IGN/Gamespy are presenting their streaming live interviews from the E3 floor. Today, at 12:00 PDT, they will be interviewing Bungie’s own Pete Parsons, “Studio Manager and Whoremonger extraordinaire.” (according to Frankie). The video webcast is available to Insiders-only. However, there is a free audio stream for everyone else.

Gamespot has posted their own hands-on preview of Halo 2’s multiplayer experience. It seems that Bungie has resolved the “rather overpowered” vehicles of Halo and made them into “big, honking death traps” instead. There’s more tidbits, but you have to go read the article yourself.

E3 Insider has put up a collection of still images from the Microsoft Booth at E3. In this collection are a few shots from the “Closed Doors” demonstrations of Halo 2. Of particular note is image #26. Our first peek at Halo 2’s Menu UI… and it looks tasty.

There is a great interview with One One Se7en’s creator, Stuntmutt, over at Battleground: Halo. Get to know one of the funniest comic authors better… or you could read Stuntmutt’s interview instead.

I HAVE TO GO! I’m gonna miss my plane. 🙁 But I thought I’d make one last round of the big boys – and IGN has two new Hands-On articles up (Volume 2 and Volume 3) about their Halo 2 experiences. Go read.

Couple of updates from Bungie.net that are worth a note; They’ve moved Webcam #2 to the show floor; you can watch the show from on high (and you’ll be able to see the fanfest tonight). Details about this are here. They’ve also added the turret shot we noted a couple of days ago to the Screenshots archive, though I can’t seem to get it to work right now. Stay tuned! And now I’m REALLY off.

I’m sure there’s a BOATLOAD of notable stuff on our forum, posted in the last day or so. I wish I had time to go through and sort it for you. I will, eventually. Just not right now. I’m off to the airport, to hop an early flight to LA. (I live a long way from the airport.) I’m traveling with Ding and Count Zero, and we’re meeting up with mnemesis and Cybrfrk at the other end… so most of the HBO crew will be at the show. News coverage for the next few days will be spotty – but we’ll do our best! If you’ve mailed stuff in, and we didn’t get to it… PLEASE be patient. We’ll try, but I’m SURE stuff is gonna slip through the cracks.

Not exactly Halo-related, but it IS E3 week… Dolbex has written up an account of his first day at E3, complete with pics. You’ll find it on his Halo50k3 site.

Calvin and Halo looks at what to say (and what NOT to say) to get your 6-year-old to eat stuff.

Apologies that in all the Halo 2 hullabaloo, the Fan Fiction section has been neglected. After clearing out some stories that simply don’t belong (poetry with zero ties to the Halo universe, stories that don’t make the word minimum and are filled with garbage rather than actual story material to meet that minimum, duplicate submissions), you’re left with 22 new entries today. This will likely be the last fanfic update before I get back from E3 – please be patient.

Walshicus has updated his Halo Stellar Cartography section with new info from the recent Covenant Primer article on Bungie.net. There was just time to update in the pre-airplane madness here…

There’s a new gameplay clip available from both IGN AND Gamespot – how’s that for odd? The IGN version is slightly smaller (the hi-res weighs in at 7 mb, to Gamespot’s 8.4) and slightly lighter (on my monitor, ‘washed-out’ is more accurate), but they’re the same clip. Both are available in hi-res QT downloads for subscribers, lower-res wmv streams for the masses. Earliest heads-up to us seem to go to IAmDelta for the IGN link, and Strato for the Gamespot link. (On the IGN Media page, it’s currently the topmost item. On the Gamespot Media Index, it’s all the way at the bottom, labeled ‘Gameplay Footage 1’.)

To all the people frantic because Joe Staten’s wording suggested that Halo 2 might be playable at E3… I just got a phone call from Dolbex, from the show floor. Halo 2 is behind closed doors only, being shown only to press and bigwigs. The average showgoer will not see ANYTHING. Rejoice or dispair, depending on whether you’re going to be there or not…

Marty O’Donnell tosses out a tidbit on our forum – evidence that the early part of the demo wasn’t scripted (for anyone who believed it was). As though we wouldn’t trust Bungie…

Woohoo! For folks waiting on the 3ds max 6 exporter for Blitzkrieg (exporters for max 3-5 have been out for a bit now), the wait is over! Swing on by Cortana.org to grab it. (Thanks, vatoloco!)

Gamespy has posted a very nice quality version of the E3 demo – Direct Feed, QuickTime, 480×360, 227 mb (zipped) It includes conference footage (Halo2-related) from before and after the actual demo, including the announcer’s revelation that the release date is tattooed on his arm. If that’s not enough, there’s an even HIGHER quality version – 337 mb zipped, 640×480 QT, also free. As of this moment, there is NO wait on the Fileplanet public servers. (That will likely last about 5 minutes, though, so hurry.)

The hefty content of the morning is an interview with Pete Parsons over at IGN. He does a lot of dodging… but he DOES answer a few questions, and there’s some really tasty info in there. Go check it out! Thanks, GhaleonEB.

Alucard found an image in the Gamespy Screenshot collection that’s more of a Wallpaper – but it’s an interesting image, nonetheless. Check it out!

One One Se7en continues the bird jokes – at least, I HOPE that’s a joke.

Halo: Resolution speculates that slang won’t change too much in the next 500 years.