Xbox 360 Fanboy

An update to last month's story about HBO and their friends whose mission was to make all of Halo 2's cut scenes available to the masses in beautiful high definition. Progress moved along at a slow yet steady pace, with each week bringing a new downloadable HD cut scene and at the same time, as each video was uploaded, a piece of our soul was fulfilled. Now, after a few weeks of hard work, we're proud to announce that all of Halo 2's thirty-five cut scenes are now available for download in HD over at HBO. Grab the complete HD series and clog HBO's bandwidth pipes. Mr. Louis Wu would love us.

Since the cut-scenes that were included as part of the Halo 3 Legendary Edition didn't live up to our HD requirements (stupid limited DVD format), the fellas over at HBO and Clan Infectionist have teamed up to bring Halo 2's cut-scenes into the HD era.

Captured using Halo 2 PC, the newly HD'ified H2 cut-scenes are being made available over at HBO in both Quicktime and Windows Media flavors. Currently, only the first two H2 cut-scenes are available for download in HD, but HBO will be rolling out the entire HD H2 cut-scene library throughout March. Staggering their release in an effort stay on top of the massive amount of bandwidth needed to host these gems. Now go forth fanboys, download H2 cut-scenes minus that icky "popping effect" and in full, glorious, beautiful, HD glory.

Update 2: Microsoft has now confirmed that Halo 2 definitely headed for Platinum Hits. The shock of the confirmation nearly made us spew out our iced tea. Nearly.

After being on the market since 2004, earning an average metacritic score of 95 and selling millions upon millions of copies, Microsoft decided Halo 2 could sit among the Max Payne and Shark Tales of the world and officially become a Platinum Hit. Woohoo! Actually, we bet it was the other way around. Halo 2 finally decided it was time to lower itself to the Platinum Hits catalog and force Microsoft to quit milking its $39 retail price tag as its retail teets have become sore and gone dry (yeah, bad mental picture).

We confirmed Halo 2's Platinum Hits status after recently spotting the game's retail box art (viewable above) over on one of Microsoft's press websites. We also can't help but point out that Halo 2's Platinum Hits box is chalk full of marketing goodness including a "Plays on Xbox 360" stamp and a rather large blue inset that tells everyone that Halo 2 is the "Best Selling Xbox Game Ever". You know, just in case weren't aware. Anyway, the new Halo 2 Platinum Hits edition should be shipping to retailers sometime soon and will carry the typical Platinum Hits price of $19.99 even though we're sure you can find the game clearance priced for cheaper. But who wouldn't want a copy of Halo 2 in that iconic and oh so brag worthy silver jewel case. Right?

Spotted for pre-order over on Amazon.com by eagle eyed halo.bungie.org member Onebitrocket is a listing for a yet to be announced hardcover version of the Halo: Uprising comic books. The Marvel comic series, which bridges the story gap between Halo 2 and Halo 3, was initially slated for four separate comic books with staggered release dates throughout the year and into 2008. But never did Marvel mention plans for a collective hardcover version of the comics and at a $16 retail price, you can count us in. Hardcover Halo: Uprising FTW!

[Via HBO]