Captain Jacob Keyes started to have bad luck from the first moments of Halo 1. His ship, preparing for a secret mission, was ambushed when the Covenant attacked Reach. They fled blindly, only to arrive at Halo 04 and find the Covenant waiting for them. After a valiant effort, the ship crashes on Halo and Keyes is taken prisoner.

The Master Chief and Cortana mount a daring rescue, so the player has to get inside a Covenant cruiser, find the captain, and keep him alive until the end of the level.

Almost immediately after, however, the captain's search for hidden weapons to use against the Covenant lead to the discovery of the Flood, who take him captive for the second time in the game. The Chief's second valiant rescue attempt fails, as they recover only the neural implants he needs to set the Pillar of Autumn to self-destruct, destroy Halo 04, and supposedly end this whole nightmare.

Crashed, captured and Floodified.

So perhaps Julie Benz should have known going in that there's a bit of bad luck associated with characters sharing the last name "Keyes" in Halo games.

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Ahh, the Halo rumor mill. When the tabloids fail to satisfy or even titillate, Halo rumors always ride to the rescue.

A Microsoft blogger in Belgium apparently reposted verbatim an electronic mail message sent from a "bigwig" at Microsoft about a video due to hit Xbox Marketplace on December 20th. The email alleged the 7 plus minute video would focus on the Brute race-- which would be playable in Halo 3-- and feature two and a half minutes of gameplay footage.

HBO followed the breadcrumbs on this one, with forumgoers pointing out that a new documentary video was consistent with statements Bungie made last month, but Frankie was quick to quash the "playable Brutes" part in several community forums.

Of course, that didn't stop the discussion there, as many fans debated back and forth about whether Brutes, as a playable race in campaign, would have been a good idea or not, which only brought out all the Arbiter fans and detractors again over whether or not his inclusion in Halo 2 was a good idea.

We already know Bungie isn't doing it... but if they had, would it have made sense? And would fans (at least some of them) have liked it?

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Since an announcement at Xbox.com appeared and was just as quickly removed, the Halo community has been awash in discussion about the apparent appointment of Neill Blomkamp as director of the silver screen adaptation of Halo. Neither Microsoft Game Studios nor Bungie Studios have chosen to comment on the announcement, although Blomkamp himself has granted two interviews on the subject: one to Ain't It Cool News, and the other a gracious response to two questions submitted by the Red vs Blue fan community, which was keen to know whether the movie would draw from the games or the novels (and from which of each) and also if there could possibly be any easter eggs in the movie for RvB fans.

Official Secrets And Common Knowledge
The withdrawal of the official notice as well as refusal to comment by Microsoft and Bungie would seem to smack of a premature announcement, rather than an erroneous one. If the later, Blomkamp would seem to be just going along with the joke, and having us on until such time as an official announcement is made. If the former, one wonders why Microsoft simply doesn't ask Peter Jackson and Blomkamp from refraining from giving interviews until there is an official announcement.

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