When Eric Smith decided to propose to his girlfriend, he took pains to make sure the ring was exactly what she wanted, a unique and somewhat unusual shade of yellow. Before he had a chance to propose, however, she broke it to him that she had been seeing someone else behind his back and Smith found himself in possession of a one-of-a-kind ring that he could hardly bear to look at. Even after selling the ring on eBay, he found that he still felt the need to get rid of the money and thought “Why not Zoidberg buy a full-scale suit of armor modled after Master Chief from Halo?” Why not indeed.

There’s a surprisingly strong tradition of LEGO guns, and a growing tradition (I hope) of LEGO guns from video games. Doing his part to contribute to the trend is Nick Jenson, who built this huge, heavy, impressive LEGO version of the SRS 99 Anti-Matériel sniper rifle from Halo: Reach. Now, I always preferred the Battle Rifle (and not the DMR), but I can respect Nick’s devotion to the sniper, devotion that yeilded this 10.5 pound, 63-inch long replica.

As far as I can tell, this build doesn’t actually do anything, but it’s pretty impressive as is. It just blows me away that people are actually able to find all the LEGOs they need to build these things. On the one hand, I’m glad this trend has seemed to stay with crazy-devoted do-it-yourself-ers, but on the other, I would buy a kit for the M-8 Avenger in a heartbeat.

Halo fan and modder x 7revorBlack x created a Halo: Reach mod that roughly approximates the blue and orange portals of, well, Portal, using a concussion rifle that places teleporting markers wherever its ammo explodes. Color us impressed.

(Bungie via Escapist)

The new millennium has been mighty kind in terms of fruitful franchises. Some older, niche works have received revitalizations while other equally niche works have risen up to help fill out the greater cornucopia that is, shall we say, geekdom. But which of these newcomers really has the strength to stand up over time like the old standbys? That’s the real question here.

So, here’s the criterion: To be considered, the franchise must have some kind of multimedia, multi-platform presence. Basically, each franchise must have three different forms of media involved, be it comics, manga, film, video games, anime series, or something similar to those listed. Call it the equivalent of the triple threat; some franchises have the ability and some do not.

All of these have that quality in spades.

A Guide to the (Arguably) Gay Characters in World of Warcraft (Border House)

This is an R/C Halo Warthog (Kotaku)

Review of Let Me In (The LA Times)

BioShock Infinite Is Totally Not About the Tea-Party, Guys (GameInformer)

Team Dance Fortress 2 (thejazzman9475)

I Am Ashamed That I Kind of Want to Wear This (Fashionably Geek)

Screens from Red UnDead Redemption (GamesRadar)

(pic via Bully’s Comics, click for full version.)

Halo as a fully playable Atari game (Halo 2600)

Fark and Reddit are having a Comic-Con party (Fark)

The most extensive collection of Hitler emoticons (Sean Bonner)

Nice profile of former NYT‘s former web design director (Observer)

Rock, Paper, Shotgun presents the ‘facts’ on the harm of gaming (RPS)

Western civilization runs on mainframes (Foss Patents)

Pies within cakes is too unstable (TDW)

(title image via Reddit)

What even is that? Is it a puddle of bubbling radioactive waste? Is it microwave lasagna gone horribly wrong? No, it’s actually part of a large jellyfish. And a quite wrathful one at that: Not only did it sting somewhere between 100 and 150 people, but it did so while being dead. What medal would Halo possibly give this guy? Invincible from beyond the grave? But more important, how did this happen?

Digital artist Edward M. Ryan has come up with some impressive Halo-inspired creations in the past, but this really takes the cake: A fantastic suit of finished SPARTAN-II armor that even got a shout-out from Bungie. A fine companion adversary to Pete Mander‘s jaw-dropping, 7+ foot-tall Elite costume.

More pics below:

Special effects artist Pete Mander has put his talent to good use in devising this life-sized, scarily realistic costume modeled after the Sangheili, a.k.a. Elite, that you know and love so well from the Halo series. “Cosplay” seems like rather a cheap word to describe what Mander hath wrought; you’ll see what we mean when you check out the pictures and making-of video below.

This anime still comes from what I would call an unlikely source. Or at least a source with unlikely inspiration. The image comes from Dante’s Inferno: The Animated Epic, a series of anime shorts inspired not by Dante’s original Divine Comedy, but by the video game Dante’s Inferno.

Also mysteriously in existence is Halo Legends, an anime series based on the Halo franchise. Because when someone says “film adaptation of the Halo franchise,” the first thought I have is “anime.”

And now this morning brings the announcement of yet another anime adaptation of a western video game: Dragon Age. Like all these other game animes, it’ll be direct-to-video, with a 2011 release date.

While I find this trend to be downright odd, there’s undoubtedly some potential. Halo, at least, has a sufficient fan base that there could be an audience for the anime, and it’s not a stretch to guess that there would be overlap in the anime and Halo markets. But Dante’s Inferno and Dragon Age are each a bit of a stretch to justify. But who knows, they might be great.

Which brings us to the bulk of our exercise. Here are 10 Western games that I know would make for sweet anime adaptations, ranked from how much I would salivate over it, in ascending order: