Master Chief is cute because it's carved from a green pumpkin. Akuma is cute because it's a dad's contribution to his family's pumpkin count, which is about to get bigger by one. And the Spy could potentially be cute, if you ever got that mask off him.

The "mystery game" is actually an iPhone game called Sneezies sent my way by an enterprising iPhone dev who apparently knows how to carve a pumpkin.

Mad pumpkin respect to Jacob Hemphill, Jordan Rubow, Jimmy LeBlanc, Easy Tiger, Joe V. and Gavin Bowman!

Five more days of pumpkin-loving left, Kotaku. Get 'em done!

The Halo franchise has sold more than 25 million copies combined so far, with Halo 3: ODST, the recently released standalone game, making up a good 10% of that in just 2 weeks on store shelves. Along with next year's prequel Halo: Reach, Bungie and Microsoft have a whole lot of Halo going on. There's a new comic book series, Blood Line, kicking off in December, the Halo Legends anime, the Halo: Evolution anthology novel, and the trilogy from acclaimed science fiction author Greg Bear, due out next year. And you know Todd McFarlane isn't going to stop milking the franchise anytime soon.

But with all of this Halo merchandising, there's still something missing. Where's Master Chief? Microsoft's Frank O'Connor says that everyone's favorite Spartan can't possibly be gone for long.

As for Master Chief, odds are he will be seen again. "I think that (his) fate, Cortana's fate and the identity of that giant, dark planet at the ending (on the game's hardest skill level) - that's a spoiler - are probably big mysteries that would be irritating if they were just cliffhangers," O'Connor says. "We do have a plan that goes out at least six years," he says. "Eventually, it will become very apparent that there is a plan for the way the canon all ties together and the way the comic books and the novels all tie together."

See? They have a plan, and once it comes to fruition, the world will tremble at their feet...or at least be really happy to see MC and Cortana again.

Video game 'Halo' spins off books, action figures and more [USA Today]

I suppose you can cinch up the hood and create a semi-Spartan helmet visor look with it. Still, this garment seems to be more to be a demonstration of Big Brand A + Big Brand B = $$$$, rather than of street cred or gamer bonafides.

Marc Ecko Master Chief Hoodie [Street Level]

[This post is the fourth in a series that recounts the chain of questions and answers I solicited from the people I interviewed during E3. I asked each of my interviewees to ask a question of the next one. Hence: Chain Interview.]

Shane Kim, Microsoft corporate vice president for long-term strategy in the Xbox 360 group responds: "We're really pleased to have Take Two and EA doing well on our platform with their sports games. So sports as a gaming genre is obviously very important.

"The way I think about sports is in a broader context. Sports is something that hundreds of millions of people are super-passionate about. That's where I think the opportunity is for us to do really interesting things with Xbox 360 and Xbox Live. While you can pick a number from a hat – [there are] six or seven million people who play Madden, there are a 100 million people who watch the NFL during the season. That's a very interesting market. So can we create an experience on our platform for that a football enthusiast or a basketball enthusiast or a baseball enthusiast..."

[At this point Kim got up and directed my attention to an Xbox 360 that was running a demo of a new service which will show Premier League soccer matches in a window surrounded by an audience of Xbox Live avatars. In the margins there was room for trivia and metagame stats based on the number of fans logged in from each team.]

"That's not a soccer game," Kim added, "But that's Premier League live matches being broadcast on Xbox Live surrounded by our social entertainment experience…This is a much better video gaming experience to me than just watching the game."

Impressive, Shane, but did you have a question for your former Microsoft colleague Peter Moore, the head of EA Sports whom I would be interviewing next?

He did.

Shane Kim asks EA Sports chief Peter Moore : "What Microsoft executive do you miss the most from the Xbox group?"

I talked to Moore in one of EA's meeting areas. After our interview, I tested his wit by seeing how he could answer Kim's question.

Peter Moore responds: "Whilst that is like saying, which of my children do I love most, boy, it's got to be Master Chief. It's got to be."

I pointed out that Master Chief is not an executive. Laughing, Moore quickly replied: "He's responsible for more revenue than anybody else I left behind there."

Fair enough. And did he have a question for my next interviewee, his boss and EA CEO John Riccitiello?
He did. Some context: Most of the parking spots at EA's headquarters are not reserved. Moore told me only two are, for electric cars. So…

Peter Moore asks EA CEO John Riccitiello: "How can you live with yourself by deliberately buying an electric car so you can get a reserved parking spot at Electronic Arts?"

Please come back for the answer and the final key links in our Chain Interview.

The "Future Soldier 2030" being planned at the Army's Soldier Systems Center in Natick, Mass., is the subject of much oohing-and-ahhhing in today's New York Post. The basis of tomorrow's fighter is a "soldier as a system," philosophy that more or less regards soldiers as battlefield assets like tanks or planes.

Some of this "system's" features include a HUD inside the helmet; voice commands that unlock a weapon or set it to less-than-lethal force, a powered exoskeleton to increase a soldier's movement endurance and even "neural prosthetics" and "drugs that aid cognitive ability." The Army allows that those enhancements might be "controversial now, but perhaps ubiquitous in 2030."

I suppose it's only a natural evolution, the Army's designs somewhat trailing the epochal history of combat games; from flight sims to drone aircraft, FPSes to cyborg soldier.

Soldier of the Future [NY Post, and graphic; thanks randlsa]

Yessir, that's a custom pink Master Chief with Hello Kitty tattooed/embossed on his ass, kneepads, "HK47" rifle and shield. In other words, it looks like the kind of eye-gouging abomination that only an eight-year-old kid sister could create out of her big brother's action figure collection. And then some. You can Buy it Now! for $49.99 on eBay.

The action figure is deliberately gender ambiguous, according to the seller (who also advises: "Please be aware that with all paints there is always a chance of wear and tear (especially in the jointed areas of an action figure, so please remember to be careful!)"). Holy shit, I just went punctuation, close parenthesis, quote mark, close parenthesis and punctuation and it was correct.

Check out that Emma Frost Hellfire Club fireplace behind Chief. Unfortunately, you don't get it with your 50 bones.

Meowster Chief [Hawty McBloggy]

"I doubt we have seen the last of Master Chief," O'Connor told the paper. The bulk of the article is about upcoming Halo 3: ODST, which O'Connor says is significantly more than an add-on.

"It's a lot of game. You play the game through the point of view of an ODST. They are dropped into combat from orbit. They have a rivalry with the Spartans that is well known to the fans of the fiction. We finally let you into their boots as it were. …It's kind of a detective story in a way. But it is much more action-packed than that."

The ODST comic hitting this summer is meant to fill in more of the background on these "Navy SEALs of the Halo Universe."

'Halo Wars' giveaway and more 'Halo' news [USA Today's Game Hunters]

The adowable girl is reader Landon's niece. Landon and his brother are life long gamers, and his brother made some flash cards of famous game characters. He showed them to his daughter over the course of about three days, and the darling child was able to memorize them all and dazzle us all. Bravo!

*applause*

Tiggerboy, who keeps a blog on the UK GameSpot, brought in all the hardware dignitaries to bid the 360 goodbye. You can see the 360 packaged in his foam coffin (aka the Peter Moore Catafalque), ready to to be ferried by the Boatman of the Dead Consoles (aka the UPS guy) on his way back to Microsoft, where his remains will become part of the circle of console life. There's a gallery of the proceedings on the jump, including an astonishing, last-minute appearance by a disowned relative that will leave you heaving up great sobs.

Master Chief, a lifelong friend, gave a moving eulogy. In the crowd: Venerable PSOne up front, leaning on his cane, pale and wan, feeling every day of his 14 years of age and wondering how it has come to pass that he is burying the children of his friends. And behind him, the grand statesman NES, his gaming days long gone and his service limited to ceremonial functions such as these.

Even R.O.B., gaming's great useless partner, like Andrew Ridgely or John Oates or Art Garfunkel, put aside his bitterness to come and pay his respects. Why, when I last heard of him, he was living in a Vermont cabin like J.D. Salinger, drinking heavily and refusing all requests for an interview. And in the back is the unmistakable PS3, dark and foreboding. Like World War I flying aces, there can still be honor and respect among blood enemies.

Then at the end, 360's biological dad Xbox showed up, only deepening the regret and sadness felt by everyone. Cast aside and virtually estranged for the better part of two years, reduced to living in basements on the kindness of others, Xbox still loves his son unconditionally, forgiving all of his design flaws.

In pace requiescat, Xbox 360. "The candle that burns twice as bright — or hot — burns only half as long."

The Funeral for my Xbox 360 [tiggerboy's Blog, Gamespot UK]

Culled from all over the Sporepedia, this collection of all things Halo remade in Spore is likely to impress. From Master Chief to the Prophet of Truth to Warthogs to even the little things, like a Covenant energy sword, there's not much that doesn't show serious craft and dedication.

Halo Invades Spore [Hawty McBloggy]

Gotta admit though, the thing looks pretty sharp as a 72dpi JPEG on the internet. It even has realistic battle damage, our favorite gimmick.

Master Chief Collector's Costume - Licensed Halo 3 Men's Costume [Costumes Inc - thanks, Roy!]

My usually reliable Photoshop bullshit detector isn't being very helpful, but those who suspect that a Master Chief lookalike in Fable II is simply pixel alchemy are welcome to eyeball a larger version linked below.

Master Chief Rockin’ [Loinhead via Lionhead Forums]

"The marketing statement was really based around Master Chief. We did some research, and found out that people thought of Master Chief the same way they think of Robocop and the Terminator, a killing machine... we had to humanize him to reach a broader audience."

Analysis: Microsoft On The Secrets Of Marketing Halo 3 [Gamasutra]

Actually it's nothing more than the Game Content Usage Rules...in action. When these were developed, people all thought they were focused on machinima. The truth is that while they do address machinima they also allow for a lot of other things. Mods like this are one of them.

The developers aren't selling the mod, they're not monetizing Microsoft's IP, they're just creating something to share their love of the Master Chief on a new platform...And no one is taking characters from PlayStation games (do they even have any games?) and putting them on our platform...

Everyone and their mother is totally getting sued and it's gonna be awesome.

Master Chief on PlayStation? Yep, we know... [DonkeyXote via Maxconsole]