Computer and Video Games has put up a pair of articles discussing their trip to Bungie Studios last month and their hands-on experience with Halo 2. Part 1 covers the basics of what they saw, part 2 looks closely at the 5 multiplayer maps they played. (Similar, but not identical, to the dozen other hands-on experiences we’ve mentioned in the past week or so.) Thanks, vshields ash.

Gamespy has added another 3 pages to their Halo 2 Reader Feedback Followup #2 (whew! Get that?). There’s some solid (if not always entirely welcome) info in there from Frankie; Halo 2 will not have bot support, and there will be no low-gravity levels in the game. There’s more – go read it for yourself. Thanks, Mr. Mongoose. Update: Nitpicker and HSP Factchecker Finn points out that Frankie specifies multiplayer levels in his response; there’s nothing, so far, that definitively rules out low-gravity environments in campaign mode. (We’re not saying it’s there – we’re simply pointing out that it hasn’t been ruled out yet.)

Ducain has finished the Three Towers highlight video (he says ‘finally’ – making me feel even WORSE that the Going Nowhere Fast vid isn’t done yet, thanks, Ducain), showing the best stunts of the entries for this contest. WMP9 format, 9 minutes long, 23.2 mb. If there’s demand, I’ll toss up a QuickTime version. Update: Due to popular demand, I’ve put up a QuickTime version for folks who need it.

Well, I’ll say that last night was pretty fun. I logged onto the HBO Coerce server – one of the few 16-players-full CE servers running last night – and saw a HOST of names I never see any more, including one I haven’t seen on Halo CE or PC… EVER. It was a blast. But again, even with the added publicity… total numbers never rose above 400. There are still a few more nights in which the 1000 player total can be reached, in this push… but I have to tell you, I’m starting to believe that this is just too little, too late. There are many hundreds of thousands of copies of Halo PC and Mac Halo out there – but Halo CE came along too late to capture the PC crowd, and the Mac folks never even got a chance. If the combined readership of all the largest Halo fansites can’t generate 1000 online players when they’re BEGGING for them… it just ain’t gonna happen. (Goes without saying that I’d LOVE to have that last statement proved wrong.)

CreepHunter pointed out yet ANOTHER guitar tab of the Halo theme he found at Video Game Jam – he liked this one better than the last one we mentioned. Again – I can’t read these, so I’m not passing any judgement at all… but they’re out there, if you want to use them.

Guess who’s back? We missed you man.

Finn, the more productive half of the HSP duo, has gone and updated the Story Page again. Kings and angels, maps and timelines, there’s some good stuff there. Check it out!

Wow. Got mail from AEG, a PR firm that handles a lot of Microsoft’s promotions; there’s a BIG contest launching Wednesday, September 15, at 9 am PDT. We don’t have a lot of details yet… but I do know it involves Halo 2, and Xbox Live, and as soon as the full contest announcement has been sent out, you’ll be able to read all the details here. Stay tuned! Update: There’s been a timing change; the announcement will happen at 1 pm PDT, not 9 am. Keep your eyes peeled!

Another day, another Miscellaneous Art batch. Again, 10 items, ranging from sketches to animated gifs. See what you can find!

Last night was the first attempt of a weeklong push to get over 1000 people playing Halo CE simultaneously. It was a failure; total players never climbed above 400. Captain Spark suggested that the problem might be that there aren’t enough non-passworded servers to even SUPPORT 1000 players… but I don’t think that’s the case. (Even this morning, when some servers that were up last night are offline, there are over 90 freely-joinable servers online… more than enough to support the needed number of players.) The problem, it seems, is much deeper; a year after the game has been released, it’s still FULL of bugs that make it unplayable for the casual visitor. (I jumped on last night for 3 hours or so. I sit on a T1 here, and during my playing time there was never less than 1200 kbit/sec bandwidth available. I played the entire night on a single server, a relatively fast server sitting on a 10 Mbit line in a pretty fast datacenter. And I was lagging all night long.) Gearbox says they’re willing to put the effort in to fix some of these problems – but only if they can be shown that there’s interest in the game. And at this point, a year after release, folks aren’t interested in even trying. It’s a shame, really, because CE has HUGE potential. Some of the mods I’ve tried are mind-boggling. The community contains enough core creative people that if the game were playable by newcomers, it WOULD be self-sustaining… but the developer says ‘we can’t justify fixing it because there aren’t enough customers’ and the customers say ‘we can’t justify playing it because there are too many bugs.’ If you have any hope for Halo CE at all, jump on and play tonight, at 7 pm EST (4 pm PST, midnight GMT)… this might be the last gasp. Update: for those who don’t even HAVE Halo CE yet, you can download it from one of the links on our Halo Custom Edition Mirrors page. (I doubt they all work any more, but many do.)

What? You thought I was punishing Stuntmutt for all the news posts last week? Nah. There’s still a One One Se7en today. Whether you think I’m now punishing you, the reader, is yet to be seen…

Nine new pieces for you in the Fan Fiction section; as soon as I can figure out how to import these into MySQL without errors, I’ll be moving the entire section to a new and more robust machine. I hope. In the meantime, go read.

Warlock points out another Reader Feedback Followup article at Gamespy; they go to Frankie to answer a few questions they couldn’t answer themselves. Some tasty info in there!

Dolbex sent along word that Zyos continues his reign as Grand High Pro Player Poobah by winning the FFA competition at MLG San Francisco, and also being on the 2v2 winning team (with Tsquared) and the 4v4 winning team (Team Yesss!, made up of Zyos, Tsquared, Slim, and Scythe). Details can be found on the MLGPro.com website.

ShoTro points out a Halo Model Pack for Unreal Tournament 2004. It’s 70 mb; give it a look!

Blade has sent along the winning entries for his Halo 2 Cover Design Contest (last mentioned here). We’ve put them up for display, along with the scoring. You can follow the link to the original contest thread on Blade’s forum to see other entries. Again – we have nothing to do with this contest; contact Blade for prize information.

Halo: Blood Covenant is a pretty slick Halo side-scrolling game that made its first appearance back in March. It was playable by June, in demo form. They’re back now, with a new contest; Face the Chief. They’re looking for the features of the man beneath the helmet; if you can provide them, you can win a place within the game. Details can be found in the press release linked above. Check it out!

Tina Leyk continues to make Character Profile sheets for players; there are two new ones on her Fan Art page here. Dre’al looks like someone you DON’T wanna mess with… but Peeps, you could take home and feed Kibbles to. Well, except for the needler.

Noah Hofmann, aka Ultrash, has whipped up another remix of his older ‘Halo: The Resistance’ track; we mentioned it here. You can find the new piece (9.6 mb, 7:03 long) hosted on files.bungie.org. If you want to use this in a Halo-related project, simply contact Noah.

Boxer tells us that Adventures in Disaster Episode 9 is up over at akba.info… I think it has something to do with reflective fecal material. Give it a look.