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Sure, you could take Bungie's latest foray into Mythbusters territory as full on confirmation of Halo: Reach not having Project Natal support, or you could be like us and remain skeptical of the developer's still-not-straightforward wording. In a recent post on Bungie.net, the company attempted to answer a mess of "myths" about its upcoming Halo game, including "Myth: Reach is being built for Natal!" In answering, the post states, "Halo: Reach is NOT a Natal title and is being developed expressly with the traditional Xbox 360 controller in mind."

That said, rather than outright saying, "No, there's no support for Project Natal in Halo: Reach," Bungie instead chose to loosely word the answer. It certainly doesn't help the situation that multiple Bungie employees have expressed interest in seeing Natal incorporated into the Halo series, with Bungie prez Harold Ryan even saying he could "absolutely" see Reach specifically incorporate Natal. So, about that myth ...

Microsoft will hold its X10 event in San Francisco next month, giving us our first looks at Fable 3, Halo: Reach and Left 4 Dead 2 add-ons. The invite-only event will also include other games expected in 2010, including Alan Wake, Crackdown 2, Splinter Cell Conviction, Final Fantasy XIII and the Xbox Game Room.

Microsoft's "X" events have been held for the last few trips around the sun by our health-insured brothers in Canada. We'll surely be in attendance for the February 11 event and get you info as soon as we can. We'd let you tap into our ocular implants, but the event won't have wi-fi for an uplink. Sorry.

We hope you wanted to see a bunch of screens from Halo: Reach today. Bungie has uploaded a ton of new images, showing off environments and gameplay, as well as an extensive collection of concept art (all compiled in the gallery below). You'll also find some character bios on Bungie's site, if you plan on getting to know your squad of Spartans a little better.

The images are generally full of the things you'd expect at this point: Spartans; Covenant; and general Halo-y goodness, but one image in particular is very curious to us. Not only is the reticle not in the center of the screen, but there's also a HUD item scrubbed out. Whatever could it be?

We know the internet has had way more experience than us in putting Halo stuff under the microscope, so we leave the guesstimating up to you. Best one wins our undying love and admiration forever!

[Thanks, Omer]

Much like Uncharted 2: Among Thieves demonstrated in 2009, Halo: Reach will be expected to deliver an experience that not only speaks highly of its developer, but also of the technological capabilities and commercial identity of its home platform. Whereas Halo 3: ODST was built upon Bungie's 2007 space hoop outing (has it already been that long?), the developer tells Edge that its next shooter is already "bending the Xbox as far as it'll bend." Surely that voids the warranty?

"We are... taking every advantage of everything on the CPU and GPU, and every bit of memory in order to produce the look of Reach beyond anything of Halo 3, " creative director Marcus Lehto noted, attributing the evolution -- which also benefits the size of environments and complexity of the AI -- to increased understanding of the hardware. "We're pushing it as far as we can go," Lehto said. "With every iteration we understand what more we can exploit with the hardware."

Chalk up another win for longer console life cycles -- and for long-running franchises.

It's got Kate Winslet? It's on a boat? It features just enough Billy Zane involvement? No, no, we can only dream. Bungie makes the analogy between Halo: Reach and James Cameron's disaster film because you know how it ends before it even begins. "Reach is going to fall and 700 million people are going to perish as a result," said Bungie creative director Marcus Lehto in a new interview with Edge. Dude, spoiler alert!

How the developer is handling the seeming contradiction between the reward of "beating" the game and experiencing the fall of Reach is the meat of the Edge interview. It's a fine read if you want to know more about the next Halo game than just how many guns you'll be able to fire at the same time. (Seven, if you must know. Yeah, we were confused too.)

Were you quick enough to catch the handful of Halo: Reach screens released via the EBGames website? Well it happened, we assure you, and luckily the folks at XCast Online snagged the whole lot of 'em. That said, if you've already got the February issue of Game Informer, chances are you've seen these screens before -- that's because a good deal of them are directly from that issue's cover story on the upcoming prequel.

If EB Games has already gotten its hands on these screens, chances are we'll be seeing an official release from Microsoft in the not-so-distant future. In the meantime, we've pestered the publisher for some idea of when exactly that'll be.

As part of its month-long look at Halo: Reach, Game Informer has put together a brief video about 343 Industries, the group put together by Microsoft to handle the massive Halo franchise. The magazine puts a few questions to 343 Industries' Josh Holmes, Bonnie Ross and Frank O'Connor about how the group came to be, the creation of Halo Waypoint, and what the meaning is behind its mysterious name. According to O'Connor, Microsoft decided some time ago that Halo was large enough that it needed more than a handful of people to steer the franchise.

As for the 343 Industries name, Ross mentions the obvious connection to everyone's favorite Forerunner AI, 343 Guilty Spark, but adds that it may be more fully explained in the future. O'Connor expands further, noting that the answer to the mystery behind 343 will "make itself evident in a few years." Our best guess: "Because it sounds cool."

On Major Nelson's weekly podcast -- with a host left laughing and teary-eyed due to the Xbox head's dental-related lisp -- Aaron Greenberg did some NPD boasting before ruminating on the first half of 2010. After pointing out Mass Effect 2, Splinter Cell Conviction, and Alan Wake, he confirmed Crackdown 2 as part of Microsoft's list of "triple-A, exclusive" titles heading to the Xbox 360 during "the first half of the year."

"Those are just the exclusives, that doesn't include Final Fantasy ... there's no way we had a first half of the year like that last year," Greenberg added. The back end of the upcoming year is no slouch either in his eyes, with Halo Reach and Fable 3 said to be on schedule for launch in the Fall. Considering the first Crackdown's February release date, we're hoping for a similarly timed release of the sequel (just in time for its third birthday!). We've followed up with Greenberg and will update this post if we hear more.

As you can probably tell by looking at our front page, last night's Spike Video Game Awards show was a pretty prolific source of gaming news. From the big reveals of games like Batman: Arkham Asylum 2 and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 2, to new trailers for Crackdown 2 and Halo: Reach, to ... well, the actual awards, it was a pretty busy night for all parties involved.

We've collected all the stories, trailers, and winners of each award in this post to prevent you from hunting through our archives -- or our hateful, hateful liveblog -- to find what you're looking for. You'll find them all listed after the jump!

As promised, Spike's 2009 Video Game Awards delivered the first footage (in-game, 'natch) of Halo: Reach to the masses. More Spartans? Check! Female Spartans? Check check! A skullfaced Spartan? Wait ... what?! Since the show just aired, we've got a low-res version of the trailer for you after the break and will have a prettied up version as soon as it's available.

From the initial talk of a lower price to a renaming, Bungie's ever-changing plans for Halo 3: ODST left a lot of people confused as to what the final product would be. "I'm no PR expert, but it's pretty obvious the game had a series of stumbles; from the naming, to the initial E3 2008 countdown reveal failure, and finally pricing ... it would definitely be nice to have a do-over for the game introduction," senior designer Lars Bakken told G4TV in a recent interview. "The big takeaway for us is just to never comment on matters that are outside of our control," added community manager Brian Jarrard.

The subject of ODST becoming an "expansion pack," however, was never an arguable point to executive producer Curtis Creamer. "Though ODST was built from the Halo 3 engine, there were enough changes made to the engine that we could not have released it as an expansion in the way that you might equate with a PC game expansion pack ... the ODST executable is not compatible with Halo 3."

The crew of Bungie devs also reconfirmed that "there are currently no plans for any ODST DLC," with all of the studio's resources tied up with Halo: Reach. Hopefully, our thirst for more Firefight maps will be quenched by the inclusion of the mode in future Halo games -- a prospect to which the developers responded, "Only time will tell." Do it for us, Bungie! Please?

To clear up any misconceptions with "the kids on Twitter," Spike Video Game Awards host Geoff Keighley took to Major Nelson's podcast this weekend and explained that the Halo: Reach trailer on next week's show will be "actual gameplay." That's right, folks: none of that live-action or CG mumbo jumbo. "You'll get a first glimpse at the world of Reach," Keighley told the Major during this week's show. "I think it's going to be the biggest game next year by far."

When addressing the contents of the trailer -- something Keighley claimed to have not seen just yet -- he noted that he thinks people will be shocked by the direction than Bungie is taking, calling it a "huge leap forward." So, Mr. Keighley, it could be said that the studio is reaching new ground then?

... Hello? Where are you going?!

Spike TV's Geoff Keighley has tweeted that Halo: Reach will make its video debut at the 2009 Video Game Awards on December 12. It's probably no stretch to think that this WORLD EXCLUSIVE will extend the audience of the awards show, who will thrust their DVRs into action to obtain the trailer.

... or, you know, they can just come around the internet ten minutes later. Whatever, their choice.

A variety of new job listings have emerged on a Microsoft employment site, including positions for Project Natal and -- perhaps more interesting -- positions for a new Halo game. These listings for Halo, likely for Halo: Reach, call for designers, AI developers and animators -- even a multiplayer game design lead.

As for Project Natal, some listings point to "a large franchise," whereas others quote "an excellent next-generation" project -- which could be just about anything. We confirmed with Microsoft's Larry "Major Nelson" Hryb that the listings were legit, though he couldn't provide us with any more info beyond that.

[Via HotBloodedGaming]