Some have reported that select few attendees at the I Love Bees "training" events have been receiving special items. Some received commemorative DVDs, others got Limited Edition copies of Halo 2 before anybody else. Lucky buggers.
For those of you who administrate a 7th Column Group at Bungie.net, you'll notice a new set of links there now that allow you to link up to seven (appropriate number, no?) different clans to your Group. It can be a clan that includes your members, or an allied clan, or even a rival clan. Links to those clans' statistics pages will appear on your Group's pages.
b>John "JCal" Callaham of HomeLAN Fed has done an interview with Wideload Games founder Alexander "The Man" Seropian about Stubbs the Zombie in "Rebel Without a Pulse". Someone finally asked one of the minds behind Bungie one of the age-old burning questions: Why zombies?
Looks like Bungie.net is getting ready to open their Stats section (Editor's Note: Still down as of this writing) in preparation of Halo 2's launch on XBL next week; after a short downtime, today the site is notifying users about their new Privacy Statement,
[image:8460 left hspace=5 vspace=5 border=0]Matt Soell of Wideload Games took the time to add a few comments to the release of information last week about Wideload's first game, Stubbs the Zombie in 'Rebel Without a Pulse'. The first addition is that the game is planned for the Xbox, Macs and PCs. Wideload is doing the Xbox version internally, and is working with Aspyr's development teams for the Mac and PC versions.
Twenty lucky Xbox Live subscribers are going to get a change to play Halo 2 this week, as well as get a tour of Bungie Studios and lunch with Pete Parsons this Thursday, November 4. Xbox.com has the complete list of winners.
If you live in the Seattle area and qualify, you could win a pass to play Halo 2 on Thursday, November 4. Check Major Nelson's blog, Random Thoughts for details.
A site called Joystiq is reporting a rumor that both the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 2 may both be using IBM-made PPC chips. Thanks cooked gamers.
[image:8472 left hspace=5 vspace=5 border=0]A new set of 12 screenshots have shown up in the Celebrities section of MSN, spotted by M3XGhost39 who alerted Louis Wu at HBO. Some are old, some are new, some aren't supposed to be out yet, apparently, and some might be spoilers if you knew what you were looking at.
GameSpy is starting a week of pre-launch coverage for Halo 2, and the first item is an 8-page interview with Frankie. Interestingly, at the end Frankie denies that anyone at Bungie has specifically said their next game (or games) will or will not be related to Halo, despite what Parsons said elsewhere about doing something "different". Curious... Thanks Louis Wu at HBO.
Several sites, including current one-Wu-wonder HBO, pointed out an article on Halo 2 in Entertainment Weekly. Some of those sites also pointed out some things which, while not outright inaccuracies, certainly seem to skew their perception of the game through a film industry lens.
IGN's latest Countdown To Halo 2 feature is actually a preview not of Halo 2 itself, but a preview of their review of the game. There's a special kind of insanity inherent to the buzz, however justifiable, behind this title. One can only wonder what it would be like if, say, the installed base numbers of the Xbox and the PlayStation 2 were reversed.
A lot of new media has been released in the past day or so. Bungie.net's Halo 2 Videos page has WMP9 versions of the 30 and 60 second commercial spots, as well as TV ads in French, German, and Italian. There's also another bonus; an online version of the Multiplayer Featurette that's going to be on the Limited Edition DVD.