Just got one of the new Halo 3 Figures by McFarlane Toys. Up first? Cortana.

Cortana Figure
All McFarlane Halo 3 Figures

Ooooh, this guy is a beauty! 12″ Of Master Chief Glory. I’ll let the pictures do the talking.

I’ve got a video of the unboxing which I’ll get up in a little bit. I need to find a decent MPEG4 Editor first.
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I snagged 2 packs of the Halo ActionClix while at Gamestop tonight preordering the ArtFX Halo 3 Masterchief Statue.

They are pretty decent looking little figures, it just sucks you can’t pick what you get with a pack, only the figure at the top is viewable. The funny thing is, the 3 other figures are under like 4 layers of black plastic. There’s NO way you are going to find out what is in a pack.

The full set can be found on my Flickr page.

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My god…I thought I’ve seen everything. But…well yeah. Now I have.

Just noticed that XBoxic is showing off a great video of Halo 3’s campaign.  And god damn does it look gorgeous.  The lighting is especially done well, and the sheer amount of colors makes the game simply beautiful.

Xboxic » Halo 3 campaign video presentation; game already Gold?

I posted the results of my “taste test” a month ago here. Now you can check out the pretty sweet ad regarding the product I’d recommend not consuming through your mouth.

Microsoft is setting its sites high for Halo 3, shooting to have a $155 million dollar debut of the game. To put some perspective on it, Halo 2 launched with over 2 million copies sold in 24 hours for around $125 million.
While one would think the 155 Million dollar number might be a little high, especially considering the 360 install base is about half of what the original Xbox was when Halo 2 launched, there’s a few things to consider.

1) The majority of Xbox 360 owners right now are the hardcore gamer, and are typically the gamer that will buy Halo 3.

2) The base price of Halo 3 is $10 higher than Halo 2 was.

3) There are a $69.99 version and a $129.99 version of the game. All signs right now point to some incredible sales numbers for the $129.99 version, known as the Legendary Edition.

When you add up some of these things, you can see Microsoft doesn’t even need to sell close to 2 million copies and easily achieve the $155 million dollar mark. Microsoft is already guaranteed AT LEAST 60 Million Dollars in sales from pre-orders alone. And that would be if and only if they preordered the original version.

So will Microsoft hit the $155 million dollar target? My guess is they break $160 million.
Variety.com - High ‘Halo 3′ hopes

technorati tags:halo3, microsoft, money, lots, of

So today I come home to find quite the odd package on my doorstep. Enclosed is a promo pack of sorts, and in it is two cans of a limited edition Mountain Dew called GameFuel. While at first I thought it was a revival of Code Red, it’s definitely not. It is “Dew with an Invigorating Blast of Citrus Cherry Flavor”. It tastes like a mother fucking pack of Smarties.

Anyway, I guess these limited edition Halo 3 cans of GameFuel will hit store shelves August 13th, and run for 12 weeks only.

The term gamer has become cool in the last couple of years. So much in fact that sites like MTV and NewsWeek have dedicated columns and writers used to bring gaming information to the general masses.

Stephen Totilo of MTV and N’Gai Croal of NewsWeek have decided to do an email exchange of sorts discussing the recent Halo 3 Multiplayer Beta. I’m not putting these guys down as gamers, they are both gamers in every sense of the word. But the entire transcription is somewhat of a bitch fest on how they aren’t exactly good at multiplayer games, and how they want Bungie, or whoever, to make them more easily accessible. A valid complaint I suppose. In fact, the tone of the articles really change with the final part of the series.

Of course the graphics issue comes up. N’Gai even references the Reuters Article I was quoted in. Yes…I’m gloating.

Anyway, before we go any further, do yourself a favor and read both articles. I’ll update this article when part 3 is finally released.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

OK…done? A bit long winded eh? That’s ok. There are a lot of good points there, and the articles themselves are a very fresh take on games journalism. So lets dissect shall we?

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I know…this blog looks like it’s turning into the Halo blog. But damn…can you blame me?

I arrived home yesterday to find a nice surprise on my doorstep, one of those new swanky Halo 3 Zunes.

The packaging is all decked out Halo style, and the Zune itself is packed nicely in it’s little box. I haven’t seen a packaging set-up this nice since my iPod. The Zune itself comes with a pair of headphones, case, usb cable and install CD. This special edition one comes preloaded with tons of Halo content including: 10 Halo related videos including Episodes of Red vs. Blue, all 3 Halo soundtracks, and over 100 Halo related images and concept art. In fact, it looks like some of the concept art might give away some clues as to what is going to happen in Halo 3.

The Zune software and marketplace seems solid. One really great thing is for those of us with an XBox Live account, you can simply sign in with this account and associate your Gamertag to your Zunetag (sorry..no Achievement points…yet). You can then use any MS Points from XBox Live to purchase songs and download alblums.

Of course the defining feature of Zune is the ability to transfer songs wirelessly between Zunes. Unfortuantely I wasn’t able to test that out as I don’t know anyone WITH a Zune. There are rumors that the newest firmware will allow you to hit up the Zune marketplace wirelessly from various hotspots which would make it a much more attractive feature.

Build quality is solid and the screen is gorgeous. The headphones out of the box lack some punch, but paired with a set of quality headphones that audio quality is noticeably better than an iPod, and just about equal with my Creative Zen Vision:M. The software works well, and one nice feature is the ability to transcode your videos on sync to the size and format needed for the Zune.

Any Halo fan looking for a new music/all-in-one player should look no further than the H3 Zune. The Limited Edition Halo 3 Zune goes on sale exclusively at Gamestop/EB Games on June 15th for $249.99.

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