Bungie.net will be having a server upgrade/move in a couple hours, and we'll be temporarily turning off sign-ins during this process, which will probably last a half hour on our side, plus whatever additional time it takes for our DNS change to replicate to your part of the Internet.

During the transition, you won't be able to:
- Sign in
- Edit your profile (of course)
- Access your private Groups
- Post to the forums
- Use the Game Viewer
- See newly-played Halo 2 games (they'll show up later)

Also, the game-viewer and other detailed Halo 2 stats (the stats that last for 2 weeks) will *temporarily* disappear for somewhere between a few hours and a day, before reappearing.

Enjoy the brief period of blissful silence :-)

Edit: If you're seeing this, you're on the new servers. Just a little longer before we turn the forums back on and get your halo 2 games displayed.

Cody Miller is reporting over at High Speed Halo that they have finally whittled down the overall time of their Halo 2 speedruns to under two hours. Congrats to Jeff Cousin for getting the run that finally pushed them under the 2 hour mark.

You can find the announcement on HBO in this thread. Very cool stuff, guys.

We've got little to no information on what this is, or who made it, but it's a YTMND with a Pimps at Sea theme. And it's mad wiggedy-wack yo. The lyrics contain adult language. You have been warned.

You can listen to it HERE and Bungie takes no responsibility for white guys rapping about pimps and pirates.

Open call for Southeastern Wisconsin residents who would like to participate in a Halo 2 tournament for charity!

Game Crazy
459 West Johnson Street
Fond du Lac, Wisconsin 54935
920.922.5379        

August 1st, 2006  

Game Crazy in partnership with Hollywood Video and Movie Gallery are pleased to announce Halo for Hunger IV.  Halo for Hunger is a Halo 2 tournament in which participants enter by either bringing 5 cans of nonperishable food items or $5.00.  All food items collected are donated to the Salvation Army of Wisconsin and all monetary funds raised go to the Starlight Children’s Foundation (www.starlight.org), which helps bring entertainment centers into local children’s hospitals.  This event is held twice per year in Fond du Lac.  This event is open to all residents of Wisconsin and is not limited to the city of Fond du Lac.  

Halo for Hunger IV will take place on August 12th, 2006 at the Fond du Lac National Guard Armory located at 796 Sullivan Drive (920.929.3976).  Registration begins promptly at 11:00AM and the first match will take place at 12:00PM.  Parents, friends and spectators are welcome to attend with no admission fee.  

Along with the tournament itself, the National Guard will be doing several different demonstrations, which have previously included weapons, demonstrations, explosive demonstrations and vehicle demonstrations.  Refreshments and concessions will be available for purchase at the event courtesy of Hollywood Video of Fond du Lac.   

Partners of Game Crazy that have generously supported our cause by providing prizes for the event include:  

Hollywood Video                             
Microsoft Games Studios
Roosterteeth Productions             
Sony Online Entertainment
Microsoft Xbox 360                         
2K Games
Konami                                             
Namco
Ubisoft                                              
Nintendo of America Atari                                                   
Sony Playstation Portable Capcom                                            
Electronic Arts  

Inquiries concerning Halo for Hunger IV can be directed to the Store Director at 920.922.5379.  Directions to the event can be obtained by contacting Game Crazy Fond du Lac, also at 920.922.5379 or by using www.mapquest.com.

This Saturday in Chicago, not only will you have a chance to go to a fantastic concert, but you'll also be able to meet the men responsible for the music you love. This will be your last chance to catch Marty O'Donnell and Mike Salvatori at one of these concerts for a while, so make sure to seize the opportunity.

If you really want to read the press release, as I'm sure so many of you do, head over to HBO and grab it.

The guys over at Penny Arcade have announced that they're extending the PAX preregistration period three days until August 3rd at 6:30pm. The Omeganauts should be announced today and they plan to unveil this year's Omegacollection later this week.

In order to preregister, hit their registration page and follow the instructions.

There are several reasons that PAX will be worth going to for you, specifically, the Bungie fan. Frankie will be participating in a panel at some point in time, the RvB crew will be on hand for a Q&A and due to its proximity to us, there will be plenty of Bungie employees patrolling the floor like everyone else.

PAX is going to be good times and in light of the recent news that E3 will be downsizing it may even be your best opportunity to see new games and meet developers. Hope to see you there!

HBO is running an awesome contest open to everyone in the Bungie community. Design a Halo-themed faceplate for the Xbox 360 and you could win one of the recently announced Halo faceplates before you can buy them.

All of the official rules and full details are available over at HBO. You can even get the Photoshop files that'll help get you on your way to creating a faceplate of your own.

Upon further analysis, this is not part of their 7th on the 7th series of contests, sorry for the initial confusion.

This is not a Bungie Studios contest. Do not contact us for support with regards to this contest.

It's Podtacular's birthday party and you're invited! The Unofficial Halo Universe Podcast is celebrating with a special episode. And we might get a huge birthday present: Podtacular is a finalist in the podcastawards.com best gaming show category. Why not go vote for us? Here's your chance to help a Halo community win best gaming podcast!

Podtacular has been throwing some wild online shindigs with big in-game parties, special video tributes at podtacular.com, lots of forum talk, and all-around good times. As if the chance for Halo to come out on top in podcasting wasn't enough, we'll also be interviewing Matt from Red vs. Blue on August 9th. Matt agreed to open up questions to the community, so you can get your questions about Red vs. Blue answered on the show! Just post here with your questions and if they're good, we'll pass them along.

Happy birthday, Podtacular!

KPaul writes:

Today Bungie is pleased to announce the first Halo faceplate for your Xbox 360. The faceplate will be available sometime around October and features the Master Chief in a classic pose set to a blue backdrop decorated with Forerunner geometry. Read on for a full-sized picture.

What you see below is but a thumbnail, click the image to get the full 900x300 version. Then lick the screen, you know you want to anyways.

Last week, Frankie spoke with MTV about the dirty business of keeping secrets in his position. Frankie talks about what it's like to be Bungie's first line of defense against the information-starved reporters and fans as well as some close calls in the past.

Go read.

Xbox Live Evolved, the fan-made site with a dedicated team willing to help you and your Clan, is starting its first Halo 2 League - Autumn 2006 - on the 13th of August.

You might remember Xbox Live Evolved as the site which is there to help you and your Clan get some matches going on, get a website or some forums.

Well, Xbox Live Evolved are starting up their Halo 2 Leagues for both single players and Clans. Set to start the evening of the 13th August, the Leagues will take place every week for 11 weeks, after which there will be a 2 week break before the Winter '06 Leagues begin.

The Rumble Pit League is expected to be the most popular League, with matches consisting of up to 12 people duking it out together in a range of gametypes, including:

Slayer
Slayer BR
Slayer Covenant
Snipers
Oddball
Multi Ball
Crazy King
Apocalypse (Juggernaut gametype)

On the other side, there are 4v4 Leagues as well - we are expected to see a few rivalries develop between teams as the weeks go by and the Leagues develop. Just make sure that all you team members attend, or you're most likely going to get owned in gametypes such as these:

Team Slayer
Team Slayer BR
Team Slayer Covenant
Team Snipers
Minimum Slayer
Team Ball
Low Ball
1 Flag CTF
Multi Flag CTF
Assault
Multi Bomb
Neutral Flag
Neutral Bomb
3 Plots
Land Grab

There is still plenty of time to register for the Leagues, which can be done either by the Xbox Live Evolved Forums or by the Halo 2 Leagues page on the Xbox Live Evolved website (currently under construction, so it might look empty!)

The Leagues also undergo constant editing by request of the players - adding new gametypes, removing others, defining rules, etc. - so if there is some part of the Leagues that you don't like, don't live with it - try and change it! Also, make sure to keep in touch, so you don't come back to a huge barrage of unexpected changes.

The first league match to be played will be the Rumble Pit League 1A match, taking place at 10pm CDT on the 13th August - hopefully you'll be playing!

Louis Wu has put up the results of HBO's most recent 7 on the 7th contest and the winners cut and/or painted some pretty cool designs in their lawns. You can see the winners and all of the entries on this page. Congrats to the winners!

Condolences to those who used weed killer on their grass and still didn't win.

The Bungie crew is currently at the San Diego Comic-Con along with a variety of artists and writers who worked on the Halo Graphic Novel. There are a number of book signings happening as well as the Halo Panel this evening. Read on for a recap of all the activities!

The HGN is out and if you've come to Bungie.net to read this, I can only assume you call yourself a Halo fan, which in turn means you have no doubt already picked up a copy of our latest forray into the fictional world of Halo.  And if you haven't... stop reading and go buy one now. Heck buy a few. While the MSRP is $24.99 (a very fair price for this hard cover deluxe book), many online retailers are selling it for quite a bit less.

The biggest score might be found over at Red vs. Blue. Our friends there got ahold of a shipment and are letting them all go for COST. Now that's pretty darn cool. They were selling them on the show floor but sold out before lunch yesterday. They've got all sorts of cool stuff going on at the Con so be sure to stop by their booth and say hello.

People who are already in San Diego looking for a copy of the book should head over to the Diamond booth where they still have some copies available for sale (but they seem to be going quickly).

Since the show is in fact so crazy, here's a quick recap of the scheduled events:

Friday HGN Signing Schedule
11:00 - 12:00 @ Marvel Booth (#4315)
1:00 - 2:00 @ Diamond Booth (#2401)
3:00 - 4:00 @ Marvel Booth
Halo Panel
5:00 - 6:00 in Room 6A Come talk with a variety of artists and writers along with several Bungie folks. As a special bonus, Frankie is on hand to give out some free t-shirts.

Saturday HGN Signing Schedule
11:00 - 12:00 @ Diamond Booth
3:30 - 4:30 @ Marvel Booth
3:00 - 4:00 @ JoyRIde Booth

Saturday night is the huge Cosplay Masquerade spectacular. We're hoping to see some great Halo costumes this year! Frankie will be on hand to judge and award prizes to hardcore Halo fans.

Sunday HGN Signing Schedule
11:00 - 12:00 @ JoyRide Booth

The participants for each signing will likely vary but a bunch of the guys are in town and offered to help including Moebius, Phil Hale, Brett Lewis, Lee Hammock, Doug Alexander, Justin Sweet, Kent Williams and more....

Also another reminder, be sure to stop by the JoyRide booth for a chance to pickup a limited edition HGN ODST figure inspired by the "Armor Testing" story. This is your only chance to grab this special unique figure.

Hopefully we'll see some of you later today and this weekend. Frankie and I ran into a few Bungie.net and HBO members yesterday and we'll be on the lookout for more of the Halo Community as we meander through the jam packed aisles.  I challenge our readers to hunt down the elusive Frankie if you can... but beware of cosplay Frankie imposters.

There've been a lot of rumours flying around this past week that we've somehow rolled out a stealth auto update. These silly netizens allege that we added a tree with coconuts on Ivory Tower. Also, rumour has it that we have or plan to reset the ranks. Allow me to address these rumours with a flat-out denial.

Rolling out an auto update isn't something that we can do secretly, nor is it something that we'd do just to add a coconut tree on Ivory Tower.

We don't have any plans to reset the stats at this time.

Remember folks, the guy on those forums on that site who totally knows this dude works for Bungie is actually just a dirty liar who needs to find a better way to enjoy his summer vacation. Unless it comes straight from Bungie, it's not true.

The fine, upstanding folks over at IGN have taken a look at the Halo Graphic Novel and have deemed it a "Must read." The reviewer gives a fair and thorough analysis of each story in the novel and arrives at the only rational conclusion. This is clearly the first salvo of many rave reviews to come for the HGN.

He (Hilary Goldstein) does a good job of being vague, but there are some incredibly minor spoilers included.

What are you waiting for? Go buy 7 copies.