Re: Post from two years ago. I figured it'd be nice for everyone. [url=http://www.bungie.net/News/content.aspx?type=topnews&cid=25650]Bungie News: One Final Effort[/url] [url=http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/better-than-halo-the-making-of-halo-2-article]Halo 2[/url] Since the official press release and the rumors escalating to that point of Halo 2's ultimate demise from X Box Live (April 15th 2010), I was doing some Halo searching over the internet and here's some nice stuff that I pulled up. -The first official release of Halo 2 was in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United States on November 9, 2004. Anticipation for the game was high; three weeks before this release, a record 1.5 million copies had already been pre-ordered. Massive lines formed at midnight releases of the game; the event garnered significant media attention. -The game sold 2.4 million copies and earned up to US$125 million in its first 24 hours on store shelves, thus out-grossing the film Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest as the highest grossing release in entertainment history. -Halo 2 is the best-selling first-generation Xbox game with 8.46 million copies sold by November 2008. -"The Province's Paul Chapman listed the game as one of the most important of the decade, writing that games like Modern Warfare 2 would not be as enjoyable to play if not for the ground Halo 2 broke." -"From the day of its initial release and up until mid-November 2006, Halo 2 was the most popular video game on Xbox Live, even after the release of the Xbox 360; its position was eventually surpassed in 2006 by the 360-exclusive Gears of War. Halo and Halo 2 are still some of the most played games for the Xbox console." -Television channel G4 listed the release of Halo 2 as one of the game industry's biggest turning points during the 2000s, and helping to define how gamers played for years to come. -"Bungie's sequel was a shot in the arm for Xbox Live subscriptions and previewed many of the features that would set the standard for Microsoft's online service on the next machine," author Sterling McGarvey wrote. -The editors of Popular Mechanics listed Halo 2 as one of the top fifteen events of the decade, crediting the game's multiplayer with bringing online multiplayer to the console masses. [My Opinion?] I think the world of gaming changed when Halo 2 was boldly released. It used to be as one of our fellow halo gamers put it, "Hey let's go to John's house and play card, now it's "Hey let's go to John's house to play Halo." This is why Halo is the game to play. All these other games nowadays wouldn't be the games they are now if not for Halo.