Hordes of Halo enthusiasts marked the launch of Bungie's latest shooter by lining up outside their local game retailers in anticipation of the nationwide midnight release events. Although that's all well and fine for the plebeians, a few industrious minds at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology felt that the occasion warranted a bit more of a spectacle--something along the lines of a ridiculously overwrought prank.

Following in a long-running tradition of defacing the iconic effigy, the statue of John P. Harvard at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was adorned last night with a bronze-colored Spartan helmet (pictured), according to MIT campus newspaper The Tech. In addition to the helmet, MIT pranksters outfitted the statue of Harvard's eponymous founder with Master Chief's assault rifle (bullet count of 2E, for those wondering), and left a Beaver-emblem calling card on the statue's shoulder.