The latest Zombie Army Dispatch says that Stubbs the Zombie is now playable on the Xbox 360. Stubbs is included on the compatibility list; but if it is a recent addition, it doesn't have a "new" tag next to the name. In any case, as Stubbs uses a modified Halo engine, it's hardly surprising that it would work on the 360.

Those who wondered how Bungie was going to plausibly explain the presence of Nicole-458, the Spartan II soldier who guards the hangar bay of the Nassau Station in Tecmo's upcoming DOA4 title for the Xbox 360, will get a hearty "shut your noisehole" and a shout-out to the I Love Bees reality game in Frankie's run-down on Nicole, Spartan-458:

Nicole was born in the year 2531 in the city of New Legaspi on Mars. At six years of age she was abducted by agents of the Office of Naval Intelligence and conscripted into the Spartan II program. The Spartan II program was the UNSC's highly successful military project to augment and hone perfect soldiers.

SPARTAN-458's unit was preparing for a classified mission on Nassau Station when the ONI stealth ship Apocalypso tumbled into real-space – being carried along in the wake of a freak slipspace anomaly. The anomaly intersected Nassau Station; creating a semi-stable "bubble" in the space/time continuum on its way back to the 21st Century.

For the time being Nicole-458 is trapped in the 21st century; guarding Nassau Station's secrets with all but lethal force (she realizes killing someone in the past could have dire consequences), waiting for the "bubble" to collapse and hopefully returning her to the year 2552.

The Apocalypso, some of you might recall, was the UNSC craft that the AI Melissa was aboard, and that brought the mysterious artifact to Earth that Spartan-spawn Janissary James had to try and deactivate before it... did something bad.

Whether this mishap involving a cloaking device and a space station (sounds like a line from Hitchhiker's, doesn't it?) occurred before or after Truth's fleet arriving at Earth isn't specifically stated; but as the Nassau's hangar bay happens to include a conveniently-placed Covenant boarding craft, one can only assume the latter. Either that, or this is really just the Cairo's hangar from Halo 2. Wait, did I say that out loud? Nevermind.

Today's Halo Babies comic looks at ways Microsoft could solve the Xbox 360 shortage. Thanks mrsmiley.

Some Halo-related and not-so-Halo-related news for today:

Achronos writes at Bungie.net that the playlist update is complete. Last week's update at Bungie.net detailed all the changes. The bottom line is, if you can still see playlists like Head to Head-- which has been deleted-- you're not seeing the changes, and you need to logout and then login to Xbox Live again.

A few items of note before the holiday break:

• Frankie reported the goings-on at Zero Hour on Bungie.net, including a 7th place, 7-kill Xbox Live performance.
• Coldforged has an Xbox 360 high definition FAQ that you might find useful.
• The Red Herring thinks the Xbox 360 will be good enough to knock Nintendo out of the console hardware business.
• Game Insider has a series of photos from launch lines at Best Buy.
• Kotaku has reports of one Xbox 360 that seems to be broken, crashing while playing PGR3 several times in a row with all default settings, and an Xbox 360 that is definitely broken as a result of an encounter with a sledgehammer.
• GamePro says Bill Gates is standing behind the Xbox 360. (If he stands behind the power adapter, no one will see him--Ed.)
• Nearly lost in all the Xbox 360 launch hubbub, Aspyr has shipped Stubbs the Zombie for Mac OS X.
• Voodoo Extreme is collecting reports of Xbox 360 problems and directing readers to the official support pages.

As of today I've been reinstalled in Rampancy's core after a short business trip to London and environs last week, the culmination (or at least the high point) of which was some Halo 2 play on XBL with Stuntmutt and c0ld vengeance. In the meantime, here are the most important items in the Halo/Xbox 360verse in that time:

Dean Takahashi, author of Opening the Xbox and gaming columnist for the San Jose Mercury News, has written a feature story about Microsoft's ambitious plans for the Xbox 360.

Two major categories of news in this roundup: Stubbs and Xbox 360.

Microsoft has listed all 200 or so games they say that the Xbox 360 will be backwards compatible with, as well as revealing that all such games, not just Halo and Halo 2, will be automatically upscaled to 720p. Microsoft's VP for the Xbox Product Group, Todd Holmdahl, also did a Q&A about the 360's backwards compatibility.

As mentioned earlier, the hard drive accessory is necessary for backwards compatibility, in order to store the "emulation profile" for the game you're trying to play. The hard drive comes preloaded with early versions of the profiles for Halo and Halo 2.

NOTE: Marty "the Elder" O'Donnell warns that this early version of the emulation profile for Halo and Halo 2 has serious problems with audio, and urges everyone to get the new version via XBL or Xbox.com before playing:

Without the update the audio will suck. Without the update you will think that your new Xbox 360 is broken.

Other profiles can be downloaded from XBL or installed from a CD, either one you burn yourself after downloading profiles from Xbox.com on your computer, or on a CD ordered from Microsoft.

Saved games will not be transferred from old Xboxes.

This week's Bungie Update mentions that texture pop-in on Halo 2 should be "slightly improved" due to the new box's DVD drive. Copies of Halo and/or Halo 2 running in emulation on Xbox 360s are compatible in network games with players running those games on original Xboxes. Halo 1 still doesn't support Xbox Live, and won't. The