Bungie takes Halo 2 gamers out of their collective misery

Quite likely, you've already logged some serious time on Bungie's Halo 2. Any game so eagerly awaited and receiving this much Xbox time is bound to prompt a few questions...or perhaps a few thousand.

The game's developer, Bungie, recently published its first half-serious, half-tongue-in-cheek Bungie Weekly What's Update to help answer fans' frequent questions from the Bungie message boards.

We recap thusly:

Three main questions have plagued gamers' heads in this first week of fragging, so Bungie does its best to answer them.

Bungie responds to problems with some HUDs (heads-up displays) being cut off on 480p televisions by saying, "The good news is that the test team is working on a potential fix for this problem, and we hope to have more information very soon. You can help us out by sharing your specs for your television in the post pinned in New Mombasa forum, since it seems to be better and worse on different sets. We understand the problem has caused lots of irritation and frustration, and we don't take that lightly."

Bungie also answers the problem of long waiting times for matchmaking games by stating, "It really is a consequence of there being so many damn people on Live. This one we think we have figured out, and we should be able to fix it soon. We are optimistic the process can be made a LOT faster."

The last of the big three questions details fixing the "Failed to Load Map" errors commonly encountered in multiplayer party games. "This issue occurs when your Xbox fails to load a multiplayer map. In most cases, if you reset your box, the map will load properly next time," reads the statement. "And just so you know, we deliberately placed all the maps in an easy-to-access part of the DVD to try to allay that problem before it ever occurred."

Several other issues are addressed, including problems with audio, boarding tips, and even Bungie content editor Frank O'Conner's cause of baldness. For the entire story, visit the current Weekly What's Update.

Bungie's Update goes live every Friday.