Anton P. Nym found a tidbit in the Art of Halo book that might explain why there are no Flood Hunters… nice!

Halo Babies has a couple of guest strips from akba – one points out the bald mrsmiley, who also wants to remind you that the Bungie Baldathon is coming to an end soon (today is your last day to submit entries). Get going!

If you have a problem with BitTorrent, but still want a copy of the I Love Bees commemorative DVD, you can grab it from Fileplanet (thanks, Shorty).

News roundup is a bit smaller than it’s been recently; sites are winding down, maybe?

Strategy Guides:

• 1UP.com (campaign and multiplayer – thanks, John Rivas)

Articles:

• IGN – Halo 2 UK launch coverage (thanks, John Rivas)
• TeamXbox – review of SmartJoy FRAG (thanks, John Rivas)
• TeamXbox – a writeup of a clan challenge (thanks, John Rivas)
• Slate – Halo 2 as a ‘nuanced political experience’
• Spong – Halo 2 isn’t selling at all in Japan
• Salem (Oregon) Statesman-Journal – local kids beat the game Update: Mintz08 claims this contains a major story spoiler. I can’t find it on short view, but beware.
• Tucson Citizen – Halo 2 multiplayer is great, despite lack of coop

Comics:

• Crtl+Alt+Del

Not bad. Should keep you busy!

Jay Weinland confirmed that Brian Morden lives on in Halo 2 – though we don’t know yet what line is his. If you don’t know who Brian Morden is, you can search our news, or read this guide at Bungie Sightings.

Marty O’Donnell has posted a pretty definitive statement about Halo 2 (and Halo) sheet music – he’s okay with fans transcribing it, but he’s not going to be doing it himself. (There are solid reasons for this.) Read the post on his 7th Column chapter for more details. Thanks, Jarrad Whitaker.

It’s not a Weekly Update… exactly. It’s a Weekly What’s Update. This week… that means a reader Q&A. A pretty substantial one, too. Discussion of Halo 2 bugs (and potential fixes)… answers to common complaints… more. Go read!

Dan Chosich, longtime member of the Halo community and a fan moviemaker extraordinaire, lived a dream this past summer – and recently, he talked to Cybrfrk about it. The interview contains some pretty interesting info… go read!

DoctorEvol, of Xblnext.com, recently talked to Alex Seropian about Wideload’s upcoming Halo-engined game, Stubbs the Zombie. There’s not a lot of new info there – but sometimes, any info is good info! Give it a look.

KP noticed an enormous Halo 2 Game Guide (Single-player only – multi comes later) at Gamespot. Weighing in at almost 6 mb, this PDF has 86 pages of pictures and text to get you through Halo 2. Unfortunately, it’s only available to Gamespot Complete members. If you have a membership, though, go grab it! Update: Oops, my bad. There’s a free html version for everyone – it’s only the downloadable PDF that’s Complete-only. Sorry about that!

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.