Bungie.net has a guide on how to use the gold skulls in Halo 3 to change your play experience.

Meyeselph is working on compiling an easily accessible guide to Halo 3's weapons, with an eye on how to maximize the effective use of each. The first weapon so examined is Halo 3's venerable Assault Rifle. Visually evocative of the Colonial Marines' pulse rifle from Aliens, maligned as an inaccurate bullet hose in Halo 1, missing from Halo 2 in favor of the even more maligned dual-wielding bullet hose, the SMG, the Assault Rifle makes a triumphant return in Halo 3.

Stuntmutt attended the Halo 3 launch party in Waterloo and walked away with a free copy of Halo 3, which he immediately went home and played, uncharacteristically eschewing an open bar.

I went home and finished the fight (going to work the following day after just two hours of sleep). I dashed through on Normal just to see how the story ended and I loved it. I'm now going back through on Heroic and it's even better. Next week, I'll make a start on Legendary. And hopefully, I'll get a chance to play a little multiplayer too.

You have been warned: Stunt starts playing multiplayer next week, so get those rocket-dodging muscles in shape. That advice, of course is for his teammates.

If that's not enough One One Se7en goodness for you, there's a passel of guest strips up on the blog, too.

GeezerGamer has a nice article explaining in detail some of the uses of the file share feature in Halo 3 and how to make them work for you.

Looking to unlock some of those cool armor permutations in Halo 3? Thumb at The Hushed Casket has got you covered with an armor guide.

These days it seems like everyone at Bungie is giving interviews. Of course that's not really the case; Bungie is just much larger than it was back in the days when you could attend a MacWorld show and meet practically the whole company.

One thing that hasn't changed too much is the man behind it all-- Jason Jones. He rarely, if ever, gives interviews. From MacWorld of 1999 to the release of Halo 2 and a short sequence on the Limited Edition DVD, you could go years without hearing a word from him in the press.

That doesn't stop The Telegraph from trying to get some insights on Bungie, Halo, and Jones, even if some of the revelations are secondhand:

Joe Staten, Halo's smart and sarcastic writing director, says, 'Working with Jones is fun, but he is also very challenging. I once said to him, "Let's talk about the story for Halo 2. What do you think the story for Halo 2 is?" And he says, "I know what the story is. At some point the Master Chief says, only blood will pay for this. He meets this thing called the Gravemind and it says, I am a monument to all your sins."

The telegraph's three page article is well worth a read, even for those who know their Bungie lore quite well.

Thanks Louis Wu at HBO for the heads-up.

IGN has put together a piece on the history of the Halo franchise; Louis Wu at HBO notes a few inaccuracies they've made, but if you weren't a Halo fan eight years ago you might find some of this "old stuff" interesting.

Part Three of Ferrex's trilogy on Forge is up at Bungie.net: Advanced Forge Editing. It covers how to edit objects in ways specific to creating certain goal-oriented gametypes, instead of just piles of fusion cores.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

What this article does talk about a lot is spawning: spawn points and spawn zones. If you've always been interested in how Halo chooses to spawn you where it does, this article is a treasure trove.

Retronauts continues its contributions to 1Up's ongoing Halo 3 coverage by taking a look back at Marathon 2. In case you've been under a rock since July, Freeverse has ported the game to XBLA as Marathon:Durandal.

Thanks to chewpathingy in the HBO forum.

Cinema Blend Games has a series of pieces by Steve West they're calling their Halo 3 Primer. It covers:

• Multiplayer
• UNSC weapons
• Covenant weapons
• Equipment
• UNSC vehicles
• Covenant vehicles
• Characters
• Story
• Community
• Editions/Accessories

A lot of information there-- most of it not new, but it's nice to have it all in one place.

1Up's Halo 3 coverage continues; this time, the Retronauts Blog is traveling further back in time to the colony ship Marathon. There's also an indication from Bruce "Hippieman" Morrison from Freeverse in the comments to that entry to the effect that if there's enough interest, that Marathon Infinity and even the original Marathon can also be brought to Xbox Live, just like Marathon: Durandal has been.

Over at 1Up, Jeremy Parish is Revisiting Halo, going over the Cortana Letters and pre-buyout screenshots; they promise even a look at the Marathon trilogy will be on tap.