Halo3, the Microsoft juggernaut, launches tomorrow and seals away a story arc spanning two consoles. Halo was originally a Mac game (as well as Windows) before the Xbox version, that changed and Halo1 was a very successful launch title for the Xbox1. It was really _the_ launch title for the Xbox. The PC versions wouldn’t be released for a couple years later and when they were released, most people had already played the Xbox version.

At the time of release, everyone I knew was into Halo. People bought an Xbox to play Halo with their friends. Of course, Xbox Live has never been free so people signed up for Xbox Live. People also needed to chat so they bought headsets for use with their Xbox. Outside of an active monthly subscription, the headsets would be useless. Online play continued, Red vs Blue got popular and even an online gesture “the tea-bag” was as due to Halo.

To me, Halo was generic when I saw it first. Massive maps, bland textures, obvious color choices and a repeatable military vs aliens theme. It didn’t click. During the gold rush of Halo2, my wife bought me an Xbox1 and a copy. I was grateful. It was something fresh for me and it’s been a sore point of critisizing something as cool as a wife giving you an entire game console. I watch my step because the present itself was extremely rad while the Microsoft disease of hype and design-dearth is anti-rad. So, let it be told from the top of the highest peak of a silent blog that I enjoyed my Xbox1. Wife protection off.

The satisfaction of pulling the right trigger button on the fatty Xbox1 controller to squeeze off real metal rounds into a herd of emotionless monsters is caveman satisfaction. Bill Maher, Dennis Miller and Frasier are closer to my stereotyped intellectual entertainment but sometimes I have a headache and I want knuckle dragging rock. In this vein, Halo delivers a one-note riff.

I played through 1/2 of Halo2 and gave it an honest chance but then put it down for a while. After getting the 360, there’s no save game feature to let me continue so one of these days I’ll have to hook up the Xbox1 and finish it off so I can trade it in. There was a clan I was in with friends called “Gamers with Jobs” but that fizzled for greener CS:Source pastures. There was a headset that I used to play with people online but in the end I ran into too many pre-teens with nothing to say.

And now as I see the Halo Zune and Halo crap-colored 360 (with no specs to back it up), I’m glad that Halo3 ends the story arc. Maybe they’ll reboot the series and go with an ultra modern “Vista” Halo with a translucent suit for Master Chief and heart boxers. “Aliens beware, I have Windows Defender!”

I digress. Halo was was described by gamespy as

the game was tenth on GameSpy’s “Top 25 Most Overrated Games of All Time”; one reviewer stated that the game “recycl[ed] the same areas over and over until you were bored to tears.”

If you have never seen the infamous E3 2007 Halo 3 Special Edition 360! *Crickets* post by Kokatu, please run and watch.

Halo3? For $60 and only 10 hours of gameplay, I can find something better to do; like finish Bioshock.