On August 8, 2002 Bungie broke the vow of silence and officially announced to the world that we were indeed working on a sequel to Halo. Then in September of last year, the Halo 2 announce trailer (if you haven't seen it yet, stop what you're doing and get up to speed!) was released giving the first glimpse of Master Chief as he embarked on his most critical mission yet - protect Earth from the Covenant threat.

One thing that may not be apparent to anyone not able to see the demo live is the fact that it isn't just a movie. Well, it is now, but originally it wasn't. Unlike the Halo 2 announcement trailer, which consisted of pure in-game rendered cinematics, this latest release is an actual demo. A real-life Bungie guy was actually playing through the game live. Everything from the original live demo has been captured in this handy dandy video version. Why does this matter? Well, it just means that what you're seeing is bona fide 100% gameplay. As Sarge says, there's no "smoke and mirrors bulls#*t" here.