Thanks to eaglesquad, who pointed out that the Homefront team has released their entire soundtrack, work by Justin Durban, aka EdgeN (if the name doesn’t sound familiar, you haven’t been following the Halo fan music scene). It’s 26 tracks of music, 90 minutes in all, and fits into two nearly 100 mb downloads (each) off of Fileplanet. Visit the Homefront website for links!

Yet another Bentllama piece in the Canadian press – they love this guy! (Where are all the interviews of the OTHER 5 Canadians on the team, dammit?) Best quote: Bentllama talks about Bungie staff trying to play all the way through Halo 2 using only melee attacks: “That’s quite hard on legendary.” Um.. yeah.

Many people noticed a new Halo 2 skin for Media Player 10 – you can see a mini-screen of it on this page, or just download it from there. Folks who’ve installed it and sent us notes about it are universally happy. Bentllama was first to mention it. (While you’re there, you can follow a link to this Xbox.com article we never mentioned – Hollywood’s Hooked on Halo, and it shows.)

Gamespy extended their interview with Nile Rogers (the first part was listed Friday – you can read the new material starting on this page. It’s all about what differentiates Halo’s music – specifically the popular-band-generated music – from other video games. Good read. Of the dozen people who sent this in, Ross Mills was first.

Many people noticed that Sunday’s Heart in the City (a syndicated newspaper comic strip) was Halo 2-related. Adam McDougall sent us the first scan on Friday, even. Since it’s now online on the official Heart in the City website, we’ll just point to that. (We’ll post one of the half-dozen scans we received once it’s no longer available on that site, and update this news item for folks who go looking for it.)

Apologies for the lack of updates yesterday. A combination of factors (not the least of which was an 8-hour rebuild of my main work machine) kept me from posting news. On to the flood. Ryan ‘Mhaddy’ Matthews points out a new Spotlight over at the Junkyard – That Weasel, of That Weasel Television, holds forth on his life – it’s quite long for a Spotlight. Go read!

Our very own Big Kahuna, Mr. Louis Wu has been interviewed over at Halo4U. Head on over and check out how he reveals the launch date for Halo 3. OK I was kidding folks, just kidding! Thanks to Rampancy for the heads-up! Update:Oops, this is old news. My bad! Thanks Abdomen for the correction.

There’s an interview with Nathan Walpole, better known as bentllama around the Halo community, one of the Canadian animators on the Halo 2 team, over at Simpatico/MSN. Nice read! Thanks, Farhang.

Gamespy continues their saturation coverage with an interview of Tyson Green, aka Ferrex, level designer for Halo 2. If you’re wondering what’s different about Halo 2 (in comparison to Halo 1 level design), read this!

Couple of new articles at IGN today – the Countdown article is about the I Love Bees phenomenon, and the ‘Training Exercises’ that happened on Thursday around the US. And an article called ‘Bungie.net’s Battle Plan‘ gives you an overview of what’s going to be available from the Stats section of Bungie’s website – the stuff you can see for yourself, now, plus some pretty astounding information that’s NOT available to he public yet (check the last page of the article). Definitely worth a read! (Google beat everyone in letting us know about these – sorry.)

Ryllick was the first to point out that today’s Ctrl+Alt+Delete is Halo 2 related… in fact, might explain a few mysteries.

The Library, a compendium of Halo information, has been updated again, this time with an I Love Bees section (including a summary of the game). If you’ve been waiting for someone to make it clear, go read!

1UP.com has two new Halo 2 pieces up for you to read – the electronic version of the December 2004 EGM article (with 10 new screenshots – top of the page, added Wednesday), and the 1UP Preview, an entirely NEW piece (as far as I can tell) with lots of good info but no new screens. Check ’em both out! (Thanks to Ben Vera for the heads-up on the 1UP piece.)

Shorty (Will) noticed some new magnets over at the Bungie store – they’re adding stuff at a rapid rate these days!

clarksbrother managed to secure an interview with a Bungie employee for his local TV show – and is asking for questions to pose during the interview. If you’d like to have your ideas considered, jot ’em down and add ’em to the database!

Tons and tons and tons of new Halo content at G4TV today:

• Halo 2 Council: The Kutcher Connection does a sort of ‘Six Degrees of Separation’ thing with the Halo 2 Council members… except it’s one degree.
• Halo 2 Continues Music-Video Game Tie-In Trend ties together… um, music videos and games.
• Nile Rodgers on Producing Halo 2 Soundtrack is another interview with Niles Rogers.
• New A.I. for the Halo 2 Guy looks at the advances in AI over the first Halo.
• Art as Game: Halo 2 tries to pin down what makes Halo great.

In addition to that, there are streaming versions of all four Halo 2 Day Red vs Blue commercials (Flash and WMP formats) – and if you can’t stand those, you can grab 320×240 downloadable QuickTimes of the two we hadn’t already posted: Sick Day (1.8 mb) and Back From the Future (1.1 mb). Wonga. Is that enough? Thanks to Ben Vear for starting off the search.

Frankie’s posted the last Bungie Weekly Update ever over at TeamXbox. He talks a lot about the new Stats page at Bungie.net (and what’s coming down the road – trust me, he’s not kidding about that face flying off stuff), and about reviews that are coming out, and about what’s gonna happen next week… but mostly, he’s just saying goodbye to a tradition. I’m very sad the Mister Chief art isn’t showing up… but I’m guessing that’ll get fixed soon enough. Go read. Thanks to KNIGHTOFDRAGONS, for being the first to actually point out where this was.

Marcie O’Donnell, long-suffering wife of audio god Marty O’Donnell, has put down on paper (well, a hard drive somewhere, anyway) her thoughts about the upcoming release of Halo 2. What it brings, what it takes away. How it’s different from what we had before. It makes some assumptions (like, there aren’t any female players – not true, but I suppose in the overall picture, it’s a decent-enough generalization), but it’s funny, and it’s true, and it’s worth reading. If you’re a player, read this and remember the women who support you (wives, girlfriends, mothers). Maybe even show this to them and have THEM read it. And then reflect on how lucky Marty is to have found this woman.

If you’re going to a Halo 2 event… bring a camera. Your pics might win you cool stuff from Major Nelson. Thanks, Cybrfrk.

For folks still downloading pieces of Heart is a Lonely Hunter we’ve got part 5 online for you today – 28 mb, QuickTime format, from both mythica.org and bungie.org. Enjoy! (Last piece will probably go up this weekend… unless I forget.) Don’t forget to visit the website for more info!