Four new pieces from Gamespy today about Halo 2:

1. Pile-on: Gamespy editors discuss the game in a roundtable format
2. A PC Perspective: Gamespy’s PC editor looks at the game from the PC users’ viewpoint
3. Halo 2 is for Lovers: does Halo 2 fit in your personal life?
4. Tip and tricks: Ways to beat the game

According to Editorial Manager John Keefer, there’s even one more, coming a bit later.

Kyle Knight, from the figures.com, wrote with a special offer on action figures. If you visit DieCastExpress.com, you’ll find a special Limited Edition Halo 2 Evolution Set – a metal box with a Halo 1 Chief, a Halo 2 Chief, and some special postcards – the price is $49.99. If you use the coupon code 117F on checkout, you’ll receive a $10 discount from figures.com. Not a bad deal, if you want one of these boxes!

Three articles I put aside yesterday to make sure I commented on them… and wouldn’t you know it, I forgot all about them. The first was in the New York Times (free registration required), and David Jalomo was the first to point it out. A comparison of sequels, Halo 2 and GTA:SA. Halo 2 comes out on top in the writer’s opinion. The second was at Joystiq.com, and was called ‘Taking a Step Back‘ – it tries to strip away some of the hype, and look at what might be missing from the game; it’s well-written and thoughtful. The last was linked from Slashdot – someone compiled all the negative comments they could find in Halo reviews into one big review (with footnotes). Interesting concept, I suppose. Thanks, Mr Yun.

A number of people have found an unlockable multiplayer map called Foundation – but reports vary wildly with regard to what is needed to get it. Official word from Bungie will be coming next week – so hold tight!

There’ve been a few online reviews of the SmartJoy FRAG keyboard/mouse adaptor (search our news for links), but now BOLL has written one of his own. I trust this one – partly because I’ve seen him play, partly because there’s less hype than I’ve seen in some of them. In any case, it’s a new point of view. Go read.

This is one of the odder press releases we’ve received…

Okay… just a heads-up. A TON of people are sending in egg/glitch/trick reports. A ton more are reporting these same things on forums all over the net. There have already been a couple of fights on our forum about credit, and who was ‘first’ – if this keeps up, we’ll stop crediting people altogether for the glitch (though we’ll credit them for the pictures or movies we use to show it). Folks – there are 2.5 million people out there with this game. Face it – almost anything you do, someone else probably already did. Live with that. If we hear about something we haven’t heard about, and we post it, credit will go to the person we hear about it from. If Someone else can show that they posted it first, somewhere, we’ll append the entry. (This is how we did it for Halo, as well.) If people are stupid enough to tell us that they discovered these tricks days or weeks before Halo 2 was released, they’ll be banned from submitting this sort of material here; we don’t support piracy. Everyone – take a step back, take a deep breath, PLAY THE GAME. This isn’t about who gets credited with the first Hippo sighting on Headlong – it’s about how much fun you have KILLING the guy who’s looking at hippos.

Bungie has acknowledged a few of the outstanding problems with Halo 2 – widescreen HUD display, long wait times for matchmade games on live, and “dirty disc” problems – and has said they’re working on solutions. More when we know about it!

Today’s One One Se7en says hi to old friends.

Will Henderson points out that there’s a remixed version of Breaking Benjamin’s Blow Me Away on their website. It’s Flash-only; the music is actually embedded in a .swf file, so slow connections might have a problem.

Mechroneal points out that he, too, won a cool thingy at his local EB Games on Monday night. He says a writeup’s coming soon.

clarksbrother points out that the I Love Bees DVD torrent that has been mentioned in our news a couple of times (and which has moved at least once) now has official sanction from the folks who MADE the DVD:

We know that it was hard (if not impossible) for many of you to get to the live events where the DVDs were being handed out, and we’re doing our best to set up an alternate distribution mechanism.

In the meantime, it is absolutely fine to post and distribute the bit torrent versions of the DVD. We will try to post an official version on the site sometime soon.

In hindsight, I probably should have confirmed that BEFORE we posted links… but all’s well that ends well.

Is this gonna be a habit? (I hope not…) Daily article roundup:

Movies:
A bunch of people have already released vids for Halo 2 – we’ve held off until today posting them so people wouldn’t feel tempted too early.

• nukedude put together a multiplayer montage, with a couple of tiny bits from single player. Minor (really minor) spoilers. 32 mb, QuickTime, hosted by Gil27.
• HaloGT is hosting Halo GT Video #10 – glitches and cool stuff, some wild things to look at. (Spoilers galore.) In DivX format, 28.7 mb, or QuickTime format, 27.8 mb. The divX version is also mirrored on Syzygy1.com.
• Not really Halo 2 – but it’s the first time the public can see this. A long time ago, Bungie made a cool little surround sound test, using a nicely rendered grunt and a hunter. You could only see it if you knew someone. Now, anyone with a copy of the Limited Edition can see it – just go to the Set-up section. Thanks, KingScott.
• Frogblast is back. With a vengeance. Utfoo has been updated with tricks from nearly every single solo level in Halo 2. Vids, pics, the works. The guy doesn’t stop. Try not to kill his server. (I’m gonna see what we can do about setting up a mirror, just in case.)
• A number of people have found skulls on Campaign levels. At least TWO of these removes your HUD altogether. (In fact, I suspect that’s what they’re there for – making Halo movies will be a LOT easier with no HUD right off the bat. 🙂 ) MarkHawk pointed out a movie in this forum thread – we’ve had a few more submitted, and will do our best to get them posted.
• Fileplanet is hosting a ‘man-on-the-street’ vid talking to people waiting outside an EB Games. 38.9 mb, WMP9 format. (Thanks, Ross.)

Halo-related Webcomics:

• Applegeeks (thanks, Crassworm)
• Crtl+Alt+Del (thanks, Black Six)

Recent Reviews:

• Xblnext.com – 10/10
• ContraCostaTimes.com – A-
• The Triangle (Drexel U.) – no numerical score, but they liked it.
• The Olympian (Olympia, WA) – 5/5

Articles

• IGN and its readers celebrate Halo (thanks, John Rivas)
• IGN covers difficulty levels (thanks, John Rivas)
• [80 million stories on how much money Halo made its first day – deleted]
• Yahoo Finance – Halo Strategy Guide sells 270,000 copies in one day – becomes one of the fastest-selling new books of the decade
• eChannelLine – Halo 2 leaves Hollywood in the dust
• All Things Considered (NPR) – audio coverage of Halo 2; listener complaint that original mention suggests only men play Halo 2
• News.com – more on the use of Halo 2 to fight Xbox hackers

Wonga.

Well… the HBO forum, after 4 weeks of downtime, is now back online. Didn’t take long for regulars to notice (2 minutes, it looks like) – I’m not sure what that means for my day. For everyone’s sanity – story discussion is permitted, but PLEASE – be considerate, and mark posts with an *SP* tag if you’re going to post spoilers? Thanks. Welcome back, everyone!

Apologies. The plan was to reopen the HBO forum this evening – but I can’t be around to supervise it, and I’m a little afraid of the starting explosion. We’re going to hold off until tomorrow morning (Eastern time). You should spend the interim period playing Halo 2, soldier!

Blackstar sent along a Calvin and Halo that probably resonates with a goodly number of you…

MovieMaker5087 went to a Halo 2 event at his local Circuit City – and won a pretty cool raffle prize. As he pointed out, one of these went on eBay recently for over $2000…

Hehe – went to read the MS press release on GameInfoWire this morning… and was pretty amused by the advertising choices. Realize that all the black text (headline included) is part of the actual press release – GameInfoWire inserted a text ad in the middle (the red text near the top – ‘Shop for…’). Bizarre choice, or brilliant marketing?

LBM points out that Joyride has updated their website with a finished picture of the Drone action figure. Should be available in January.

A bunch of people pointed out a new Halo 2 video in Flash format over at Newgrounds – looks like Spartan39 was first. It’s all of Halo – as we hope it wasn’t for you.