(26/9/2007): News is flooding in that over-hyped XBOX 360 shooter Halo 3 is on course to make a killing, with a reported £86 million in pre-orders taken so far, beating even the latest Harry Potter Book, which took £83 million, and Spidy 3 which took £76 million.  Phew!  The games industry is surely looking to rival Hollywood these days.

The long-awaited sci-fi action game is the final part of developer Bungie’s acclaimed series and is the flagship title for the XBOX 360, promising to boost sales of the console world-wide.

UPDATE (27/09/2007):  Well firstly let me say, that I am overwhelmed by the effort Microsoft has put into making this all special and shiny.  Apart from celeb-filled launches here and in the U.S. , a Halo 3 themed 360, a blooming god-ugly Masterchief helmit as part of the ‘legendary edition’, Halo themed control pads, a fat metal case ‘limited edition’ which I have purchased, and also the bog-standard ‘standard edition’ with the ugliest cover art I have ever seen.  Begs the question, was this done on purpose, so to push punters towards the other releases?

All I keep thinking to myself is “it’s just a bloody game, for christ’s sake!!” – oh well, onto actually playing the damn thing…

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

Glossy, glossy, glossy – the production values of this game clearly out-weigh Halo 1 & 2 combined, and anyone who dares say this is just Halo 2 in HD is clearly missing something.  Ok, its not streets ahead – but it looks as good as it needs to while maintaining the Halo look.  Controls are as easy to get to grips with as ever, and vehicle handling is class as always – especially fun (so far) in multiplayer, where riding passenger whilst another human player drives is pure gaming bliss.  More soon.

 UPDATE: (14/10/2007):  Well am about three quaters way through the Campaign, and although I think this is fairly polished graphically and has absorbed me, it is also high in difficulty, where I even seem to run out of bullets – the odds increasingly stacked against me.  I am playing it on HEROIC as I heard that the standard difficulty was too easy – but put it this way, it took me about thirty attempts to get past a section near the beginning of the game!  This sort of stuff I expect towards the end!

Other than that I am finding the multiplayer very enjoyable – especially the way the matchmaking pits you against players of similar skill level.  I prefer Team Slayer so I get a chance at least to get some kills in, although I’m not too shabby at Lone Wolf.  As far as the maps go, I prefer the more closed in ones, as aposed to sniper-friendly wide open areas.  Then again, I have been known to get some good head shots in, and can achieve double-kills and killing sprees when in the zone.

So once again it seems Halo is best in multiplayer 😦 but the campaign is long enough and challenging enough (and pretty enough) to warrant my attention – until I get my hands on The Orange Box that is (see below).