So, in the novels, it’s made clear that Elites are MUCH taller than humans. How should this REALLY affect gameplay? One One Se7en takes a stab. Well, a shot. Sort of.

To the folks sending us links to the Halo 2 screenshots currently making their way around the net: these are leaked shots, not meant to be shown to the public yet. We understand that it’s really, really hard to put the genie back in the bottle… but (as has always been the case here) we’re going to respect the wishes of the property owners on this one; we will show no picture before its time. (Those of you who remember Orson Welles, raise your hands.) We will not be posting the pictures, or links to the pictures, until they’re SUPPOSED to be out, and we will be removing links we find in our forum. We’re not trying to make your life miserable, or kill your buzz – Bungie didn’t want these images out in the public yet, so we’re respecting that. If you really MUST see them, they’re out there – just don’t ask us where. Thanks!

Hehe – a late afternoon post by bentllama on his recently-unveiled blog points out a thread on the CGTalk forums in which a Toronto resident explained how to get into a press-only Halo 2 showing. (The event ended yesterday, so don’t bother going down now.) Goes to show… hang around in the right crowd, you might get wind of stuff that’s pretty interesting…

Mhaddy, of the Junkyard, points out the second installment of their realism-in-Halo interview with a US Marine pilot. In today’s article, the interview focuses on the level Halo, and what a current-day Marine would have done in some of the situations that arise in the game. An interesting read!

Pallor found a Halo reference in Jane, a magazine aimed at ‘the twenty-to-thirty-something female generation’. In the September issue, in the Play Tech section, is a small picture of Cortana and the MC, with the caption ‘Tough-chick Cortana is calling all the shots.’ Great to see a game like Halo 2 being marketed, sort of, at this totally new audience! More details can be found in Pallor’s Subnova news post.

Dan Chosich ripped another copy of the second Halo 2 ad to hit print mags; it’s not new, but it’s new at this quality. If you’re interested in digital versions of the Halo 2 print ads, grab this!

Whoa. Bentllama adds his name to the (relatively small) group of Halo dev team members with public weblogs. Check out Bentllama.com for his first news post today. Thanks, evilSnip3r.

Microsoft has released the final box art for the European edition of Halo 2 – and I gotta say, it’s pretty nice. You can see pictures of it over at TeamXbox (including a hi-res, 1314×1866 version). Thanks, Carlo.

Merecatfish, of CustomEdition.org, has interviewed Zaskoda, the new Community Manager at Gearbox Software. Zaskoda believes that due to disorganization in the community, and the gearing up for Halo 2, that fewer and fewer people will play Halo Custom Edition, and that it’s unlikely that Gearbox will issue new patches for the game. This is really disappointing – the potential of Halo CE is huge. However, I can’t deny that the number of people actually PLAYING it isn’t very high… and it’s clearly true that the community is fractured. (Recently, two nearly identical websites opened up – instead of the content providers working together to make one SOLID site, there are now two competing sites, in a community that shrinks by the day.) Thanks to Narcogen, at Rampancy.net, for noticing this one.

ON-X made a panoramic shot of Autumn Slay, a relatively new map by akmassassin. Nice views! If you want the map itself, you can see pictures of it at Halomods, or download it from Halo World.

scottisonfire pointed out a thread at halomods containing a useless but entertaining trick – a couple of guys lined up 50 hogs in a row, and fired a rocket through the window gaps of all 50. The rocket was slowed down enough that an obvserver, riding along on a ghost, could follow it. The biggest problem? It’s huge. It’s a 33.5 mb MPEG-encoded vid – even compressed in .rar format, it’s over 20 mb. I re-encoded it as a QuickTime vid; it’s only 10 mb now, and at that size, we’re willing to host it. So you can grab the smaller (filesize-wise, not screensize-wise) version at mythica.org, or the original (as long as its bandwidth holds out) from the Chaos Legion server (link is in the Halomods thread).

Mondo J. Gecko points out some DeviantArt he created – an extreme makeover for One One Se7en’s MC. I think Cortana might take him a bit more seriously…

There’s a little less than two weeks remaining in High Impact Halo’s Three Towers contest – be the one with the most stuff on top of the beam towers, and win cool schwag! Go reaquaint yourself with the rules, make sure you understand the point system, and get your entry in before September 1!

It’s interesting, sometimes, to look at the differences in gaming markets around the world. In the west, almost every ‘Most Wanted’ list of upcoming games has Halo 2 at the very top – first or second position. North America, Europe, Australia… they’re all waiting for this shooter with barely contained excitement. In Japan, however, it’s a different story. The Magic Box has a list of the Top 30 Most Wanted Console Games in Japan – and Halo 2 is number 28. It’s one of only TWO Xbox games on the entire list – a list where Devil May Cry 3 is 16 positions higher than Halo 2. (Given how poorly Devil May Cry 2 was received, this surprises me.) I watched the Olympic Men’s Gymnastics Finals last night, in which Japan beat the US for the gold, and watching the competitors OFF the floor, they seemed just like people around here. Gaming likes and dislikes, though, are worlds apart. Thanks to kinggun for pointing this out.

That Weasel writes to point out that the next installment in ‘Grunts are People Too!!!‘ has been posted. It’s called ‘P S Who?’, and it takes a LOT of shots – literally – at the PS2. Available in both WMP9 format (4.1 mb) and QuickTime format (7.2 mb).

There’s a spectacular new wallpaper creation by Zoe, Bungie’s Contract Artist whose time is wrapping up, over in the Bungie.net Wallpaper section. The story of how it came to be (and how it’s NOT a Halo 2 screenshot, but a concept art piece created by Zoe’s masterful hand) can be found on the B.net front page. It’s gorgeous, and it’s available in everything from 800×600 up to a doublewide 3200×1200. Check it out! We’re gonna miss you, Zoe. Thanks to all who pointed it out – looks like Shaun Goo was first.

Roger Wilco shouldn’t get a second front-page mention in a single day… but this is just not right. It behooves EVERYONE to make sure that nobody wearing MC’s armor EVER does this.

Roger Wilco continues in the MoCap vein, showing exactly what you SHOULDN’T do with your sniper rifle. Some of these REALLY need a soundtrack.

Today’s One One Se7en points out a potential problem with a metallic armor system in Halo 2…

Ten pieces added to the Fan Fiction section – there’s always something to read…