Year: 2004

Forbes did a Monday Matchup this week comparing Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas with Halo 2. It’s basically a slideshow of competing facts about the two games. Interesting numbers! (There’s also a small poll on the main page, asking which game you think is more impressive – Halo’s winning by a 2:1 margin.) Thanks, Pete.

D_BRINGER mentions that his website now has a WAP component; if you have a WAP-enabled phone, you might want to check this out.

Buried deep in an article about how many albums Eminem is selling is a tiny note mentioning that Halo 2’s soundtrack debuted on the Billboard charts this week at number 185. Not bad! Thanks, Finchmeister.

Gabe, of the Penny Arcade team, posted a note about a charity dinner for Child’s Play, an organization devoted to bringing games to sick kids. One of the auction prizes: “Tour of Bungie – How does a monster game like Halo 2 get made? This is your chance to meet the developers and see where…

IGN was along for the ride on the Backstage Pass sweepstakes a couple of weeks ago – the writeup can now be found on their site. Looks like it was fun!

Clan HBO (well, a ragtag collection of us, anyway) just played Bungie in the second weekly Halo Humpday Challenge… and got toasted. We were doing okay, actually, after a rocky start, on our favorite gametype (Beaver Creek Shotties-only CTF), but Sketch decided it had been running too long, and ended the game. Our second and…

Thanks to the many people who wrote in to point out an article on HowStuffworks where Chris Butcher goes into detail about Halo 2’s AI. Take a look behind the curtain and see exactly what’s going through those Elites’ heads as they roast you with their dual plasma rifles.

The update we mentioned earlier has now been formally announced on Bungie.net – with a list of all the fixes it presents. If you’ve got Xbox Live, connect and you’ll get the autoupdate. (If you don’t… well, you won’t. The writeup has suggestions on how to get this update if you DON’T have a broadband…

Interesting – Mike Scott found a suit of Halo armor on eBay – starting bid is $1000 (considerably cheaper than Nightmare Armor’s offerings). There’s a bunch of info about how it was made on the page, as well. Auction ends in a bit under a week… take a look!

Stuntmutt looks at a new Halo 2 character, and speculates on its origin, in today’s One One Se7en…

It’s taken a week – but there’s finally a news release about the Collector’s Edition DVD that’s bundled with the Limited Edition version of Halo 2 that focuses on the filmmaker, Film Oasis. Go read it – and learn a little bit more about the team behind this documentary.

Hmm. TotalVideoGames.com is reporting that Bungie has announced an Xbox Live update for Halo 2 to be released around noon pacific time. I can’t find any record of this announcement on Bungie’s site… but this ROUGHLY corresponds to the timeframe given last week by Bungie, so maybe I’m just being blind. Update: looks like TVG…

Gossip pointed out a new Halo-related webcomic over at Walking Is Still Honest – I think I’ve played with those guys.

Last year, Spike TV hosted their Video Game Awards, and our forum was pretty underwhelmed, even though Halo 2 and Halo PC both won awards. Well, they’re coming around again, and SpikeTV.com is currently accepting votes for various candidates – Halo 2 is up for Game of the Year, Best Soundtrack, Best First Person Action,…

Dispraiser writes that Halogen, the Command and Conquer-based Halo mod, has begun to release skinned renders of some units and buildings. Take a look. (There’s also a promo movie for download, if you’d like to see what some of the models look like all the way around.)

Wow. Remember when Halo 2 was second only to The Legend of Zelda on GameRanking’s all-time best list? That slot is now held by Half-Life 2… and Halo has fallen to 11th. OUCH!

Morning articles:Wired – unsatisfying ending Mechroneal.com – Midnight Madness writeup Melbourne (Australia) Herald Sun – Halo 2 is worth the hype USA Today – Halo 2 highlights gap between old and young Electronic Toybox – Seattle Fanfest writeup Also, thegamecouch.com reviewed Halo 2… and liked it. (96/100.)

Eric ‘Siva’ Salzman, who’s posted some pretty nice desktops in our Wallpaper section, celebrated his wife’s birthday a few days ago with a Halo-themed cake (front and side views). (The X is for ‘extraordinaire’ – a fine epithet for a wife.) Siva says, “This is the first time I’ve tried to incorporate Halo into food…

Confused by the Halo 2 storyline? Can’t tell who’s on which side? Jillybean wrote a really short (less than 400 words) summary of events, pinning down the key story points. It should go without saying that this contains pretty major spoilers, and shouldn’t be read until you’re done with the game.

Bungie has also released a new Guide – this one is for Vehicles in Halo 2. It’s pretty much the vehicle pages out of the manual, with an added ‘Tips’ paragraph for each vehicle, explaining how best to use them (or fight them). I can’t even tell you who was first – my mailbox is…