theRanger sent us word that TeamXbox has a new Halo 2 preview up that features some of the newly released screenshots.

GameSpot has posted a whole batch of new Halo 2 screenshots. Some appear to be screenshots from the Halo 2 trailer, but there are also quite a few totally new ones. You'll see some nice captures of the Warthog and Master Chief (still no action shots).

In a preview of sorts, Gamesradar has released a medium-sized article revealing some tantalizing Halo 2 facts, quotes, and screens. More is available if you grab a copy of Edge Magazine's latest issue (lots more), but this serves as a pleasant interlude if you don't bother hitting the news stands.

HBO supplied the link.

The gaming website Computer and Video Games has written up something vaguely resembling a Halo 2 preview. Nobody's quite sure where they got their information, or how valid it is, but it's worth reading.

Hat tip to The Junkyard.

Matt Soell at Bungie.net has posted the second part of their article about the making of the Halo 2 Trailer. In this installment features Marty O'Donnell and Jay Weinland talking about the audio aspects of the trailer.

Another tournament surfaces from the deep.

A rep mentioned at the Junkyard forums that a Halo tournament's coming up in Long Island, New York at NY Sports Plus. Looks to be fairly solid and plenty fun. Visit the tournament site for complete information.

Somebody's pissed at the government of the UK. First Tony Blair does his best imitation of a cocker spaniel in that George Michael video that nobody's supposed to be watching, then they get charged more to play Halo than Americans do-- and in the end, they get cheated out of having their own tournament.

At least, that's the view presented by UK4HALO, a site that seeks to petition Microsoft to have a UK-based Halo tournament. All except for the Tony Blair thing, that's just me reading between the lines.

Thomas Bottrill tipped off HBO, which is where we saw the item.

Louis Wu at HBO noticed a new page of screenshots at Bungie.net's Truth & Reconciliation Halo site. They're full screen shots of cooperative play action. They're gorgeous, and all I can think of is... why can't we play like that? (It's a rhetorical question.)

Blackstar has posted a new fanfest LAN play highlight film entitled Work Or Die at Blackstar Productions, be sure to check it out.

News.com is carrying a story today that says that Microsoft is looking to hire an engineer for collecting, evaluating and conducting analysis of modification chips used on the Xbox game console, suce as the X-ecuter. Apparently they want to use this technical information not only to help beef up the Xbox's security, but in a legal battle against Xbox hackers:

Microsoft has said it will pursue legal action against any hacking tools that infringe on its intellectual property and may use the upcoming online service for Xbox to spot hackers. Preference is given to those with...gaming hacking knowledge.

Both Microsoft and Sony allege that mod chips violate copyright, but recent rulings in Australia have not supported that charge.

With all this news of the Halo National Tournament having splashed to a halt, it's easy to forget the little people. With that in mind, there's an upcoming tournament in New Mexico, taking place on October 12. Seems to be a pretty good deal, if you're in the area - site's here.

Deimos 3of9 Fawkes over at Subnova put up their Halo 2 trailer stats so far:

http://mirror.subnova.com/hbo/halo2_announce_qt6_large.mov with 1,650 hits
http://mirror.subnova.com/hbo/halo2.wmv with 1,417 hits
Which adds up to over 10GB of Halo 2 goodness served up in less than 24 hours.

Normally we wouldn't bother with anything as boring as statistics (yeah, as if) but since we've been given this golden opportunity to force breath through the cold dark lips of our own instrument, here are our numbers in the first day (plus three hours) of downloading:

3077 hits 26802368 KBytes halo2_announce_qt6_large.mov
687 hits 2714119 KBytes halo2_announce_qt6_small.mov

3764 total hits, 29516487 KBytes (28 Gb)

We're not dead sure, but we think for Rampancy this marks new all-time highs for hits, page views, and traffic.

With the help of Ferrex, we've put together a rough script of the dialogue in the Halo 2 trailer. There are some missing bits, but it still makes food for thought.

BlackStar Productions has mirrored the large QuickTime version of the Halo 2 Trailer.