Month: September 2004

Not available in the US yet, it seems… but in Germany, you can order Halo 2 bundled with the Xbox Live Starter Kit, for just €70.99. (The Starter Kit on its own is €48.99, which means if you need both, you’re getting Halo 2 for €22, a significant discount off its €48.99 standalone price.) Thanks,…

The multipage article on machinima (with a focus on FTC) that appeared in yesterday’s Ottawa Citizen is now online, for folks with a subscription to the paper. If you DON’T have a subscription, SquattingBear4ever sent in a huge (2685×1684, 815K) scan of the article. It’s a great read.

serpx points out the official Halo 2 site in Australia, which has quite a bit more content than the US site. Unfortunately, for most of it, you need to register… and to register, you have to have a geographic address somewhere in Australia. I suppose I understand the theory behind this… but since this content…

This was probably a bit more relevant last week, when our forum was full of complaints about the changes to the pistol in Halo 2… but hey, there are STILL threads today about it, so go read One One Se7en and realize that it’s only a game.

Brodingo found a pair of brand-new screenshots on the Dutch site Xboxworld.nl. There’s now a big long forum thread debating whether they’re real or not… for what it’s worth, they look real to me. It’s a map I’ve never seen before… but there’s some interesting stuff, if you look around. Maybe we’ll get word from…

New content over at Halo Babies; a new strip (things are getting… weirder) and some new Halo 2 Baby Chief concept art (very cool). Go look!

14 new pieces for you in the Fan Fiction section today – songs, stories, you name it. Folks keep writing.

ILTB dropped us a note about an event he attended in Melbourne, Australia, involving the band Regurgitator. (We mentioned them, and their Band in a Bubble project, about a month ago; they were released on Tuesday, which is probably the event ILTB was attending.) He snapped some pics of a roving Master Chief interacting with…

There’s a new mailbag up, courtesy of Count Zero; I think he must have been sober when he wrote it, because he’s less offensive than usual. He DID point out a hole in my near-complete collection of Halo-related souvenirs, though… if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some eBaying to do.

The 7th Column is back up and running – and man, there are a lot of changes. mrsmiley has done a decent job of summarizing them in a Bungie.net forum post; if you want a rundown of what he thinks is good and bad about the new system, go read. Otherwise, just explore the options…

SketchFactor points out that the latest Wired Magazine (October) has a feature on some of the people behind Halo 2. They had to airbrush Marty to make him presentable, apparently. (My copy hasn’t arrived yet. I think it’s time to get on Wired’s case.) We will, of course, have a press scanned version of this…

Saint posts to say that the Library, his encyclopedia of all things Halo, has been updated again. (There’s still no search function, so you have to know what you’re looking for… but there’s a lot of stuff there.

Paul and KINGHALO! from halosecrets.com have put together a live-action promotional vid for Halo 2 – though I doubt it’s the sort of thing that Microsoft would ever actually sanction. It IS pretty funny, though. The 360×240 DivX-encoded .mp4 is up on our server; there’s a larger version on their own server, but there’s no…

guS and Burnie, of Red vs Blue, have written up their visit to Bungie last month, wherein they came, got drunk, and played Halo 2 until 3 in the morning. Dang, that sounds like fun. (Oh, wait… I was there. Forgive me – I look like I haven’t slept in WEEKS in the one pic…

A couple of trickster vids showed up on our forum last night… Madrox and Foxygrandpa posted A Tribute to Tricking Part 1 (stunts on Silent Cartographer and AotCR, mostly). And in another thread, Devin Olsen posted a bunch of stunts from 343GS. Both vids are about 18.5 mb, in WMP9 format. No QuickTimes this time…

serpx posted a couple of links to nice Wallpapers he’s put up at DeviantArt. Silvery…

Today’s Calvin and Halo, from Blackstar, shows a disturbing side of 6-year-olds that unfortunately doesn’t go away with age.

BOLL has (once again) updated the HBO PAL; now you can export your settings, and reimport them on another machine (or even just another browser on the same machine). I’m pretty sure that tomorrow we’ll receive the update that gets HBO PAL to do your laundry for you.

A note on Bungie.net points out that the website will be offline at 1 pm pdt today (8 pm UTC) in order to add some code for the return of the 7th Column. By this afternoon, pacific time, you should be able to set up new Groups (previously Chapters) on that site!

Ross Mills notes that ‘Game’ stores in the UK have a deal running right now; if you pre-order Halo 2, and pay a minimum of £3 towards the purchase, you’ll receive a Halo 2 poster when you actually purchase the game. It’s not clear WHAT poster you get; it’s possible it’s one that was showing…