You're undoubtedly downloading the Halo 2 trailer by this time, but while you're waiting head over to bungie.net and read the spiffy new Making The Halo 2 Trailer (Part 1) article.

The Halo 2 Trailer is finally out, and we've got it right here at Rampancy. It's available in two QuickTime 6 versions: a large, 27 Mb file and a smaller 17 Mb version.

They are optimized for playback under QT6 on OS X. They should play under other software versions (OS 9, QT 5) but in this environment there may be problems with full screen playback (so-called present mode).

The small version is 320x192 (doubled), 15 fps, with 16 bit, 96kbps MP3 audio.

The large version is 480x288, 29.97 fps with 16 bit, 128kbps MP3 audio.

Both trailers are also available at RHL.

Thanks to Louis Wu who provided the upload.

Well, now that the fateful day has come, there are a scant handful hours before the release of the Halo 2 Trailer. Exactly when and where? No one has yet said. Xbox.com seems a good bet, as they were the first site to put up a countdown. Bungie.net also seems like a likely candidate.

As for exactly when, Matt Soell dropped a trail of breadcrumbs for the faithful over in the HBO forum:

No, it doesn't come out at midnight. Get some sleep.

Sleep in, read the paper over a leisurely brunch, run some errands. You'll have time.

Depending on your time zone, you might even be able to squeeze dinner in.

Assume I'm indulging the Ugly American tendency to ignore the rest of the world.

Excluding the parts harboring terrorists, that is. We assume that last remark is in regard to what time zone Matt was expecting people to have dinner in.And before anyone asks, no, getting on an eastbound jet liner to try and speed up time won't work. We've tried it. Here at rampancy, we're already eleven hours in the future and the trailer's still not out.

Xbox365 has put up a story on the winner of the Halo National Championship, -Hp- Darkman. While the article is bylined Elizabeth it is written entirely in the first person and seems to either have been written by him or transcribed from an interview; it's not entirely clear.

At any rate, it does include his impressions of the event:

Traveling to L.A. by myself was fun - really, I enjoyed it. It was a great chance for me to meet some of my friends that I talk with on XBConnect (chumpp, DM, etc). Now when we all were shown the studio we would be playing in, some players thought it was really cool (like me) but some players thought the lighting and all the cameras would screw up their play. I thought this was an unfair way to settle the tournament, but all in all, the best player came out :)

These other 15 players I met here are all very, very good at Halo... They all deserved prizes!

The article is followed by a various selection of forum posters chiming I could beat you...

The local competition of the Halo National Tournament played in Olathe, Kansas was the one that the eventual winner, Darkman, advanced through. InfamousX has posted his recollection of some interesting events at that competition that involve flying inverted Xbox controllers...

Holy Acid Trip, Batman!

A veteran Halo fan movie-creator, Dan Chosich, has pieced together another fine Halo endeavor. It's pretty trippy, nice and with some good gameplay. Submitted first to HBO, but there's no official mirror list yet, so we've temporarily mirrored it.

With three days left until the Halo 2 Trailer, Matt Soell dropped into the HBO forum to add his sheckel and a half to a thread about it. He proffered:

Every so often we do something that makes me really, really proud to work at Bungie, and the Halo 2 trailer is one of those things.

Three more days... three more days...

Bungie.net just got the detailed report from Mnemesis. The winner of the Halo National Championship Finals is Dustin -Hp- Darkman Langton. He won a 50 plasma TV, a Bose stereo, an Xbox with games, and the national championship trophy. Some might remember from the finalist profiles on Bungie.net that Darkman, from Manhattan, Kansas, said he knew he would make it to the final, and would feel sorry for sending the other finalists home empty-handed. Well, he did send them home, as for whether he feels sorry-- that's a separate question. He was also the first finalist listed... prescience by the Bungie webmaster?

The rest of Mnemesis' report covers the elimination rounds prior to the final, as well as the unofficial match that pitted the finalists against Bungie's own dream team of Halo designers, who lost 3 games to none.

... and there is a winner.

Who is it?

We don't know yet. Bungie.net is waiting (like the rest of us) for Mnemesis to report it. Stay tuned.

Newly recruited Bungie.net reporter Mnemesis has written up a report in the HBO forum from the HNC Finals... where the Halo 2 Trailer was shown.

While the trailer itself has been written about numerous times already, he does add a few impressions of his own:

The Earth is shown both directly and in the background, and I can say for sure that Earth is definitely being glassed. Huge shockwaves repeatedly burst on the surface. Aside from the lighting, which has been drooled over already, there is a depth-of-field focus element to the game that looks absolutely awesome.

Alas, there's no shaky, low-quality handycam footage; his camera's batteries were charging while the trailer was playing. So, back to your regularly scheduled hurry up and wait for four more days...

Bungie.net has posted a note that the Halo National Championship Finals have started, with roving reporter Mnemesis at the event, with news soon to come. Stay tuned.

HBO and Bungie.net both now have walkthroughs of The Library on Legendary difficulty. HBO's Legendary Library Walkthrough doesn't have screenshots, but the Bungie version does. Louis Wu provided the heads-up.

There are profiles of each of the sixteen Halo National Championship finalists up at Bungie.net. Thanks to Louis Wu at HBO.