Well regardless, I think he's right. It's also a fantastic game thus far.. but you have to be pretty dedicated not to see that this thing is well overhyped. I enjoyed the campaign, and MP is about what I expected from the (many) games I played in beta.. but it's far from perfect.

Frankly, the story telling doesn't live up to the hype.. and the MP while fantastic has its own shortcomings. I'm surprised that there is no ranked BTB and downright shocked that BTB is 12 players max. I'm not even sure how you can call that "big" team battle.

We had some good times thanks to forge tonight. Phaethon knows what an awesome driver I am now. Four team rocket races FTW!

It's a solid campaign and a solid story.. but it's not the second coming. As expected MP will be the key to Halo's continued success. Already well over 500,000 people playing on XBL.

It's only 12 for a few days or so whilst Bungie's networking model works out who the good hosts are. Have to say, 6v6 has been much better than the Beta so far in terms of lag. Only really had the one bad game and that was when the Brits started logging off last night.

You'd be surprised though, there was 624,000 on last night but only 50,000 wanted to play Big-Team-Battle. Sucks but true :/

Sorta ridiculous.. the NASDAQ deal.. but then again so is the hype (even if you think it warrants it) and so is this:..and deft: while comforting.. how many days are we talking and will BTB ever get a ranked playlist back? As much as I love 4v4, I already miss it.

No idea, they didn't say. I'm sure they'll be ranked BTB, there was in the Beta. It just needs a good number of good hosts interested in that hopper for it to work effectively (insert rant about dedicated servers here..)

Shane Kim: Hey Master Chief, maybe you'd like to tell the crowd that Halo 3 will release September 25th 2007 *smiles*

Guy in Suit: Dude...it already came out. Why do you think you're even here?

Shane Kim: Wait...what? I'm going to have to confirm that.

Bill Gates: Goddammit Kim...

One of matchmakings flaws.. I had another negative experience tonight in BTB that had nothing to do with lag. Everyone but two people on the other team quit before the game started.. so we wound up having a ridiculously boring match of "big" team slayer. Since NO ONE could quit without losing XP (including the two poor saps on the other team) we had to play it out. Ouch.

And ManThatYouFear.. if you can't see it, fine by me. The fact is that there are plenty of games that rival the story content -- and developers who know how to tell their stories better.. but NOTHING can rival Halo's hype. And honestly, it has very little to do with traditional advertising.

I didn't overhype it myself but plenty of other people have (even if they don't care to admit it) -- and for the record (and despite popular belief) I love the franchise. I'm just being fair and calling it like I see it. There are other games that deserve to have the same level of coverage and exposure that won't get it.

Edge gave Halo 3 a 10/10. BELIEVE.

I only uploaded one film. If you had trouble watching it, then blame B.net and Best Buy for giving everyone free Xbox Live .

$170M... hmmm.

Anyone else notice that the # sold is absent?

Halo 2 sold 2.38M in NA on day 1 and made $120M ish which comes out to about $50/game.

Halo 3 has 3 SKUs: normal ($60), Limited Edition ($70), and Legendary ($120). Someone posted on another forum that the average price for Halo 3 was like $78. IF that is true (and reasonable considering like 500K Legendary out there), that would be 2.18M units sold.

Which would explain the absence of Halo 3 sales #, just $ sales.

http://www.n4g.com/News-70182.aspx

All that we know is that Halo 3 sold 1.8mil copies in 8hrs. That's pretty impressive considering it took Gears of War 2 months to do the same, and that was the former fastest selling Xbox 360 title.

Don't worry Pants, I wasn't insulting Halo 3 sales. :| I was making a relative comparison to its precursor, Halo 2, and putting the $170M hype into perspective as it "exceeds" Halo 2 $... but lost in the press is the #.

As for Gears of War... WW Gears of War sold 1M in 2 weeks, took about 5 weeks for 2M, at about 10 weeks Gears of War exceeded 3M, and sold 4M in about 18 weeks.

Is 2 months the US number, because WW it broke 2M in about 5 weeks and almost rung up 3M in a little over 2 calendar months.

After finishing the campaign and playing with most of the package.. I'm pretty surprised Edge gave Halo 3 a perfect score. It's a 9.5 at best imo.. but then again that's pretty arbitrary and meaningless really. What did they love so much that warranted such high praise?

The biggest fault the campaign has is in the narrative -- while the story is solid, the story telling doesn't quite reach pay off (few game developers have mastered story telling.. Bioware probably comes closest to reaching that goal) -- and in some ways I can't help feeling that bungie took the easy way out. But that's hardly my only critisism. The scale of its level design is highly overstated, as is the scope of individual encounters. And one thing I find extremely understated is just how linear the game really is.

On the other hand, much of the hype surrounding the scale of bungie's level design was generated by its fanbase and not the developers themselves. I'm still not a big fan of their use of invisible boundaries and narrow passages to stream you into the next segment of a level -- and to guide you on a very linear path.

It's still a good story though..and considering the fact that Marathon also has a very good story (pity Cortana never goes rampant.. rampancy as a theme in Marathon is terribly cool) I do appreciate what they've accomplished. It's quite a step forward when you consider Marathon had NO narrative at all.

It's still a great game.. just surprised that Edge felt it great enough to be a 10. Can't say I agree.

szaromir: Well, I would suggest that Halo's hype outweighs those other titles by quite a large spread. Have you ever seen Pikachu on the NASDAQ floor -- or so many people so ready to assume that pokemon snap was the greatest game ever prior to its release?

As for its impact on sales -- I do believe it could have been far more poorly received and still sold extremely well, even if not as well as it has.

One more thing -- I never said it was the only game ever to be overhyped.. although sometimes it does seem to me that it's one of the most overhyped games ever. That doesn't mean it's not great -- it simply means it's not the best game (or FPS even) ever.

Ok, the game is out, so What is the biggest encounter?

Not wave, but single encounter (i.e. take your local battlefield and count the # of guys... should be EASY with Theater).

Bungie was promoting more than the 1st level of Halo 1. So we should be over 100.

As for reviews... I would say review the game to the market, not the hype. ALL hyped games are OVER hyped. All. Think of hype / good games on an inverted bell curve, with the last few % getting more hype than % increase in quality :P