According to a statement by Don Mattrick, Senior VP of the Interactive Entertainment Business unit at Microsoft, Halo 3–which went on sale at 12:01AM, September 25th at more than 10,000 stores across the US–became the biggest entertainment launch in US history:

“Beating all expectations, Halo 3 became the biggest launch in the history of entertainment in the US, grossing more than $170 million dollars on Day One alone. In a year filled with blockbuster sequels, Halo 3 still stood out, passing both Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows ($166 million) and Spiderman 3 ($151 million).”

I picked up my copy from the company store for a nice discount, and spent a bit of time with it Tuesday night and last night.

<SWEET PICTURE WOULD APPEAR HERE>

I’d have a great picture of the pallets full of discs and employees lined up at the registers, but my Windows Mobile powered device froze after I took the picture and it seems to have gotten lost…

So far I’m personally not blown away by any one thing in particular, and am having to get used to the slight changes in controller configuration. Maybe it’s because I wasn’t a fanatic and never did play Halo or Halo 2 all the way through. And I haven’t spent hours upon hours immersed in this next installment.

That being said, the graphics are certainly gorgeous, and the environment seems significantly richer than the last version. The textures are rich and detailed, water looks amazing, and the lighting effects are spectacular. Also little things I’ve found that are cool so far are things like pre-loading certain parts of levels while you’re setting up games and what appears to be significantly decreased load times in general. That’s definitely a great improvement.

But, like I said, I haven’t been blown away yet (except by some hard-to-hit sniper creature things and things with giant war hammers). Also, having played a lot of Gears of War, I kind of miss the cover feature. However, it’s still early…


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