Rampancy

Taylor Whitfield of the Paly Voice, the online paper of Palo Alto High School in Palo Alto, California, has a rather interesting figure quoted in their article on Halo 2 midnight madness:

"This is definitely the biggest turn out we’ve ever had," said Tyler Durden, manager of Game Stop."

Sounds like a lot of people have been breaking the first two rules of Halo Club. Thanks for the heads-up to vector40.

As usual, more news than one can shake a boomstick at:

• Eric Trautmann notes that the Art of Halo hits bookstore shelves yesterday, at least in theory-- he says some stores don't have it due to late shipments.
• Major Nelson notes that MS' official sales total for Halo 2uesday is now $125 million and also talkes about how Halo 2 matchmaking is different than usual matchmaking on XBL.
• mrsmiley points out that Halo Babies is mentioned in the Halo 2 credits, and that their forums are now back online.
• Fluffy at Halo Planet reviews the SmartJoy Frag and how well it works with Halo 2.
• mnemesis at Bungie Sightings summarizes the old Bungie box acronyms and asks for suggestions on what Halo 2's acronym, JNAMSFTFY, might mean. However, fans should take note that several old acronyms, including PC Halo, GOtY edition Halo, the Halo Soundtrack, Myth 2, the Myth Soundtrack, and the Myth Total Codex, are also still not yet officially solved even after all this time.
• Louis Wu at HBO points out a phone-in chat conference with the I Love Bees players mentioned at ARGN.
• Frankie posts that Bungie will be hosting a weekly challenge to all comers on XBL with bragging rights on the line. They went up against IGN this week; you can see the results courtesy of Bungie's amazing Game Viewer stats system. Shishka seems to be the class of the Bungie team, consistently finishing near the top.

  Editor's Note: The Bungie.net story links to game #2 twice, but Shishka gladly provided the link to game #3.

• Penny Arcade's Tycho is obsessed with trying to connect Halo 2's plot, the Conversations from the Universe insert that comes with the Limited Edition, and the I Love Bees ARG.

That's all for now.

Tycho of Penny Arcade is beginning to post his first impressions of Halo 2, starting with the matchmaking system, which he seems to like fairly well:

It's odd when you first start, especially if you're used to PC-style server browsers or classic Live optimatches, both of which make up for their deficiencies somewhat by being highly explicit. Once you get the hang of this new way, it's startlingly humane and organic in comparison.

And, of course, today's Penny Arcade comic is also Halo 2-themed.

How much money did Halo make on its first day? $100 million, according to Microsoft and EB Games, says GameSpot. Not bad.

Editor's Note: Comparisons keep being made to the opening day takes of Hollywood films, and there's no sign that such comparisons will stop anytime soon. However, they're probably not very meaningful. Movie tickets are cheaper, the potential audience for films is larger because there are no hardware requirements, the chance for multiple viewings is much greater than for multiple copy purchases, and films rarely offer pre-purchasing for tickets months in advance, meaning that the purchases for Halo 2 are stilted towards the first day in a way that looks similar, but is motivated by different circumstances, than for films. But still... not bad at all.