Its ready!

 

If you're still having a problem getting it to show, follow these steps. I did it and it worked for me:

You may have to clear your harddrive cache before your system will update with the new patch.

To clear the cache on the Xbox 360 do the following:

Go to the Xbox Dashboard, select the System Blade, and select Memory.
Highlight the HD symbol and press Y.
Press X, X, Left Bumper, Right Bumper, X, X.
You will see a confirmation

Now go into Crackdown, click on downloads and now HALO 3 BETA will be BLUE!!!

Game on. If you're reading this, feel free to friend request me: "The Reach"

 

i heard that from someone and did it.....still at 1%

 

wow nvm...just checked again and its on 62% but has been stuck there...guess so many ppl are trying to get it at once

 

alright now I am temped to go buy crackdown just for this ....

 

You definately should. This game is gonna be a monster. I told the better half to pick up a hobby cause she isn't going to be seeing me for a long while. And it'll be worse come September.....

My impressions? It's a great game. Visually it's a lot like Halo 2, but a bit crisper. The assault rifle is back and better than ever. No 3 shot bursts, it's fully auto. Sniper rifles are pretty much the same. Haven't had the chance to really play with any of the new weapons. The one gun where you "paint" your target is gonna have people bitching up a storm. I got lit up with it. Just a brutal weapon. The bubble shield is a neat twist too. Only played one map, but I am already hooked.

The only gripe I have is the blast radius on the grenades. It seems like unless you get it to blow up right next to or on top of the person it has little/no effect. And the brute spike grenades "seem" useless. Again, this is only from one round that I played.

Again, all in all, this is gonna be a great game.

 

I think they were refering to the actual game release date. which is set for Sept 25th, not the beta.

 

just played for an hour and im hooked. god i missed halo

 

cant wait to get home and play it tonight. i had to wait forever last night for it to d/l

 

My bro-in-law was playing it this morning before he had to head to school. Seeing it on the screen made it so damn hard for me to want to go to work.

I can't wait to start playing.

 

requested.

 

Played the beta on my bro-in-laws account yesterday. Oh man it was soooo much fun. I played two rounds on the new map "High Ground"

I still need to get used to the 360 controller. The damn right and left "bumper" buttons above the triggers owned me. Not used to clicking there but I'll get used to it.

I love the ability to reload weapons individually. that was on major complaint I had on Halo 2. Also the Land Mine is awesome, in one of my games I stuck a guy with a land mine grenade

man I can't wait to get this game!

 

This game is the only reason why I am getting a nice tv and the xb360.

 

Shouldn't you be worrying about how you're going to be paying for college first.

 

Man, I'll never get to play Halo 3.

 

It's ok, you'd probably just get anyway.





When I first started playing Halo it was on a dinky little 25" TV. Amazing how spoiled we get when now I play it on a 65" and refuse to play it on any TV that's smaller.

 

^ exactly. i played halo 1 on a 19" and a 25" tv. now it has to be on an LCD or plasma...haha. amazing how times change in 6 years.

 

I enjoyed the Beta but I returned teh gaem due to the problems I was having with mine. It was fun while I played it but I would just wait to play it in September when teh full version comes out.

 

time to save up some money for xbox360 and halo 3.

 

yeah the beta is fun, but it's quirky. i've been getting disconnected, having choppy game play and i know its not my internet connection.

 

you play halo?

 

you got a problem with me playing Halo bud?

 

Tony aka S14 is just hating since he's still on PS1....

Toshinden FTW !!

 

Sly, you've played Beta. Let me ask you: Is it possible for them to add the dashing feature anywhere? Do you feel that the speed of the game is suffering since people are know aware of the dash feature from GOW? Also, I remember people were clamoring about the "mystery Y" button. What was the result of that? Sorry but I haven't had the chance to play the beta therefore I have no idea what the controller layout will be like.

 

I don't see why they couldn't add the dash feature. Honestly, when I played the map "Valhala" the map is so large that half the time I'd get sniped and down before I could get half way across the map. It really sucked. That's one of the reasons why I think the dash/run feature would come in handy.

as for the speed of the game with a dash feature, i dont' think it'd suffer. if anything I think it would make it much much much more challenging because you could spawn and run into battle faster making it harder for the opponents.

As for button layout, since I haven't played on the 360 much, it was hard for me to adjust to the 360 controller. That's one of the reasons why I was getting beat so much in the beta. The bumper buttons above the triggers were owning me. I kept forgetting they were there. I do have to say this though, now that you can reload dual weopons individually, it's going to be much better. I always use the "Green Thumb" button layout because I use the melee feature A LOT.

 

Thanks for the impression Sly.

I was under the impression that the bumper buttons would be for flash light & switch between convenant and human gernades. That's how they have it laid out if you were to play Halo 1 & 2 on 360. I totally agree with you on the dash button. It would just be stupid that Chief still has to jump to gain distance on enemies in the single player campaign when things get rough. Man, I honestly can not wait till this monster drops and completely own the gaming community. When 2 was released, I was there the midnight before.

Where are you picking up your copy at? I got mine pre-ordered at the Gamestop in the Montclair mall. to drag my gf with me to the release this time around

 

There is a button used to switch the type of grenade (there are 3 types in the new version, plasma, regular, and land mine) although I don't remember what button is used to switch grenade type.

I preordered a copy for myself and my bro-in-law at the gamestop in La Cresenta near my work. I should have preordered near my home because I will probably be taking that day off of work for the hell of it. I remember when Halo 2 came out, they opened their doors at midnight so people can pick up their copies, and they had a radio station there, and hundreds of people lined up to get their copy. it was nuts.

 

I felt a bit nerdy, but at the same time, I was drooling for the door to open. My co-worker's bro just got a job as a manager at Gamestop. Hopefully, I can get a hook up to get it sooner. Then again, I kind of enjoy the whole "Waiting for the release date" thing days leading up to the release....

 

Came across this while posting on IGN. Will this be the helmet that comes with the Legendary Edition of the 360 game? It looks too good to be true...



http://cgi.ebay.com/Halo-3-Brand-New...QQcmdZViewItem

 

^^^^

the helmet coming with the legendary version I believe is much smaller.

 

That's what I thought too, but as of right now, there has been no official word from Bungie nor M$ as to how big it's going to be. I'm guessing it's bigger than the supposedly "enough to fit a cat's head" since it should to be able to have the stand and games in it for packaging reasons.

 

^^^ Let's hope so, it'd be awesome to own a helmet to display that was that size.

I wonder if anyone has made a paintball helmet like this

 

new campaign gameplay footage is up on Live. wow. i'm ready for this game!!

 

link anyone? I'd love to check this out!

 

Over 1 Million Pre-Order copies confirmed (Wall Street Journal)

http://online.wsj.com/public/article...f_main_tff_top

For years, movie studios have linked up with well-known consumer brands to help create marketing that promotes food, retail and other products alongside blockbuster films such as "Transformers" or "Shrek the Third."

But the next big entertainment property to get the Hollywood-style cross-merchandising treatment isn't a movie -- it's a Microsoft Corp. videogame called Halo 3.

Due on store shelves Sept. 25, Halo 3 is the follow-up to an enormously successful game franchise. The Halo series follows the exploits of a genetically altered super solider called Master Chief as he battles an alien race called the Covenant. The new game is widely expected to be one of the year's biggest sellers and an important part of its corporate parent's play for the living room. Halo 3 will only be available on one console: Microsoft's Xbox 360. Already gamers have pre-ordered more than one million copies, according to Microsoft.

WSJ's Nick Wingfield previews graphics and advertising for Halo 3, a new videogame from Microsoft that's garnered high sales expectations.

Microsoft's marketing plans for Halo 3 also reflect broader aspirations. Many companies that work in the game industry want their products to be seen as cultural and commercial equals to movies and other forms of entertainment, rather than as a niche business. The Redmond, Wash., company and its partners will plaster the Halo 3 name and characters across cans of pop, wrappers for french fries and more. The game will also be featured in multimillion-dollar TV ad campaigns from General Motors Corp.'s Pontiac and PepsiCo Inc., along with commercials by Microsoft itself.

"Our competition isn't other videogames," says Chris Di Cesare, director of creative marketing at Microsoft. "We put it on the plane with other entertainment launches, versus other game launches."

Filmed entertainment, which includes box office and DVD sales, took in $81.2 billion in revenue last year, dwarfing the haul for game sales, which grossed $31.6 billion in revenue last year. But game sales grew 14.3% in 2006 from the previous year, compared with 2.9% for movies, according to estimates by PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. Generally, far more people attend movies than purchase typical games, but games cost between $50 and $60, far more than movie ticket prices.

Halo is one of a handful of games that seemed to strike a broader pop-culture nerve. Microsoft says it has sold a combined 14.8 million copies of the first and second installments of Halo since the original game's release in 2001. That suggests sales of around $600 million for both, putting the haul of each game slightly ahead of the domestic box office sales of movies like "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" and "X-Men: The Last Stand."

New Halo 3 themed packaging that will be offered at Burger King
Consumer brands began to take more notice of the Halo franchise after Microsoft announced that Halo 2 brought in $125 million in retail sales the first day it went on sale nearly three years ago. "Just seeing that number eclipse a huge theatrical release's box office was telling for us," says Brian Gies, vice president of marketing impact at Burger King Holdings Inc.

For several weeks starting in late September, Burger King will offer customers who purchase "king-sized" meals in its fast food stores Halo 3-themed wrappers around food, including a 42-ounce soda cup and french fry container. "We like to tap into events where there is a great deal of curiosity and anticipation involved," says Mr. Gies, who believes that Halo 3 fits the bill. Burger King has begun to do more marketing partnerships with game companies, including a deal with game publisher Electronic Arts Inc. that involved in-store promotions for a boxing game called Fight Night.

One issue for Burger King: its marketing partnerships with Hollywood studios typically involve movies that are more family-friendly than Halo 3. For example, the chain is currently running a promotion related to the PG-13 rated "Simpsons" movie. Halo 3, which features plenty of soldiers shooting aliens, is a "mature-rated" game because of violence, roughly equivalent to an R rating for a film. At the same time that the Halo campaign will run in its stores, Mr. Gies says Burger King will feature an unrelated kids meal marketing program. He says there's no barrier in place to prevent the children coming in for that program from buying the Halo 3 themed meals.

For Pepsi, the hype around Halo 3 inspired it to do something more dramatic: create an entirely new soda with the game's brand and characters on the packaging. The result is Mountain Dew Game Fuel, which adds the taste of cherry to the original Mountain Dew's citrus flavor, along with 30% more caffeine. Frank Cooper, vice president of marketing for Mountain Dew, said the soda will be available for a limited period of 12 weeks starting in mid-August, in an effort to create a sense of scarcity for the product tied to the Halo 3 launch.

Mr. Cooper says Mountain Dew is already popular among gamers and the new drink is a way to deepen that connection.

Also part of the Halo 3 marketing blitz are Halo 3 branded Slurpee cups in 7-Eleven stores. General Motors' Pontiac will host several events in cities around the country that will allow gamers to play Halo 3 prior to the game's launch. The auto maker will also feature Halo 3 in commercials for its new G6 GXP Street, a car aimed at 18- to 34-year-old men.

Games are "becoming a more and more prevalent part of entertainment," says Craig Bierley, marketing director at Pontiac. "The target audience really fits our target audience very, very well."

Michael Pachter, a game industry analyst at Wedbush Morgan Securities, says Microsoft, like movie studios, is eager to see Halo 3 open big because its sales could be highly concentrated in its first weeks on store shelves. "There's a lot riding on its launch date," Mr. Pachter says.

Microsoft is betting Halo 3 will provide a lift this holiday season for the Xbox 360, the game console it introduced two years ago. The first two Halos, created by a team of game makers at Microsoft's Bungie Studios in Kirkland, Wash., were key to getting consumers to buy the original Xbox. This is the first time a version of Halo will be designed for the Xbox 360, with its more powerful graphics and online capabilities.

Microsoft could use a good holiday season for its games business. The company recently took a more than $1 billion charge to cover costs related to defective Xbox 360s. The company said their customers experienced an "unacceptable" number of repairs on Xbox 360s, so it extended the warranty on the product to three years from one in the U.S. It says it has addressed the technical problems in the game system.

Microsoft says it has shipped more than 11.6 million Xbox 360s, but rival Nintendo Co. is gaining quickly on it with its Wii console.

The Halo franchise still is also a ways off from reaching the silver screen. Two years ago, Microsoft struck a deal with Universal Pictures and Twentieth Century Fox to create a film based on the game, but the project is now on hold due to disagreements over the financing of the project. Microsoft says it still hopes a Halo movie will happen one day.




lol

 

eww 42 ounces?

 

http://www.gamestop.com/product.asp?product%5Fid=802720

I'm tempted to pick one up for the hell of it.

 

^^ Suite

 

They already changed the pic. looks like the one i showed before must have been a prototype

 

http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/14371/Halo-3-Goes-Gold/

Halo 3 has gone gold!