Halo 1 featured powerups, such as overshields and active camoflauge (invisibility).

Currently there are no powerups in the game, although they might be added later. (Editor's note: this gets a big thumbs-up from me. I've never ever bothered to cycle powerups like the active camo or the overshield, and never thought I should be punished for wanting to get right on with playing instead of going shopping.)

There are two types of voice chat in Halo 2:

Broadcast Voice
Broadcast Voice works like teamspeak. You press a button and your voice goes to your teammates.

Proximity Voice
Proximity Voice means that players nearby can hear you speak. It appears that this is always on.

Matchmade, or ranked games, do not allow you to affect game settings, and a limited number of options are available. You cannot choose weapons.

If the host drops, another Xbox will take up the hosting of the game, supposedly with only a momentary pause, if any.

It is unknown if there will be any dedicated servers. There will definitely be no dedicated servers for games that are matchmade using XBL's matchmaking facilities.

16 players per game, up to 4 players per Xbox, splitscreen.

These are the options you can customize when playing Halo 2 online through XBL.

• Two skins (Master Chief, Covenant Elite)
• Primary Color
• Secondary Color
• Trim Colors (2)
• Symbol (Insignia, Logo)
• Pattern

There is no relationship between the choice of player model (MC, Spartan) and team assignment, and no impact on gameplay.

Previous Bungie games Marathon and Myth featured something called demo or film recording, allowing players to record multiplayer matches in small files that could be exchanged with other players. The UI of the build of Halo 2 shown to journalists apparently had two familiar choices (Campaign, Multiplayer) and a new option, Game Movies. Apparently this might be for recording games or perhaps portions of games. It is rumored to have been cut from the game, however.

Bungie Weekly Update September 10th 2004 I had to catch a 6am flight this morning, and it was full of giant chicks. Seriously. I don t know what the deal was, but there were about twenty women, of various ages and demographics, whose only common feature was sheer giganticness. Seriously, the smallest one was about six foot two. And they weren t basketball players either they ranged in age from about 15 to 70. But they were humongous. I was totally afraid. What if they were planning on jacking the plane and flying us to their giant Lady Kingdom? Speaking of flying I m lucky enough to go to Japan at the end of the month for the Tokyo Game Show so we may have a brief intermission between updates. The schedule is kinda brutal though I fly there, arrive exactly in time for the start of the show and leave exactly as it ends. Book-ended with 11 hours each way in coach, middle seat, near toilet in back. But as usual I will try my best to grin and bear it as I am crushed between a perspiring real estate salesman flying to Japan for the Grengarry Reads, and a drug-addled linebacker from the '76 Broncos. So if anyone from United can get me a free upgrade, I ll make it well worth their while As I write this, I m in a video editing studio in LA putting the last finishing touches to a number of projects. One of them you already know about the special limited edition DVD. The documentary stuff on there is really cool and perfectly captures the mood and drama of daily life at Bungie. It s 100% realistic with the following exceptions: Hardly any swearing and all of the really obscene graffiti from the whiteboards has been cleverly removed. The documentary was a real eye-opener even for me. It gives a true insight into the process here: The ups, the downs, the struggles, the triumphs, and the constant drive to make everything great. And Parsons' spastic-colon gets a whole chapter. I expect the FCC will kill that part. The documentary footage is being mixed, edited and perfected at a studio in Santa Monica, and I m just down here to make sure they get the latest footage from the game to implement in the video, and also help with a slightly weirder project the attract mode. Most video games have some kind of attract mode the part of a game s title screen where it starts some kind of footage loop, showing off cool moments and teasers from nifty parts of the gameplay. So I m down here to play, test and make sure the guys have everything they need. It s an awful lot of effort for a couple of minutes of footage, but like everything in the game, the Bungie team is obsessed with making sure all the details are taken care of. The attract mode will be cool, but pretty much what you d expect moments of single player, multiplayer and Live, strung together with some bangin' choons and fast paced cutting. What's more exciting (to me) is the nifty backdrop we've created for the main title screen. I heart it. And it goes beautifully with Marty's new music, all of which is composed (but still being implemented in the game and cinematics.)

Edited by Frankie on Sep 3 2004 4:03PM