Major Nelson once again informs us that Halo 2 is the most played game on Xbox Live, even beating out 360 shooters like GR:AW, Perfect Dark, and Call Of Duty.
Bungie Weekly Update this week focuses on the nearly-in-our-hands graphic novel, as the first books roll off the press.
Theres also a Wallpaper contest going with forum members making their own Hi-Res desktop pictures.
Single Play and Multiplayer tests and Bungie continue, and they Frankie reports that they have a new user interface that fixes many of the problems with Halo 2. Which is dandy, because “Quick Options” didn’t have enough options, and control and headset settings were buried too far into menus to make them useful to make a quick adjustment in game without getting shot at least 3 times.
In other news, my Xbox Live account renewed today. My gamer tag is “FakeTrout” and I will be up for Team Swat tonight.

First things first, Halo 3: Behind the Scenes is up. Its a 7 minute video documenting the process of creating the Halo 3 announcement trailer for E3, as well showing off the trailer in real time from multiple angles. The also confirm speculation that it is a Forerunner structure underneath the New Mombassa, and even acknowledge the frustrations of Halo 2 players when they reached the ending.IGN tries to go Beyond the Trailer buts ends up with little more than speculation and some editors on the verge of geeking out.
What is impressive: Halo 2 has reached Half a Billion Games Played on Xbox Live. Thats roughly 600 games a minute since the release in November 2004. Halo 2 on Vista will not however, use the Live Anywhere service or make matches with Xbox players. Surprised? Don’t be, that was a long shot.
Finally, theres a Halo Graphic Novel Sneak Peek with a few more pieces of artwork. The full book is slated for release July 12.

First up, Halo: Combat Evolved is being re-issued again. Pictured is the Euro “Best Of Classics” that makes our “Best Of Platnium Hits” packaging look conservative by comparison. Ugly.

Frank O’Connor has done us the favor of printing the best protest emails from cheaters who were banned in The Bungie Waaahmbulance. And for those who don’t know how cheating works, GamesFirst has a rundown of Halo 2 Cheating.

Bungie updates several times this week. New in store is the Halo 3 Shirt, and theres also some words from Burnie from Red VS Blue.

Finally, the weekly update announced the end of Clan match, some Halo 2 Vista plans, and next to no info on Halo 3. But we do get a new Mister Chief sketch.

I think we raised the bar too high with that NoBrandCon video so we gotta ruin it by doing something stupid like this.

Yeah, looks like I might be back to talking about Halo all the time again.
Item 1: Seen this? Yeah, I know that its fake and you know its fake, but fankids everywhere had a good ol’ time the past few days claiming it was a real leaked photo of the Halo 3 menu screen. So don’t bother sending that link around because it won’t earn you friends.
Item 2: More Graphic Novel Goodness! USA Today published an article today (in the USA) about that forthcoming comic companion to everyone’s favorite xbox launch title. Bungie was kind enough to offer a link to said article, and also published questions and quotes that got editied out of the printed version. Oh yeah, they also uploaded some rather good art. The comic promises to show how Johnson (pictured) survived the Flood of Halo 1, because he wasn’t on the boat with Chief and Cortana at the ending.

Our friend Sparkstalker has been suspicious of the PS3 box since it was revealed a year ago, pointing out the lack of fans, and the power supply being housed in box. I’ll let his words take over:

Looking at this image again. I’ve got to wonder how “final” this really is. It still has a 120V input. Which means all power conversion would still have to happen inside the unit. Which would double the amount of heat that the PS3 will have to dissipate. And while they’ve increased the size and added vents, to me, it still doesn’t look like enough to dissipate the heat that will be generated by the system and power supply. We’ve seen the issues with the 360, and that’s with “loud fans” and a “monsterous” power brick…

It just doesn’t add up.

Also thanks to him for pointing out how many of those inputs disappeared in the last 12 months.

Incidentally, Sony pitchman Phil Harrison (who’s mere image frightens me, to be honest) is saying they’d been developing the tilt control since 1994. Nice try.  We all know where you ripped the Dual Shake off of.
File under “in case you missed this…”

DDR hits the TV screen and the Mobile phone.

Nokia NGage still kicking, despite all efforts to ignore it.

Frankie at Bungie deflects fanboy reactions to the Halo 3 trailer.

Superman Returns… please don’t let it be teh suck.

Close up look at Will Wright’s Spore.

Super Mario Galaxy Boss Battle.

And surprisingly, Hideo Kojima would like to ditch Metal Gear Solid 4 production to work on Wii. I mean, it doesn’t surprise me he wants to develop for Wii, just surprises me he’d consider ditching the PS3 only real killer-app to do it.
And now the doors to the biggest video game show of the year officially closed, its time to declare a winner. Tell us what looked best, what looked worst, what confused you, what was most unexpected, etc. Register and post your thoughts to our forums.

The Nintendo press conference has already gone down, the Microsoft one is still coming. Want some of the important points of an already insanely busy day?

Nintendo Wii still doesn’t have a release date (they say “Q4”) or a price (everyone implies $249), but it does have a launch list including Zelda Twilight Princess, which will be released on both GameCube and Wii on the same day. Other announced Wii titles: Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, New Fire Emblem, Rayman, Sonic Wildfire, and Super Mario Galaxy!

And anyone worried that the WiiMote won’t be any good for playing older games on the virtual console need only look at the attahed image.

Lots more info after the jump!
[Read the rest of this entry…]

While its future in games and movies is still in limbo with no official announcements, Marvel has disclosed some news about the Halo Graphic Novel.

A 16-page, full-color Halo Preview comic will arrive in stores May 31st available for only $.99. A full color Halo poster showcasing the Phil Hale cover of the graphic novel will be in stores 6/28.

Nice!
The 128 page hardcover book will hit comic shops on July 12, 2006.
In other news, Halo 2 matchmaking has been updated.