Everyone and their brother has pointed out that 1) the same symbols that had appeared on the Halo 2 teaser wallpaper for the Halo2.com site relaunch have appeared on the site itself, clearly in a countdown to the changeover. And the code itself has been cracked, by hundreds (if not thousands) of people – the wallpaper reads ‘BTW Cortana is hot now’, and the site itself reads ‘All your base are belong to us and we love bees’. Yes, there’ll be more. No, I don’t know yet how in-depth our coverage is gonna get; the ILB storyline hasn’t fully played out yet (though it’s pretty darn close now), and I’m loathe to remove the discussion ban from our forum. Bottom line, though – you can stop telling us about this, and stop posting it on the forum. It’s there, and we know. Thanks! Update: here’s a good thread on the decoding – pretty pictures. (Although he can’t add very well – total image size is 126k.)

Murph McManus points out that a new MC and Cortana comic is up.

Shishka wrote a nice FAQ about the leaked copy of Halo 2, and what spreading it might mean to you, specifically, over on the B.net forums. Some of the content is Bungie.net-specific – but folks should take heed of the warnings about the banning of your Gamertag from the Halo 2 experience… Thanks, kwdono04. (You might have trouble accessing this post; B.net is being flakey right now. Keep trying.)

dwchief pointed out a new cordless XBL headset from Logitech – it looks nice, but it ain’t cheap. ($79.99, though that includes a communicator, which the $50 corded Plantronics does not. I don’t count the 2 free months on XBL, since you can get that almost anywhere.) I was amused by the actual text – “the ability to play Xbox Live games over the Internet with complete cordless freedom — from up to 30 feet away — for the first time.” I mean… how useful is that… if your controller is sitting over by the television set? Anyway, dwchief found the info in this Teamxbox article, and there are more details on Logitech’s product page. 30 foot range aside, the ability to go cordless is actually quite nice, as you might find when you’re juking in your chair, trying to get away from that nasty elite…

While we’re on the subject of Fiction – there are 8 new pieces in the Fan Fiction section today. Enjoy.

rockslider points out that Frontline With Suzie is back on the airwaves with an interview with some little people.

Gah. The other thing I missed yesterday was Blackstar’s latest Calvin and Halo. Which is kind of a bummer, since it really was appropriate for yesterday. Go read.

I missed yesterday’s countdown article at IGN – but it’s almost worth missing, because it perpetuates a myth that simply isn’t worth perpetuating. It’s a story from IGN editor Hilary Goldstein about a conversation he had with Pete Parsons a year and a half ago. Pete told him that Halo was not coming out in 2003; he discusses how that made him feel. The thing to remember, however, is that at that point, nobody had announced ANY date for Halo 2’s release – this was a courtesy heads-up to a journalist, not ‘being told that Halo 2’s being delayed’. Go read, but remember, November 9 is the first date EVER OFFICIALLY ANNOUNCED AS A RELEASE DATE FOR HALO 2. Thanks to the myriad of folks who pointed this out… I think El337 was first.

Sumthing Distribution, the producer behind the Halo 2 Soundtrack, has put up a track listing for Volume One. There are some typos (Mjoiner?), but you can see what percentage is O’Donnell/Salvatori music, and what percentage is from other bands. (The Incubus piece is 4 movements!) Thanks, Cybrfrk. Update: Oops, seems like Multipilot found an article over at TeamXbox with that listing (though no link back to the source, tsk, tsk) several hours earlier. Sorry, Multipilot!

Wow. Some scumbag uploaded a Halo attract movie to our ftp space; we served a lot of copies before someone was kind enough to tell me about it. I’ve shut down our ftp space for the time being – I don’t have time to monitor it minute by minute, I’d rather it were offline than being used like this. Folks who need to upload files to us – feel free to email me, I’ll give you a private, temporary link (use it or lose it). [Update: This does NOT mean you should mail me asking to see the video – it’s people who do that make me wish I could reach through the internet and smack you upside your head.] It sucks that the majority end up suffering for the idiocy of a few… but that’s the way it goes. In a similar vein, SketchFactor over at Bungie.net has asked for the community’s help in shutting down sources of this leak; yeah, they’ll keep coming back up, but the hope is, the number of people outraged will actually exceed the number breaking the law. Also, Deimos Fawkes, of Subnova, has posted an address where you can send mail; he’ll do the job of weeding through duplicates and the like before forwarding to Bungie. Update: Apparently, the term ‘attract movie’ isn’t as common as I thought. If you leave your Xbox idling on the start screen for Halo (or Halo 2), it will eventually cycle through several movies – showing solo, coop, and multiplayer gameplay. One of these movies, for Halo 2, was what was uploaded. (The name goes back to arcade games, I think, when ‘attract mode’ was the gameplay that would show on the screen to entice you to drop your quarter in the slot.)

Old-schooler xzzy drops into the forum to mention a Halo CE multiplayer map he’s finished, available now (and at an old-time hard-core url, to boot ;-)). He’s also got a few screens showing it off. It looks great, so come on! Help keep HaloCE alive!

On November 10, there will be a Halo 2 Launch party at London Bridge (England) – it’s open to all UK residents 18 or over. If you want to win tickets, visit Xbox.com!

Halo-2 points out a tournament on Xlink Kai, an Xbox tunneling app; they’re kicking off their latest iteration with a big Halo’een tournament. Details are in the forum post.

Mhaddy, over at the Junkyard, points out the latest in the series of analyses of Halo from a US Military perspective – this time up, it’s The Library. This one’s a bit more personal, since it’s just the Chief… I suppose that’s true of the next few, as well. Go read!

Again, we’re 12 hours late – but what can you do? Eric Trautmann mentions that his author’s copy of The Art of Halo showed up yesterday – and he’s happy with the end result. (That’s a good thing; I’d be nervous if the AUTHOR was unhappy.) Thanks, KiGlow.

As many of you already know, there is a cracked copy of the French PAL version of Halo 2 out there on the net. I suppose it was inevitable – but that doesn’t mean it’s okay with us. Leaked screens, descriptions of not-already-released areas of the game (both single and multiplayer), links to downloads – all of these will get you permanently banned from our forum, so don’t put them there. Please understand our position; we started this site in 1999 to pay homage to Bungie – we really felt they were the best gaming company out there, bar none, and we wanted to create a place where people could appreciate their work. When that work is stolen and released without permission, everybody loses. Bungie loses revenue, and control over their own intellectual property. Fans who choose NOT to download the product (and it’s rather large, and in a format most Americans don’t have the capability to read) lose, because information about the game will begin circulating weeks before they can get their hands on it. Folks downloading the pirated game lose because it’s nearly certain that Microsoft will get a copy, as well, and once they have a fingerprint for this, your chances of getting on XBL are nonexistent. (Yeah, sure, you can use it for LAN games, and on networks like XBC and Xlink Kai – but it’s possible someone will be monitoring those networks as well.) I’m sad today.

Brian Towne, the man behind Mythica.org (and a rabid Halo Action Figure collector) pointed out this auction on eBay today. Every action figure released so far (barring the brand-new Halo2 figures), including a bunch of pretty rare exclusives. There are still 4 days left in the bidding, but it’s already up to $305. Back in April, a similar (though smaller, due to the fact that Series 4 and Series 5 hadn’t been released yet) collection went up – and I bid on it (and won it). Unfortunately, I was stiffed by the seller, and eBay turned out to be no help – no action figures for me, and a lot of money out of my pocket. I know the seller this time around – in fact, he was in my house a week ago – and I’d sure vouch for him… but you might be bidding against me for this collection. (Don’t let that stop you – I’ve got most of these already, so I’ll drop out before it gets absurd. 🙂 ) In any case, if you’ve ever regretted not buying action figures, this is a pretty darn good opportunity to get every single one of them in one fell swoop.

Red Leader points out After War, a comic (more of a graphic story) drawn by Kevin Ryan. They start here, and the latest episodes were posted today. (I’d never seen them before – they’re pretty good.)

Gaming Horizon has a story on the relaunch of Halo2.com, the official Halo 2 website; new screenshots, new movies, 3 brand-new wallpapers. Wonga! (Remember, we already mentioned the teaser wallpaper – you can get a sense for what it looks like by tossing it into an image processing app (like Photoshop) and fiddling with the levels.)

Interesting forum post from princeofthesword – a challenge to do some of the cooler things discovered about the first Halo, for yourself, before November 9. Yeah, lots of you have done all of these, and more… but many, many more of you haven’t. And this is a good chance to see just how rich the first game really was!