Year: 2004

There are dozens upon dozens of Halo 2-related stories out there today – here’s a sampling: Fresno Bee – Anticipation builds (Thanks, Will) New York Times – Microsoft’s invested Springfield (MO) News-Leader – Gamers hot for midnight USA Today – Halo as a cattle prod TheManRoom – Plantronics headset review Seattle Times – General excitement…

Framerate posted a Guide to Getting Ready for Halo 2 over on HaloPlanet – mostly it’s about how to hook your Xbox up to XBL, but there are also some tidbits about food and chairs in there. Give it a read!

Recoil was the first to point out that Halo 2 is at the very top of Gamerankings’ Overall Game Rank list – at this point, topped only by The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. (When he wrote, last night, it was above even that – but has dropped recently with a few lower scores.)…

Red vs Blue is planning on releasing 3 episodes in the next 48 hours – WONGA. Episode 41 is up now (in both high and low res) – keep your eyes open for the rest.

Okay, 9 million people wrote to correct the one-line mention I made of the Gamepro review yesterday. I’m gonna cut and paste from one of the answers I sent, since I’m tired of writing this. Gamepro doesn’t give an overall one-digit ranking, so I went back to the Halo review from them to see how…

Kevin634 writes to point out a Halo 2-themed comic in the Toronto Daily Star. Hehe, that is SO my son right now. 😉

Former Bungie community flame-meister and current Bungie intern Shishka has offered a write-up of the recent Fall Foliage: Crisp Death LAN gathering held at Castle Wu. Last LAN party, though? Time will tell, I suppose. Check it out, and thanks to James Phelps for the notice.

The (massive) chat transcript of the Ilovebees PM Chat has been made available here. Get comfy and prepare for a long read, then hit that link! Thanks to Steve Patterson for the heads-up.

Bunch o’ rapid-fire news, to clear the inbox before the clock ticks over (and because I likely won’t be around to post more news before tomorrow):Eurogamer gives Halo 2 a 9/10 – 1 point above Halo (thanks, mad.max) Break Point offers another Zanzibar CE mirror Gamepro gives Halo 2 a 4.6/5 (thanks, BlazeFlare) Bungie.net gets…

And lest you think all there was to do was read about Halo 2 and look at tons of new media, the Custom Edition Halo 2 team has finally released Zanzibar CE – you can download it off EPGServers or HaloImpulse. It’s 22 mb. Thanks to a dozen people who all wrote within seconds of…

The Halo reviews have begun pouring in: IGN Has a review up for the common folk, with a HUGE list of Insider-only content. (Some of the video stuff isn’t there yet, it seems – check back soon.) 9.8 overall score. Thanks, Adur()n. Gamespot, as well, has a boatload of Complete content, and a 4-page review…

A couple of quick Halo CE bits – Kornman has released Tool++, a remade of the HEK’s TOOL with a GUI wrapper and some extra features (thanks, MaterGrief), and haloTV will be broadcasting live footage of the long-awaited Zanzibar CE mod tonight about 9:30 eastern (thanks, BJN1990).

Dark Bastion discovered that the way the EB Games midnight release is going to work is this: As you’re waiting outside the store, you’ll be given a flyer with a number on it; they’ll be calling folks into the store in batches of 10, by number. You might want to do your best to get…

Contests around the Halo community: mrsmiley points out the 2004 Bungie Baldathon – shave your head, send in pictures, win a shot at Halo schwag. And D_BRINGER told us about a Wallpaper contest at Halo S – winner gets a free gmail account. And though it’s not really online, it IS Halo-related, and a contest:…

Victor wrote in with details about Gamereactor’s Halo 2 review (Gamereactor is a Scandinavian gaming mag) – it got a 10/10, with the following pros and cons (thankfully translated by Victor):Pros: Amazing graphics, formidable sound and captivating game play in both single- and multiplayer. Cons: You must have good knowledge of the world of Halo…

Xbox.com also put up ‘Halo 2: Launch Party Time’ – part four of their readiness guide. Thanks again, John Rivas.

MrFluffyPants wrote ‘The Buzz Ends’ for the Junkyard about the commemorative DVD given out at the various Training Events (and yes, we know, the BitTorrent link we posted a couple of days ago is dead, there’s not much we can do about that), and Chris Remo, of Idle Thumbs, wrote up his experience at the…

Random mainstream press articles from around the net recently: What makes Halo so addictive? A writer in San Diego tackled this topic. A New Zealand Herald writer takes to the streets dressed as Master Chief, and talks about it. The Edmonton Sun discusses the Halo 2 hype machine.While we got multiple notes about these, Google…

Thousands of stores are opening for midnight sales on Monday night… but only 5 are sponsored by Microsoft. Articles are at both IGN and Gamespot. Thanks, John Rivas.

Thanks to eaglesquad, who pointed out that the Homefront team has released their entire soundtrack, work by Justin Durban, aka EdgeN (if the name doesn’t sound familiar, you haven’t been following the Halo fan music scene). It’s 26 tracks of music, 90 minutes in all, and fits into two nearly 100 mb downloads (each) off…