, the tree reappears, with flags representing many different languages. Clicking one produces the bunny rabbit wheel loading progress screen again. Microsoft is certainly counting on people having broadband for this.

UPDATE: When the new site finally loads, one feature it offers is a little Xbox 360 mini quiz; answering correctly gives you a chance to enter a drawing to win one of two "trips to Origen". As for what Origen actually is, it would appear to be a Microsoft PR event somehow related to the Xbox 360's launch, but other than some vaguely tropical rhythms and settings and a disturbing person in a bunny suit, the site doesn't offer many clues.

UPDATE: Other sites have since confirmed the Europe-only nature of the current contest.

BetaNews has put up twelve screenshots of the Xbox 360's user interface, showing various features such as the Games blade (Zorro the Games Blade?), the Xbox Live blade, the Xbox Live Marketplace, video messages (there's a bad idea if there ever was one), Xbox Arcade, Music and Visualizations.

Thanks Joystiq.

MCV has a story quoting a Microsoft rep as saying a Halo 2-sized media blitz for the upcoming Xbox 360 title Perfect Dark Zero will begin in October. The parallel even extends to the Special Edition of PD0 in a chrome tin. Thanks Kotaku.

Wideload's Stubbs the Zombie gets the limelight this week in GameCore, the gaming column by William Vitka at CBS News, pointing out the game's humorous angle and nostalgia-driven soundtrack:

The game's recipe for success is an undead homage. Take one part Romero (for the shambling dead and the spot-on social commentary that people don't want to listen to), two parts O'Bannon (creator of the funniest zombie movie known to man "Return Of The Living Dead," because the zombies in this game eat brains, not flesh, like Romero zombies), and just a smidgen of "Evil Dead" - and you've got a general idea of what cinematic treats influenced the game. One should probably throw Stuart Gordon's "Re-Animator" in there too, if only for good measure.

Stubbs is the embodiment of 50's kitsch and it plays out like one of the afternoon Creature Features baby boomers used to pay pocket change to see. It's even got an amazing soundtrack with the likes of Ben Kweller covering "Lollipop," The Raveonettes' take on "My Boyfriend's Back" and Rose Hill Drive's absolutely fantastic cover of "Shakin' All Over."

In addition, Daily Game makes mention of Stubbs' cooperative play mode (this is the Halo engine, after all) and promises screens and maybe a movie next week.

Frankie's second report from the Tokyo Game Show has Kameo and cosplayers, Koei and yaoi (sort of), Chrome Hounds and Dynasty Warriors, five Resident Evils and Ninety-Nine Nights. Not to mention a list of things you can't put in a locker in Japan, which makes me wonder what Frankie is doing over there in his free time.

Halo gets mentioned once, sort of.

Joe "Dyslexia" Renaud has posted a writeup of the MLG Seattle tournament, som by IGS. Seattle was the last major qualifying MLG event before the Championship Series begins.

Thanks Louis Wu at HBO for the heads-up.

Frankie filed the Weekly What's Update this week from the floor of the Tokyo Game Show, after getting blitzed on martinis. Wait, that's not right.

Frankie was there just to catch up on other Microsoft games and stuff he likes-- he mentions Phantagram's Ninety Nine Nights (as a lot of people are doing this week)

In Bungie-related news, the move to Kirkland is complete and Bungie held their Summer Pentathlon-- those events will get written up (hopefully) in next week's Update.

For those hoping that there would be a Bungie announcement soon, Frankie has this to say:

A few folks asked me if I was there to unveil Halo 3. I smiled and told them the usual Bungie line. We haven't announced our new project yet, blah, blah, blah. We may not have announced it, but its coming along nicely.

The update concludes with a photo gallery.