... flood spores smell funny, and so do you. Fancy yourself a rhymin' fool as well as a Bungie fan and you could win in The Junkyard's Write a Poem for Bungie Contest. First place includes a strategy guide, hat and t-shirt, a Master Chief action figure and 5000 Junkyard Store credits. Contest begins November 29, 2004. Thanks mrsmiley.

Word on the street is that Bungie has suffered their first loss in the Humpday Challenge since they started-- to the Bungie.net admins. There's no writeup at Bungie.net yet (surprise, surprise) but hopefully more details will surface soon.

Halo 2 roundups simply refuse to die. So here is all the stuff you read about somewhere else while I was sleeping on an airplane with a wet towel wrapped around my head:

Greetings from rainy Langley outside of London, where I'm in town for a few days doing something almost, but not entirely, unrelated to Halo 2; something I hope to rectify in approximately 12 hours or so. In the meantime, of course, I returned to notice that the server logs had filled up the server's disk space, effectively closing the site; hopefully that won't happen again for... oh... at least another 24 hours or so.

[image:8656 left hspace=5 vspace=5 border=0]Funkmastaeric writes in the HBO forum that if you currently don't have access to XBL, you can set your XBL icon at Bungie.net by manipulating the URL in a browser. Neat trick. For information on the selection of icons, see our Emblem Gallery.

Today, November 15, 2004, marks the third anniversary of the release of Halo for the Xbox. Happy birthday Halo!

Someday we'll return to being able to post news items separately. But there are those who say that day will never come... in the meantime, the roundup, thanks to HBO, Halo Planet, Halo Babies, The ILB Wiki, and many others:

Mat "Shunji" Noguchi responds in his blog to some of Halo and Halo 2's critics by pointing out how Halo 2's game experience is optimized for average, not "hardcore" players.

Coke points out on IRC that it looks like the Bungie.net forums have been reorganized. Additional Halo 2 forums have been added: Zanzibar for multiplayer discussions, OptiMatch for matchmaking discussions.

Much, much too much stuff out there now that November 9 is finally here (at least in some time zones).

Here's a summary, drawing on sites like HBO, Halo Planet, Halo Babies, The Junkyard, Voodoo Extreme, Sector 7, and of course, Bungie.net.

• Halo Babies forums will be down to give admins a break to play Halo 2 before having to deal with abuse and spoilers.
• CNN asks if Halo 2 is big enough.
• GameRankings compiles Halo 2 review results. Current average: 98%.
• The Junkyard's realism in Halo series covers Keyes. Thanks Mhaddy.
• Mnemesis notes that the Limited Edition of Halo 2 for the Xbox has this Bungie acronym: JNAMSFTFY. He also links to Matt Soell's post about these acronyms, from way back in 1997.
• Major Nelson waves his copy of Halo 2 in our faces.
• Bungie.net assembles all their get ready for Halo 2 content in one place.
• HBO now has separate settings for Halo and Halo 2 spoilers. Editor's Note: we've been working on a viable solution for hiding spoilers on this site, however it isn't ready yet. So until then, we won't be posting any real spoilers on the front page, although we may open a separate forum for them.
• Halo 2 setting up Xbox 2 at Canada.com.
• Want Halo 2? Get in line now! (The IndyChannel). Editor's Note: You'll laugh, you'll cry... you'll kiss $55 goodbye!
• The Toronto Sun thinks Halo 2's M rating will keep it from its fans. Editor's Note: This guy needs a whack with a cluebat. The most rabid Halo 2 fans are Halo 1 fans, and Halo 1 was rated M as well. But they think it will break sales records anyway.
• The Wall Street Journal takes a few hundred words to say Halo 2 comes out today. Editor's Note: Really!?
• This is your last chance to vote in the 343 Guilty Lantern contest.
• The last part of the 30-minute The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter movie is out today.
• poena.dare wants to find out how much you really know about Bungie with his 343-question Penultimate Bungie Giga-Quiz 1.0.
• MLG wonders if XBL will crash due to Halo 2 traffic.
• Joe Staten points out a misquote of him in an article on Halo 2's plot and notes that Halo 2 is not an anti-Bush polemic, despite what has been said. His statement: "Halo2's story is non-partisan. Any meaning you ascribe to it is yours alone. Play the game, and I think you'll see it's just that: a fun game with a good story."
• Bentllama talks trash on his blog, daring you to wrest away a copy of Halo 2 chained to his neck. Those Canadians are odd.
• Watch Halo 2 on HaloTV. Multiplayer only, so no spoilers... I think.
• People are waiting for Halo 2, says the Springfield News-Leader. Editor's Note: This and the many repetetive stories like it just goes to show that online newspapers still cling to their ideas of geographical territoriality, even though it's meaningless on the Internet, and doubly so when talking about an online phenomenon. Oh well.
• Halo 2 fans are cattle being "herded online", according to USA Today's headline. Editor's Note: I wonder what you could call USA Today readers, then.
• The Man Room reviews something to put in your ear. Related to Halo 2. Trust me.
• Halo 2uesday is a holy day, says the Seattle Times. They also note the long hours Bungie put in making it.
• Halo 2 might let the Xbox make money according to gamesindustry.biz. Editor's Note: Who'd have thunk it?
• XA Radio is having a Halo 2 Launch Party.
• Halo 2 is more destructive than the original, says the Boston Globe. Editor's Note: For shame. I'd have thought my hometown paper of choice could come up with something more imaginative. Still, they liked it, which means I can keep reading them.
• The Fresno Bee knows where you'll bee at midnight. Editor's Note: We love bees!
• Penny Arcade wonders why Halo seems to attract Greeks.
• CTRL+ALT+DEL asks the question.. can I touch it?

That is much too long a news post.

Gholsbane over at MBO notes that November 7 marked the 7th anniversary of the release of Myth: The Fallen Lords, released in 1997. All the players who still have the game on their hard drive-- and we know you're out there-- head to PlayMyth or marius.net and get in a game to commemorate.

GameSpy's prelaunch coverage continues with an interview with Tyson "Ferrex" Green about level design and why Halo 2 won't include repetetive levels like Halo 1 did.

The news items are flying fast and furiously in the last few days before Halo 2's launch, so in order to keep up we'll be posting news summary items where necessary. These items were pointed out at various other gaming sites, including HBO, Sector 7, Halo Planet, GameSpy and IGN. This weekend's summary so far: