Ross Mills, among others, pointed out that the Greg Snook interview we mentioned a couple of days ago is available for download at BreakManX.com. (The site was down from overload earlier today… but it’s up at the moment.) I haven’t had time to actually LISTEN to it – it’s over three hours long, and weighs in at 85 mb, zipped – but it’s had some decent reviews on our forum. Check it out!

Nice find by Gholsbane; Mat Noguchi, Tools Programmer for Bungie, is represented in a pretty cool manner by his brother in this image. I like it!

One last one, before I collapse: To the hundreds (no joke!) of people sending us Halo 2 trailer links… feel free to stop at any point. They’re out there for anyone who wants them, but we’re not going to link to them. We’re waiting for the official version from Bungie, which is likely to be released later this week. (Marty, Jay, and Joe have to get together, record a copy and compress it for the web, and then distribute it to sites that can handle the bandwidth spike. There’s no real timeframe for how long this will take… but later this week is a pretty good bet.) We’re not saying you shouldn’t watch the 800 recompressed versions of the shakeycam recordings that Gamespot and IGN snagged that first night – we’re just saying that we’re not gonna link to any of them. Again, if you want to see them, they’re really, really trivial to find. You don’t need our help.

Interesting. There seems to be a passel of new screenshots at Boomtown, a Danish gaming site. Conversations with Bungie employees this past week led me to believe that these shots wouldn’t actually be released… but it seems that Boomtown has a source that thinks differently. The article is in Danish, but Mr Leut, who pointed out the screens on our forum, says that the text describes being able to use human and alien weapons simultaneously. Check ’em out – as far as I know, some of these pics haven’t been seen ANYWHERE else, online or in print. (There are several that appear, in modified format, in the OXM article… but these have backgrounds that the OXM shots don’t have.)

Several people (first here) have pointed out on the forum that this page at Xbox.com has Halo 2 listed as “Halo 2: Truth and Reconciliation”. However, according to Lorraine “mehve” Reyes-McLees, we have not discovered a subtitle for Halo 2. This wouldn’t be the first miscommunication between Bungie and Microsoft’s PR department. So please stop sending it in 🙂

Back from LA, and utterly exhausted… but hey, you guys are worth it, so here’s a Fan Fiction update:

• Halo: Aftermath 02, by Cpt Crapper
• ONI Experimental Vehicle and Weapons Database: Volume 1, by LordofDestruction
• The Prologue, by Simpsons Rule
• The End, by Clark S.
• Critters the Reckoning part one, by Caleb Generoso
• ONI Black Ops Part Six, by Havok
• Chapter 5: The Beginning, by Ace
• Halo 2: The Covenant Wars [Chapter 1], by Thomas Harper
• To Kill a Mockingbird continued, by sunscorpian
• Chapter 3: Friendship, by Vinny

There’ll be more stuff later today, I think… it’s unclear whether there’ll be time for it; I’ve been gone for 3 days, and there’s some family stuff to attend to. To the people who wanted to know why the artwork they sent in 24 hours previously hasn’t been posted yet… um, I’ve been gone.

Another batch of pics has gone live at the E3 2003 coverage page. Check out the top news post over there for more details on my thoughts about them. I promise, there’ll be more updates in the next few days… but right now, we’ve got to get ready to go see the Matrix.

Thanks to iZoD, who points out an interview with Greg Snook, a member of the Halo 2 dev team, today at BreakManX.com at 2 pm central time. This translates to 7 pm UTC, for those who care.

Thanks to several more viewings of the Halo 2 trailer (and a little bit of help from Marty O’Donnell), we’re happy to bring you a full, corrected transcript of the E3 Halo 2 trailer. As an added bonus, it includes a transcript of a small bit that showed in the theater during the E3 showings, but not at the press conference. Thanks to Cybrfrk for his help with this section. A look over this transcript will reveal several interesting tidbits of information to the observant visitor. Deciphering the meaning of that last sentence is left as an exercise for the reader.

It was up a bit longer than it was supposed to be – blame deanero and his fine hospitality for the 12-player lanfest that ran for 5 or 6 hours this evening. The Bungie Trivia contest has been taken offline at this point, and we’ll be announcing the winners as soon as SketchFactor gets back to Seattle and settles in – probably Monday. Over 300 people took the online test – with almost a third of those attempting to take it more than once. (Shame on you! 🙂 ) Thanks for your participation… and again, the winner(s) (and their prize(s)) will be announced soon!

Randy Pitchford of Gearbox and Michel Bastien of Bungie were interviewed by Gamespy’s Livewire at E3 2003. The interview, in audio format, is available for download from Fileplanet; it weighs in at 32 mb. Thanks to Scott Velasquez, of Gearbox, for the heads-up.

The next batch (another dozen pictures) of E3 Fanfest pictures has been added to our E3 2003 Gallery. Take a look!

Check out the E3 2003 coverage page for the first of our fanfest pictures. We’d forgotten that updating pages takes time away from other stuff… like playing Halo, so it’s gonna take us a bit longer than we’d expected to get ’em all up. Look at it this way – there’s something to look forward to.

A bit disheveled – we were at the Beverly Hilton until 2 am last night with SketchFactor and Achronos – but not really the worse for wear… I’m going to attempt to process some of the photos we have this morning, but to start with, you can read a couple of fanfest writeups by forum regulars Shishka and Skeletor. As a point of interest, about 200 of you have taken the online trivia contest so far… and it’s proving to be somewhat more difficult than I’d expected. The high score so far has more than a dozen wrong answers…

Quick note about the 15% discount available at the Bungie Store: it seems that there’s a glitch in the registration system. If you’ve already got an account at the Store, you’re given the option to enter a promo code when you log in (which is where you put in the 15% off code)… but if you fill your cart, and THEN create an account, you never get the promo code option. Solution for the short term: if you don’t have an account… create one BEFORE ordering anything. Once it’s created, log out… THEN order. This information will probably be rectified in the not-too-distant future – everyone at Bungie is sorry for the hassle. (Anyone who DIDN’T get the discount will be taken care of; there are timestamps on all orders. Not to worry – Bungie’ll take care of you!)

Apologies for the up-down-up status of the servers here – it’s hard to monitor stuff from the E3 floor. This is just a quick heads-up that the Bungie Online Trivia Contest will be available in a bit under 2 hours right here. Check back!

Leavin’, on an airplane… but one last news post before I go. We got word from Emildux about new CobaltNova happenings:

This summer Arizona will be home to two of the biggest and entertaining Halo parties in the nation whose prizes will total $7500. You may have heard of these NO ELIMINATION æ´¯urnaments already but some recent website updates and news has come up so we’re out in force pimping to the public. Below you’ll find the pertinent links, dates, unique aspects, art contests, and more. Thank you for your interest.

• $2500 HALO: Running Riot Invitational 3 (14 June 2003)
• $5000 HALO: Killtacular Classic (Mid-August/Early September)

Both events will take place on Saturdays. There was more – much more – in the email he sent… but it’s all available on the webpages… go look.

Forum regular Shishka has written up his impressions of Bungie goodness seen during his first day on the E3 floor – and it sounds like he’s still coming off the high. Go read it and drool if you’re coming to E3, weep if you’re not.

A second news item on Bungie.net discusses the online trivia contest to be hosted here at Bungie.org, starting tomorrow night. The trivia contest, and most of our other E3-specific coverage, will be accessed on our E3 2003 page – right now, most sections are offline, because there either isn’t any content or you’re not allowed to see the content… but keep your eyes peeled!

Woohoo! Just in time for the fanfest, Bungie is running a special at the Bungie Store – 15% EVERYTHING. The offer is only good on Thursday, starting at 12:01 am PDT (7:01 am UTC – that’s less than 6 hours from now) and ending at midnight (7 am Friday UTC). Go read the details on how to get in on the deal at Bungie.net.