Skeifer and the Captain venture into the Library to see how "real" a giant multilevel archive full of Flood can be in Part 7 of The Junkyard's series on realism in Halo. I have to admit, this article must have been a real challenge, as the Library is probably the most unnatural and arbitrarily designed environment in the game, so it's difficult to imagine it as a real scenario. The Captain does ask the question I've always wondered about, though:

Fluffy Pants has a writeup, with photos, of the Crisp Death LANfest held at Louis Wu's earlier this month online at The Junkyard. The photo of the network rack is a nice touch. For carnage, apply within, I guess. Thanks Ryan "Mhaddy" Matthews.

Part six of skeifer's series on realism in Halo is up at the Junkyard. This time, skeifer and "Captain Roy Luthan" take on 343 Guilty Spark. This time, the beef is with the end of the level, where Foe Hammer makes you wander through the jungle to 343's tower before coming in to pick you up:

According to SketchFactor and Louis Wu at HBO, there's a massive 9-page feature on the Halo 2 development team in this month's issue of Wired. HBO promises scans once the issue is off the shelves.

Part Five of the series on realism in Halo is up over at The Junkyard. In this one, Captain Roy Luthan (still not his real name) covers one of my favorite levels, Assault on the Control Room. Thanks Ryan "Mhaddy" Matthews for the heads-up.

GameSpy has again taken reader questions and fed them back to Bungie to try and get more information. Here's a summary of what gets clarified this time around:

We've updated some old topics and added a few new ones in our Halo 2 FAQ to reflect the information revealed so far in the many articles covering Halo 2 multiplayer. The new and updated entries are:

More features on Halo 2 coming out; Louis Wu at HBO has compiled a list. Here it is:

Leading up to the impending media blitz that will no doubt be Halo 2's official marketing campaign (all the bee stuff aside) IGN has put up a six-page feature on what it was like to hunt for Halo 2 information through the relatively quiet period from the announcement in August 2002 until now.

One interesting point they mention is about the Weekly Updates, and how the major news sites... well... don't seem to like them much:

Stuntmutt and BOLL have each posted up in the HBO forum their respective writeups (Stuntmutt, BOLL) of their GameStars Live experiences playing Halo 2. BOLL's has pictures and a nice Flash version of a picture with Spartans in Nightmare Armor that gives headshots and names for each person in the pic; very slick.

Part IV of the series "As Real As a 'Survivor' Elimination" focusing on realism in Halo is now up over at the Junkyard. This one covers Silent Cartographer. In this part, Captain Luthan (not his real name) gives advice on handling Hunters:

Major Nelson sat on a panel about online gaming at PAX, and has posted up a report: part one, part two, with photos, in his blog.

Ryan "synide" Thompson is the latest profile subject at The Junkyard; he's also got a review of Halo 2 up, based on his impressions playing at the MLG Downpour event. Thanks for the heads-up to Louis Wu at HBO.

Halo fans submitted some follow-up questions to GameSpy about Halo 2, and they've done their best to answer them.