James Swinbanks writes from Australia to let us know that there’s an online Halo 2 article at the Sydney Morning Herald site. He also wants to let us know that the Australian OXM has a big 13-page article on the game, and that it received (what else?) a 10/10. 🙂 Thanks, James!

Mid33 sends word that Spike TV will be featuring Halo 2 today on this week’s Ultimate Gamer, and that they’ve got a teaser of the show online. It’s footage that’s been mostly seen before, but that shouldn’t stop you. Go to it!

Once again, Adam Daniel has extracted the latest four images from the nilerodgers.com Listening Station interface. You can grab them here, here, here, and here. Don’t let that stop you from visiting Nile’s site, though.

More new stuff at the Bungie Store for you. Looks like a white Halo 2 logo tee and a new mad cool brain sponge. Check it out! Update: There’s also a Dry Tech jersey. Woo woo.

As mentioned frequently, the Art sections here (Miscellaneous Art and Wallpaper) have been neglected for too long – it’s been almost a month since we added any new desktops. Unfortunately, one of the oldest items in the queue was a Halloween-themed image… apologies. The first 10 are up right now in the Wallpaper section, with more coming each day. (I’ll do my best to get Misc Art going soon, too.)

deftangel found a page on the Samsung (UK) website offering Halo 2 downloads for Samsung mobile phone users. If you’ve got one… go look!

Hellion points out that the third movement of Incubus’ Odyssey has now been posted to the nilerogers.com website. The snippet itself is 1.9 mb, 2:00 long. Go listen! (And keep your eyes open – there are still 6 tracks on the album that have not been added to the Listening Station.)

Wow. I stopped by misterchief.com today, just to see how things were going – I’m pretty amazed by the fan art this site is attracting. If you haven’t visited… go. It’s funny stuff.

pushbak has created a new vid – it’s called ‘Valor’, and it’s basically a promo for a video he’s planning to make for Halo 2. The look and feel are strongly reminiscent of some of Dan Chosich’s work – nice editing, overall. It’s 17 mb, QuickTime format, and it’s available at files2.bungie.org.

TK421 mentions that there’s a short article about video games (with a focus on Halo and Halo 2) in the November 8 issue of Time Magazine (page 116). It claims that games are striving for more emotional involvement. If we can get a scan, we’ll post it next week. Update: Lojack found an online version – no scan necessary.

Ack! Yesterday, we got word from Andrew, of Fire Team Charlie, that FTC 15 had been released for members. Somehow, I totally spaced on it after replying to him. If you’re a member, go grab it now (80 mb, DivX-encoded AVI, with a QuickTime coming some time today or tonight). If you’re not… it should be available to the public in lower-res formats in the near future. As usual – it’s great. Introduction of many, many new characters in this one – and new vocal talent. It rocks!

One One Se7en takes a look at the upgraded Cortana graphics. (No, not those bits, you sicko.)

NiceMissMayonnaise found an older Halo-based series at w00tness, the comic we mentioned yesterday. It starts on January 6 and runs for about a month and a half. (While we’re at it, the next panel of the CURRENT series is up.)

bourwa writes to say that Media Play (a chain of stores) is hosting some Halo 2 tournaments next weekend (Saturday the 13th). There doesn’t seem to be any info online, but if you live near a Media Play, it might be worth a call! (He’s a supervisor in a Michigan store, and they’re hosting one.)

The latest IGN Countdown 2 article tells you to go read a book while you wait. They even suggest one. Three, actually. Looks like Jason Ware beat Google this time around with the heads-up.

Eep, almost missed this – Dolbex pointed out an article at MLGPro.com mentioning that MLG has joined with ESPN in sponsoring the Cold Pizza contest tomorrow, in which 50 lucky winners will be playing Halo 2 live (on TV) in Times Square. Good luck, folks!

Matt Geuther, latex-mask-maker extrordinaire, was so impressed by the 2000+ hits he got to his already closed eBay auction (noted here the other day), that he went and set up auctions for another green helmet, a red one, and a blue one. Halloween may be a whole year away, but now’s the perfect time to stock up and avoid the rush!

Just a few minutes ago, during Jon Stewart’s LIVE Daily Show covering the USA Election Day shenanigans, when Jon turned to Rob Cordry to discuss some large projection screen graphics, Rob was actually playing HALO. And not as some anonymous ‘console shoot-em-up game’ but as the ACTUAL game of Halo. Jon surprises Rob and asks him in shock if he’s playing HALO. Rob sez he’s just exit polling… covenant aliens! What did Rob say to the screen before realizing he was caught? “Yah, suck it! Suck it! Where’s your alien plasma rifle now, bitch!”

Truly, the folks at the Daily Show, know their Halo!

For day 3 of their weeklong Halo 2 coverage, Gamespy managed to wrangle an interview with Bungie’s Cinematic Director, Joe Staten. Lots of great, non-spoiler stuff in there. Go read! Thanks to John at Gamespy for the info.