Foreword

I can remember standing in line until the early hours of the morning. People were driving by us, trying to comprehend why this enormous group of people was standing outside in the freezing cold on this November night. The store owner had set up a barbeque, grilling hot dogs, and people were milling about talking about what was on everyone's mind. For the moment, total strangers acted like they were best of friends. There were hundreds of people, and a massive cheer went up at the stroke of midnight. Halo 2 had gone on sale.

You can tell a lot about the Halo series and its creator, Bungie, by the devotion of its fans. In the enormous Halo 2 customer base, there is a special breed of fan. These are the people that explore beyond the normal boundaries of gameplay they make it their mission to find every glitch, secret, Easter egg, and more.

The placement of Easter eggs is a long-standing tradition with Bungie. From artist initials on the bottom of the Master Chief boot to a birthday disguised as an ID number on the front of the Scorpion tank, eggs are there for all to see, but only the most observant will notice them. Finding them can be fun; a hint dropped by a Bungie employee soon after Halo shipped suggested that hippos would be found somewhere in the game the hunt itself took two and a half months, and involved a lot of people and a lot of dead ends, but the final discovery brought about an online celebration the fans were happy, Bungie was happy, the community became more tightly knit. And once documented, eggs continue to bring that little thrill of discovery to newcomers who read about them and then go hunting themselves the eggs are like tiny glimpses into the minds of the game creators.