Martin Crownover

I've got a little piece of paper resting comfortably in my wallet right now. It conspires with recent purchases made by my credit card; it conspires to completely undo my productivity. You read about the damages to my productivity last week with my scribbling about Team Fortress 2... now brace yourself for the monster that this little piece of paper will unleash upon my free time. This small snipped of ribbon paper has printed upon it proof that I have paid the $5 pre-order fee at my local GameStop. Halo 3 will be in my hands this afternoon.

I could have picked it up last night. At about 10:30 PM, I called GameStop to see how many people were standing in line, and at only about 40, it seemed the wait would not be unreasonable if I headed over at around 11. When 11 came, however, I felt a sudden urge of sleepiness... and since my girlfriend was over for the night, and I did not want to leave her alone at my apartment so late in the night, I decided I'd skip the midnight release, and instead get plenty of rest, so that I may enjoy the game to it's fullest this afternoon. And so I plan on stopping at the very appropriately titled GameStop on my way home from work, picking up Halo 3, and playing through the campaign on co-op with my brother and a friend.

I'm actually somewhat excited at the prospect of playing Halo 3, which is surprising because a week ago, I was not. After being talked into a pre-order by my brother I knew I would enjoy the game, but since I thought the first game was only above par, and have never even played the second game, getting pumped up about the third seemed a bit ludicrous.

When the reviews started pouring in, I read them... and I think that amidst all the Halo soda promotions, commercials, and media hype, they were what most got me in the mood to play. As I have read, not only does the game have four-player cooperative play, something that will probably make the game worth it for me in itself, but it also has some really neat customization and replay features which will be great to play around with, if they are anything near what they are cracked up to be.

I am a PC gamer at heart, so the lack of customization in console games has always kept me from getting too close to many of my favorite games... and while Halo 3 will still be short of a full-blown level editor, it is taking a step in the right direction with the Forge, a kind of mini level editor, which allows you to change elements in levels, add and remove objects, etc. - all while people are playing the level! The replay system I mentioned sounds as equally cool, where everything you do in Halo 3 is recorded to a replay file, which you can view later on, using different camera angles, speeds, etc., and which you can then upload to the internet for others to watch. Sending my friends video clips of my shooting them in the face will never get old, let me tell you.

So all that, combined with my growing love for Team Fortress 2, and then the eventual rest of Orange Box coming in soon, makes for a very large chunk of my free time being eaten up by pure entertainment. Of course, I won't let every one of my priorities drop - I've really got to get to work on the update to Reflect, and continue one of my many game projects - but still... it's gonna be difficult to divvy up the time!

In any case, it's good to be a gamer right now... so if you play Halo 3, maybe I'll kill you online sometime! Thanks for reading!