Although this is listed as a level, it's really just a cutscene. As the game itself does later, this switches between the story of John 117, the Master Chief, receiving a hero's welcome on Cairo Station with Sgt. Johnson, Cortana and Lord Hood, and the Covenant Elite in charge of chasing the Pillar of Autumn from Reach to Halo being punished for his failure to protect the ring or destroy the human craft.
Halo 2 roundups simply refuse to die. So here is all the stuff you read about somewhere else while I was sleeping on an airplane with a wet towel wrapped around my head:
We're hoping later to start a series of hands-on impressions, level by level, of Halo 2, as well as to recap the London trip that was highlighted by Stuntmutt and a few beers.
Greetings from rainy Langley outside of London, where I'm in town for a few days doing something almost, but not entirely, unrelated to Halo 2; something I hope to rectify in approximately 12 hours or so. In the meantime, of course, I returned to notice that the server logs had filled up the server's disk space, effectively closing the site; hopefully that won't happen again for... oh... at least another 24 hours or so. Rampancy is truly grateful for the upswing in interest since the release of Halo 2, and we are working diligently to make sure that the site can keep up with the increased traffic.
So, without much further ado about not much at all:
I'm going to try and make it to the Apple Store opening in London tomorrow morning; if they have wireless access perhaps I'll be able to update from there.
UPDATE: A few more items before I go to breakfast:
[image:8656 left hspace=5 vspace=5 border=0]Funkmastaeric writes in the HBO forum that if you currently don't have access to XBL, you can set your XBL icon at Bungie.net by manipulating the URL in a browser. Neat trick. For information on the selection of icons, see our Emblem Gallery.
Evil Avatar points out an alternative to class action lawsuits for getting satisfaction from Microsoft over out-of-warranty Xbox repairs.
Shadow at Sector 7 relates how clams, cigarettes, sleep deprivation, aurora bourealis and nausea combine to make a memorable experience of buying Halo 2 from GameStop. Editor's Note: We made a short note of Shadow earlier; he got his hands on Halo 2 slightly earlier than most because he helping out the store by lending them his Xbox for display.
Today, November 15, 2004, marks the third anniversary of the release of Halo for the Xbox. Happy birthday Halo!
Kitt at Evil Avatar pointed out a comparison between the number of users on Valve's Steam service to those playing Halo 2 on XBL. At the moment, they are about equal: around 75,000 players currently online.
For awhile now, registered users of Rampancy could enter in their XBL GamerTags in their profiles, by clicking the my account link under the lefthand menu for their username, and editing their personal information. Now, we have a way to actually use that information. First, you can see a list of our registered users, and if you like, you can see only those who have entered GamerTags.
The list will also display users' city and country, if they have entered it, so you can find GamerTags of Rampancy.net users nearby you if you like. Personal information like your email address is not displayed on this page, or anywhere else. We are also planning to allow users to share information like GamerTags and stats feeds between various Halo fansites.
There is also now a field to enter your Bungie.net stats RSS feed; so if you have XBL and haven't entered this information, go ahead!
Gaming rumor sheet SPoNG has another of its items about infighting between nVidia, ATI and Microsoft over the possibility of making the Xbox 2 backwards compatible with the first iteration. Please pass the salt.
[image:8734 left hspace=5 vspace=5 border=0] HaloMods is carrying news of one of the first mods made with a legitimately owned copy of Halo 2; Iron Forge has created a dual plasma swords mod. Don't know how effective it is, but it looks damn cool. Thanks to synide for the heads-up.
Mat "Shunji" Noguchi responds in his blog to some of Halo and Halo 2's critics by pointing out how Halo 2's game experience is optimized for average, not "hardcore" players.
GameSpy has a two-page feature up called The Numbers Never Lie about the Halo 2 statistics system.
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ZexGX found this Carneyhole in the Old Mombassa area of Outskirts. It contains a skull, a pile of grenades, and a camera. Looks almost like a gravesite.