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 got their info from a Major Nelson post on the Xbox.com forums. Thanks, Ethan Edwards.

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, and Best Graphics, and Jason Jones is up for Designer of the Year. The Awards will air on Spike TV on December 14. Thanks, Spike.

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 and it was fun!” Go ahead – try this at home! (I’m only wishing I got to this on the 14th, so Mrs Siva X could have had another birthday present…)

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 FULL of notes about this one.

Bungie has released the 1.06 update for HaloPC, which fixes a rare but nasty bug; the auto-updater won’t work for this, so visit the web page and follow the instructions. (There is also a download for the 1.06 Dedicated Server.) Ross Mills was first out of the gate with this.

Peter Marks pointed out that today’s Talk of the Nation program on National Public Radio contains a segment on video games, and how they’re evolving into an entertainment medium that’s not just for kids any more. The talk (not surprisingly) involves Halo 2 to a great degree. If you can’t find a station playing this near you right now, the audio will be available online after 6 pm Eastern (3 pm Pacific) today.

Chipping away at the artwork backlog – another 10 desktops up today in the Wallpaper section (dating from early October). We’ll get there!

User Friendly‘s comic today is Halo-related… and MAN, does that strike a chord. Thanks, E1337

Last week, Chris Bryan finished his labor of love – a self-made Master Chief suit, wearable and gorgeous! I didn’t get the pictures up when they came in; I’m sorry about that. They’re up now, though – go check out the last 3 steps! He did an amazing job.

We don’t normally post submitted press stuff as-is, but after looking over Grenadiac’s summary of Sentinel, there wasn’t anything I wanted to pull, so here’s the announcement in his words:

After several months in development, Kaptain Kommie and Grenadiac have released Sentinel, an advanced server browser/manager for HaloPC and HaloCE. Some of its advanced features include: mapfile and bitmap verfication to prevent cheating, mod registration, automated downloading/installation of new maps, server hammering for full servers, buddy list, player search, easier dedicated server setup, support for mIRC commands when joining/quitting or while playing on a server.

• Screenshot 1
• Screenshot 2
• Download Thread

Nico, of Red vs Blue and Trocadero fame, was listening to his Myth II soundtrack… and suddenly recognized a riff. “I KNOW WHERE THE HALO THEME CAME FROM!” he yelled. Listen for yourself. This is a 24-second snippet (378K) from the Myth II Epilogue, a 4 and a half minute dirge that beautifully finishes the game.

Our forum is flying past these days at the speed of light – it’s hard to keep up. (We’re still averaging over 1000 posts/day since we reopened.) A few random posts that were worth a quick mention:

• Hawaiian Pig points out another one of those ‘Which Character are You?’ games
• serpx points out an easy way to collect NPC dialogue, for recorders
• XLR8 brings word of a Bungie.net thread with a funny analogy
• Captain Spark bundles up the first 70 dialogue snippets he’s recorded from Halo 2 and makes them available. (This is temporary – but don’t fret; if you miss them, they’ll be in our soon-to-open Halo 2 Dialogue Databank before long!)
• SIDEARM finds a nice BBC article on Craig Mullins

There are thousands more – we’re working on a longer-term solution to the information overload, but for now, you’ll just have to muddle through. All the big names from the Silver Age of Tricksterism – Frogblast, Dark Helmet, xbill, dozens more – are back and messing with the innards of Halo 2, finding new stuff every day. (I’m really hoping we have a solution for THIS, as well, pretty soon – the sheer quantity of new content is daunting.)

Shadow, of Sector 7 Halo, wrote up his Midnight Halo 2 experience – go read. Thanks, Wolfy.