There were those who said it couldn't be done. There were those who said it shouldn't be done.

What are they to say now?

Probably something along the lines of "you're insane" because that's a bit how I feel right now dropping a whopping two hours and twenty-four minutes of Anger, Sadness and Envy covering the Halo 3 campaign level "The Covenant" in its entirety.

In addition to more environments harkening back to the titular level of the original, this is the level that truly begins "finishing the fights" began in earlier installments, where the Master Chief stops the array from firing for the last time, and the Arbiter forces the Prophet of Truth to take back what he said about his mother. That, and get revenge for being sent on an unjust suicide mission and being pushed off a cliff into a giant plant. Which would tend to give one a short temper, I might imagine.

As I wrote last week we originally intended this to be split into two or even three separate installments; but alas, I've now procrastinated so long in making this episode available that we don't have enough time to space out those separate episodes before ODST drops in less than two weeks. Make liberal use of the pause button and pretend it's a separate episode if you catch yourself yawning.

As usual this is the AAC "enhanced" version of the podcast, which should provide convenient chapter markers and pretty graphics in iTunes and on iPhones, iPod Touches, and iPods with color screens. A non-enhanced MP3 version will be posted a little later for those who prefer that.

The next two episodes coming up are Cortana and Halo, featuring Blackstar & Narcogen with special guest, Bungie's #1 fan.

UPDATE: Oops, almost forgot, here's the Covenant image gallery to accompany the podcast.

Also, some MP3 versions are up: Ark (Part 1), Ark (Part 2), and Covenant.