Look... A Skull!
This screenshot caused massive consternation for awhile on several Halo forums due to a reflection on the visor which resembled a skull.
Death by intelligence.
An Elite Moment
This shot of a Covenant Elite shows a form very similar to what appeared in the shipping game. Earlier shots had models that were much more grey than purple, and more closely resembled slightly less muscular versions of the Skaarj fighters from Epic's game, Unreal.
Fishin' Bob
The hat of the marine on the right here earned him the name "Fishin' Bob".
scrn 110
Choose Your Weapons
From the announcement trailer. The Master Chief opens a weapons rack that is concealed in the hallway wall and selects an assault rifle.
Cowabunga
Having opened the airlock door, the Master Chief prepares to fling himself into the Earth's upper atmosphere. From the announcement trailer.
I'm Ready For My Closeup, Mr. DeMille
From the announcement trailer. The Master Chief steps towards the camera, looking out through the observation window to the scene of Earth being "glassed" -- devastated by Covenant energy weapons.
Fighter Bay 02
From the announcement trailer. The Master Chief emerges from the door into The Spoke's fighter bay.
Let There Be Light
Another shot from the announcement trailer, showing off the new lighting effects of the Halo 2 engine as the Master Chief emerges into a darkened hallway with strong backlighting.
Danger
Whenever you see a sign that warns of danger if you push a button, you can bet you're supposed to push it. The Vidmaster's Oath, from Bungie's Marathon days, actually required players to "push all buttons". There's rarely a button in any of Bungie's games that you're not supposed to push.
ESRB Invents Four Flavors Of Violence
According to a Business Wire story on Yahoo Finance today, the Entertainment Software Rating Board has modified its rating system, further dividing violence into four new categories: Cartoon, Fantasy, Intense and Sexual.
The changes will take effect on September 15, 2003, along with changes to the labels on videogame boxes to make them more prominent, visible, and informative than the old labels. Ratings such as M for Mature will also get a minimum recommended age.
What does this have to do with Halo? Well you might ask. The original release of Halo for the Xbox was given a rating of M , rather than T (Teen) more or less at the last moment. As a result, the game's content was quite a bit milder than it could have been before reaching the next level ( AO , or Adults Only ) and yet still suffered the consequences of not being offered for sale in some stores. It was thought that, once Bungie saw the game could succeed with an M rating, that the sequel might well be a bit gorier, or have language in it slightly more colorful than the word crap , which is probably the most explicit word uttered by any in-game character during gameplay.
However, the addition of a minimum age to the M rating may cloud the issue somewhat. Stores may decide that they have their own age thresholds, and this may need to be taken into account when deciding how mature Halo 2's content should be.
Demo-Making Sequelitude
Part Two of Bungie.net's feature on the making of the E3 demo is up. This one, by SketchFactor, is called Lights, Camera, Action! and features an interview with Joseph Staten, BungieТs Director of Cinematics.
HBO's Louis Wu gave us the heads-up.
Pile The Bits In The Corner, Please
Well, we're not in the lofty company of mirror sites like Mythica and o1, that pump out Halo videos by the terabyte, but we've done what we could in the past few days.
So far, we've meted out about 28 Gb of the high quality WMV, about 6.5 Gb of the high quality QuickTime, and 4.5 Gb of the low quality QuickTime versions of the Halo 2 demonstration at E3.
We hope you enjoy the video (we do, immensely and daily) and we'll continue to host it until the next popular file comes around.
Also, it's worth noting that the end of the last month we missed our fourth birthday, as this site-- originally known as The Core -- went online on May 26, 1999. Happy birthday to us!
Official Halo 2 Trailer This Friday
The official, high quality version of the Halo 2 demo shown this year at E3 will be made available to selected websites this coming Friday; we know it's true because SketchFactor said so at Bungie.net, plus a little birdie told us.
According to the post, it will be available in WMP 9 and QuickTime. According to HBO and Gamepro, the WMP9 version will be 640x480 with Dolby 5.1 sound and weigh in at about 150 Mb.
Lean, Mean, Clean Screens
Nick has put up the six new Halo 2 screenshots up in the HBO forum, at full size and without watermarks. HBO's own tireless Louis Wu notes that Shacknews did the same yesterday.