With the help of Ferrex, we've put together a rough script of the dialogue in the Halo 2 trailer. There are some missing bits, but it still makes food for thought.

BlackStar Productions has mirrored the large QuickTime version of the Halo 2 Trailer.

You're undoubtedly downloading the Halo 2 trailer by this time, but while you're waiting head over to bungie.net and read the spiffy new Making The Halo 2 Trailer (Part 1) article.

The Halo 2 Trailer is finally out, and we've got it right here at Rampancy. It's available in two QuickTime 6 versions: a large, 27 Mb file and a smaller 17 Mb version.

They are optimized for playback under QT6 on OS X. They should play under other software versions (OS 9, QT 5) but in this environment there may be problems with full screen playback (so-called present mode).

The small version is 320x192 (doubled), 15 fps, with 16 bit, 96kbps MP3 audio.

Well, now that the fateful day has come, there are a scant handful hours before the release of the Halo 2 Trailer. Exactly when and where? No one has yet said. Xbox.com seems a good bet, as they were the first site to put up a countdown. Bungie.net also seems like a likely candidate.

As for exactly when, Matt Soell dropped a trail of breadcrumbs for the faithful over in the HBO forum:

Xbox365 has put up a story on the winner of the Halo National Championship, -Hp- Darkman. While the article is bylined Elizabeth it is written entirely in the first person and seems to either have been written by him or transcribed from an interview; it's not entirely clear.

At any rate, it does include his impressions of the event:

The local competition of the Halo National Tournament played in Olathe, Kansas was the one that the eventual winner, Darkman, advanced through. InfamousX has posted his recollection of some interesting events at that competition that involve flying inverted Xbox controllers...

Holy Acid Trip, Batman!

A veteran Halo fan movie-creator, Dan Chosich, has pieced together another fine Halo endeavor. It's pretty trippy, nice and with some good gameplay. Submitted first to HBO, but there's no official mirror list yet, so we've temporarily mirrored it.

With three days left until the Halo 2 Trailer, Matt Soell dropped into the HBO forum to add his sheckel and a half to a thread about it. He proffered:

Every so often we do something that makes me really, really proud to work at Bungie, and the Halo 2 trailer is one of those things.

Three more days... three more days...

Bungie.net just got the detailed report from Mnemesis. The winner of the Halo National Championship Finals is Dustin -Hp- Darkman Langton. He won a 50 plasma TV, a Bose stereo, an Xbox with games, and the national championship trophy.

... and there is a winner.

Who is it?

We don't know yet. Bungie.net is waiting (like the rest of us) for Mnemesis to report it. Stay tuned.

Newly recruited Bungie.net reporter Mnemesis has written up a report in the HBO forum from the HNC Finals... where the Halo 2 Trailer was shown.

While the trailer itself has been written about numerous times already, he does add a few impressions of his own: