And the media flood commences. IGN has posted the first half of its Beta Hands-On experience at Bungie Studios last month – three pages of goodness. Go read.

IGN Xbox has a 6-page article on what it’s like to cover Halo 2, the ‘most anticipated game of all time’. Interesting read. Look for far more content in the next couple of days; the media embargo that was set to be lifted on September 15 will now lift in 4 hours – at 12:01 am PST Friday. (We’ll have a couple of writeups of our own, I should think… though I’m not sure when they’ll get posted.) And those juicy hi-res screenshots that went up a bit early yesterday will be available again. Thanks, Oddworld.

Eep – I forgot yesterday’s Wallpaper update (coming soon, I hope), but at least I have today’s Miscellaneous Art update. 10 new pieces, including some cool renders and a larger version of some very cool art that showed up in the Letters to the Webmaster section of Bungie.net. Check ’em all out!

Xbox.com is offering a desktop Master Chief for users of Windows PCs – a 2 mb download that puts a semi-active MC on your desktop. He’s there to pass you new info about Halo 2, as it’s released… I guess he’s sort of cute. More info can be found on the Xbox.com page, or in Walshicus’ forum post about it. The Marketing juggernaut continues…

Just a word of advice for young kids out there: there’s nothing that sets off parental radar faster than the technique in today’s Calvin and Halo. NOTHING. (Now, if Calvin tried, instead, to sell his dad on the Co-op gameplay as a father-son bonding technique…)

5 new pieces for you in the Fan Fiction section today. (I’d expected more, given the outage this weekend… but I’m not complaining.) Mostly chapters, and one poem.

I hate these things… but I hate the flood of email worse. Go vote in the GameFAQs Character Battle today; the Master Chief is up against Frog, from Chrono Trigger, and he’s currently losing. If you go, though, maybe the flood of emails will stop. Thanks!

Another international sighting – the Master Chief appeared in a shop in Sweden today. (Is it just me, or does it look like an Elite is trying to fit into the MC’s armor?) Thanks, pmzukan.

DOH! We don’t even have a real One One Se7en strip for you today… but Stuntmutt couldn’t step away from the spotlight. Oh, no, not him…

Jophis points out that his band made a punk song called ‘Why’d he snipe me?’, available for download at their website. Halo inspires…

Bah. I hate forgetting things. The Bungie Weekly Updates database is up-to-date; the most recent update was added this morning. Sorry for the delay.

Blade points out that the Halo 2 Cover Design contest he’s been running are closing tomorrow at midnight. If you’re interested in entering, now’s the time. (We mentioned this contest when it started.)

Nightmare Armor has posted a video containing footage from DragonCon 2004, held last weekend in Atlanta. 8 Spartans were on hand, along with Cortana. The music, as well as some of the taunting, is PG-rated… but it’s a pretty fun view of a series of Spartans wandering around, getting in fights with Imperial Stormtroopers, and doing the Robot. (Depending on your browser, you might have trouble viewing the vid directly on their webpage; it was a copy-and-paste job from their G4 video, so one of the two tags is incorrect. If you see a G4 video instead of the DragonCon vid, simply right-click on the Save Video link.) For Mac users, I’ve tossed up a much smaller (7.5 mb, compared to the original 26 mb WMP9 version) QuickTime version on files.bungie.org. Thanks to G-Nox for pointing this out.

Boxer points out that Episode 8 of Adventures in Disaster is now up at akba.info. Another look at your allies. Sort of.

Continuing his ‘I want to be in the news every day’ streak, Stuntmutt whips out a new One One Se7en for you. No, those aren’t bees.

Apologies to all the folks waiting in the Links queue – I’m not sure what happened, but it’s been over a week since I’ve approved any of them. I’ve cleared the queue at this point, though. Check out the Links page for a bunch of new sites!

Yesterday, we released a short vid showing Mike Miller clearing the Belly of the Beast fight on Truth and Reconciliation without firing a shot – on Legendary. You might remember ‘Legend‘, Mike’s last video, showing some pretty slick Legendary gameplay. Well… he’s followed it up with a sequel. Legend 2 is 7:36 long, 28.6 mb big, in QuickTime format… and contains some of the most balls-to-the-wall gameplay I’ve seen. When I clear out the Maw elevator, i do so from the safety of the corridor, so I can run away when the Spec-Ops Elites and Grunts don’t all die in the first volley. Mike actually wipes out the lot from INSIDE the elevator. His ‘hog handling is gorgeous (though he dumps a lot of ’em off edges…), the sniping is spot-on. And, as usual, the plasma grenade planting is beautiful. Half the video is devoted to outtakes, showing you he’s human (some are hilarious)… and the final tidbit has to be seen to be believed. Absolutely worth the download. It’s at Mythica.org and files.bungie.org for now; as always, we’re happy to post mirror links.

bobindashadows has managed to convert the New Mombasa Classic map (originally for Halo CE) to work with Mac Halo. (There’s also an updated tool for installing custom maps available.) You can’t actually play on Halo CE servers (Mac Halo can’t see them) – but you CAN play the map itself, with other Mac users. Really nice! Check out the details at Mac Dev. Thanks to Brodingo for pointing it out.

The Halo PC 1.05 patch, which closes a potential security hole and fixes Halo PC to work with XP’s Service Pack 2, is now accessible via the Auto-Update feature (it will be downloaded automatically the next time you connect to the server list from within the Halo PC application), or you can grab it from FilePlanet (thanks, HaloPlanet) and update manually (it’s just under 5 mb).

Ducain, following up on his previous ‘get a warthog with a live marine across the Silent Cartographer shaft’ trick, has gotten the warthog BACK across the shaft (without killing the live marine). Vid is 8.6 mb, WMP9 format. Nice toss!