As Halo 2‘s 20th anniversary passes us by, so does a bunch of press coverage. Halo Studios has been celebrating in Infinite, in MCC, and on Waypoint, but among the press recollections there were two I found worth a read.

• On IGN, Ryan McCaffrey has his remembrances of reviewing the game at Bungie, and Max Hoberman shares some details on map development.
• Rolling Stone has an interview with Robert and Lorraine McLees that touches on the origins of the Flood, Lorraine’s efforts to make Chief a focus of marketing Halo 2, and more.

(fuchsdh 17:53:49 +0000)

In a joint effort with Halo Studios and marking Halo 2’s 20th anniversary, Digsite has released a playable restoration of the game’s E3 2003 demo, for MCC PC. Not sure how off-script you can go to tackle things in different ways, but multiple playthroughs are already up on YouTube, such as the one below, and the mod includes a ‘Playground’ version of the level which allows free roaming of the city. There’s also co-op support. All in all, seems like an impressive job and a must-have for any Halo 2 fan! Thanks, MangoOfDoom.

(Rockslider 14:25:25 +0000)

Polygon reports that the soundtracks to the first three games (minus the licensed tracks of 2, sorry Breaking Benjamin fans) are coming to vinyl, either a la carte or in a monster eight-LP box set. I don’t have a turntable, but the new cover art by longtime concept artist Isaac Hannaford is a nice touch. (fuchsdh 20:45:58 +0000)

MisterMonopoli has been busy with co-op on the original Xbox lately (no mods involved). After various short teaser videos in which one player has somehow become something other than a cyborg, he now has a tutorial for becoming a gold Elite, so you can run about shouting “Wort wort wort” and swishing a plasma sword around. I mean, if that’s what you really want. The detailed workings of this digital sorcery will hopefully be elucidated later, but meanwhile here’s the tutorial (you’ll also want to read the description for guidance):

(Rockslider 13:55:46 +0000)

Some big news today: Halo is moving to Unreal Engine, and 343 Industries is rebranding to Halo Studios. You can hear more watching the Vidoc below: (fuchsdh 23:39:11 +0000)

If you’ve ever wanted to sail the high seas and fight the Covenant along the way, the new Halo 3 mod from InfernoPlus may be the ticket to your dreams. With Captain Johnson at the helm, Pimps at Sea takes you to multiple tropical islands and features such novelties as boat-hogs, amphibious Ghosts, and a boss battle between a pirate ship and a Scarab. Whether a work of inspired imagination or the result of someone going way too heavy on the rum, it’s surely worth a look. And above all, it provides an excellent excuse for grown men to wear pirate hats while videogaming. So what are you waiting for? Swash your buckles and cast off the anchor! Thanks, Hyokin.

(Rockslider 19:50:35 +0000)

Apologies for the tardy mention, but it’s worth playing catch-up on this one. Just recently, Spasmodic achieved one of the holy grails of Halo 1 tricking, namely reaching the bottom of Keyes (as was mentioned in the forum). All you need to do is… a whole lot of tricky stuff (duh!), and hey presto, there you are in your own purple paradise. He lays out the development story in the video description too, so be sure to have a read of that.

(Rockslider 14:09:55 +0000)