Death by intelligence.
Halo 2 Roundup, Part Six
Someday we'll return to being able to post news items separately. But there are those who say that day will never come... in the meantime, the roundup, thanks to HBO, Halo Planet, Halo Babies, The ILB Wiki, and many others:
Penny Arcade: Halo 2 Like Halo 1
Gabe and Tycho seem to have the same opinion of Halo 2 as Halo 1: they love multiplayer and hate the campaign:
MS Cracking Down On Modchips
Cnet today has an article speculating on Microsoft's approach to trying to eliminate users of modified Xboxes from its Xbox Live gaming service, even going so far as to try and implicate Halo 2.
Rampancy Opens XBL GamerTag Database
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.
There's A Party On His Couch
Tycho of Penny Arcade is beginning to post his first impressions of Halo 2, starting with the matchmaking system, which he seems to like fairly well:
It's odd when you first start, especially if you're used to PC-style server browsers or classic Live optimatches, both of which make up for their deficiencies somewhat by being highly explicit. Once you get the hang of this new way, it's startlingly humane and organic in comparison.
Dual Plasma Blades By Iron Forge
[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.
Dual Swords Hack for Xbox Halo 2
Several posters have professed doubt about this image. It was not, to the best of our knowledge, produced in photoshop or edited in any misleading way.
The hack in question is achieved, generally speaking, by using a modchip to allow users to connect to their Xbox's hard drives using an ordinary Windows PC, edit the cached map files that Halo 2 (like Halo 1 before it) keeps on the Xbox's hard drive, and then running the game with those edited map caches.
Lies, Damned Lies, And Halo 2 Statistics
GameSpy has a two-page feature up called The Numbers Never Lie about the Halo 2 statistics system.
Living Up To The Hype
The BBC wonders why Halo 1 has created so much enthusiasm for the sequel; and to find out, they asked HBO's Claude "Louis Wu" Errera:
Bungie got everything right. They were really careful to make sure everything worked the way it was supposed to.
Nothing distracts you when you were playing. There was nothing in Halo that had not been done before but everything in there was as good as it could be.
Sector 7 Launch Party Coverage
Over at Sector 7, Fusion is promising coverage from Times Square soon, and Shadow points out his chance to do his bit for Bungie by offering his own personal Xbox as a demo machine to his local Gamestop in Washington state.
Bungie.Net Forums Reorganized
Finally Getting Halo 2
[image:8701 left hspace=5 vspace=5 border=0]Blackstar of Blackstar Productions sent in a series of photos from the midnight opening of his local EB where he picked up a copy of Halo 2. There's also a writeup of his shopping experience:
Halo 2: Finally
Well after many days and nights of wishing, hoping, praying, sweating, bleeding, and driving themselves to total burn out Bungie completed Halo 2. Congratulations guys. We knew you could do it. But this is not about their struggle, no. It's about my adventure.... in picking it up at my local EB Game store.
game:
Xbox Live Rock Solid So Far
Major Nelson is reporting on his blog that massive numbers of people are logging into the service to play Halo 2, but that everything is running smoothly so far.