The part of a Halo 2 level that was shown at E3 in 2003 morphed into what eventually became two levels, Outskirts and Metropolis, roughly divided into Old and New Mombassa, respectively, the city being divided into two parts by a river and connected by a bridge.
Spong is reporting that they expect details about the next Xbox platform to be revealed at a special keynote briefing on January 17, 2005 in Seattle. The story also mentions the oft-repeated rumor that Microsoft chairman Bill Gates will mention the console in his CES keynote on January 5, 2005. Salt, please!
The Sword Flying trick was first extensively demonstrated on Metropolis. The procedure for executing it is somewhat complicated; it involves parking a Warthog in an area where a Phantom attacks, targeting the plasma sword on one of the Phantom's turrets, and then waiting until the Phantom has withdrawn before exiting the vehicle. You will be propelled in whatever direction you face; this method can be used to extensively explore the level, including otherwise unreachable areas and is a way to retrieve the Scarab Gun without a Banshee (although you can't get back down with it...)
Industry rag sheet GamesIndustry.biz is reporting that Electronic Arts' CFO is saying that next-generation consoles are going to feature wireless hubs right out of the box. However, when listening to financial muckety-mucks talk tech, be sure to take it with a few tablespoons of salt; he also mentions the phrase "microtransaction environment" which should cast a bit of doubt on anything coming out of the man's mouth.
Major Nelson points out a way developed by Samrad to pull your Halo 2 stats from the RSS feed at Bungie.net into Excel for analysis and the making of pretty charts. Editor's Note: The required "import XML" menu item seems to be missing from Excel 2004 on the Mac, so it looks like this procedure requires Windows.
The updates to Halo 2's Xbox Live playlists have arrived; the Team Slayer only list is now there. If you were online when the lists were updated, you'll need to disconnect and reconnect to see the new lists. Lots of changes here, and you can see a list of all the changes at Bungie.net.
CH2R, the Halo 2 modding tool, has been updated to v0.5.4. You can get it at HaloMods. Thanks VerdaFolio at demented puppy dot com.
News.com is reporting that overall console sales are down, with some 19.3 million units expected to have been shipped by the end of this year, compared to 35 million the previous year. In-Stat/MDR analyst Brian O'Rourke summed up the console wars like this:
[image:8822 left hspace=5 vspace=5 border=0] Bigwig pointed out it's possible to get a Warthog up to the set of bridges in Metropolis that you drop down from to board the Scarab and destroy it; beyond that, it's possible to actually drive the Warthog into the Scarab. He captured a few short films, which we combined into this small movie (download requires login; click the headline above and then look for the attachment below). The quality isn't great, but you can make out the Warthog getting into the Scarab.
CAL, The CyberAthlete Amateur League, is now accepting Halo 2 teams for competition. They've also opened a Halo 2 forum. Thanks rapture at Cooked Gamers.
Frankie's finally given in to reality and posted about Bungie's loss in last week's Humpday Challenge; The Bungie.net Mods team of Shishka, Yoozel, Stoshy and (sort of) Payneful defeated Frankie, AGDTinman and Negabyte. Thanks to akba for the heads-up.
[image:8816 left hspace=5 vspace=5 border=0] BOLL has created a set of panoramic views of Halo 2, using a TV capture card, a modified controller, and the blind skull. Check it out over at HBO.
As I've not yet finished Halo 2, and with work and the holidays I'm not sure when I will, I've decided to review Halo 2 in pieces rather than as a whole, logging my impressions of the game as I play through it. The Halo 2 Impressions page will break the game down level by level; it won't be completely a review, nor completely a walkthrough, and one of the major points of emphasis will be comparison and contrast to Halo 1 and Marathon.
Not completely a review, not completely a walkthrough, and certainly to be full of spoilers, Rampancy.net's Halo 2 Impressions goes through the new game level by level, making comparisons to Halo 1: what's new, what's improved, what's missing, what works and what doesn't.
The Cairo Station level is where you really start to feel nostalgic, not only for Halo 1 but for much older Bungie games. The parallels to the first Halo game start to become apparent, as well as the influence of ideas and themes from the Marathon series.