Nick has put up the six new Halo 2 screenshots up in the HBO forum, at full size and without watermarks. HBO's own tireless Louis Wu notes that Shacknews did the same yesterday.

Lorraine Mehve R. McLees posted in the HBO forum the other day, just to clarify a couple of comments people were making on the Official Xbox Magazine cover art. The work is, indeed, hers-- but she was so tired after finishing it that she forgot to sign it.

Gaming Age's Marcus Lai has summed up his reaction to the Halo 2 demo shown by MS at E3 thusly: Halo 2 Rocks.

We've never known Marcus to be wrong before. But then again, we don't know Marcus. So don't take our word for it.

Mnemesis over at Bungie Sightings has posted his impressions from the Halo 2 demonstration at MS' E3 press conference. He seemed pretty impressed, especially with some of the new wrinkles the sequel is sporting:

Not to be outdone, IGN also has some new Halo 2 stuff up-- thanks to Louis Wu at HBO, where we noticed the news. Their full trailer footage, like GameSpot's, are for paying subscribers only, but they have some free teaser clips.

gamer90 over at Subnova pointed out some recent Halo 2 items at GameSpot, including two new trailers, six new screenshots, and a new preview article. Enjoy.

Raptorv22 wrote in to let us know that the first Halo 2 clan (at least that we knew of) has now opened its doors: the 67th Raptors. Go take a look.

Several major websites reported earlier this month Bungie's revelation that Halo 2 would not be released in time for the 2003 holidays as many had expected. The news even went as far as major mainstream sites such as Reuters and BBC News.