Last Saturday night, one of my friends from work brought his ginormous LCD television, his Xbox 360, and a copy of Halo 3 over to my place. We hooked his gear up to my setup, and using two Xboxes we played through the Halo 3 story mode. Four player cooperative play is one of the big selling points for the third game in the Halo trilogy. The game was pretty cool. There were some very intense moments, some very dramatic firefights, and a cool driving sequence at the end that was just a blast. Unfortunately that same friend from work took it upon himself to clear most of the monsters on all the levels, so we frequently found ourselves running at full tilt, just trying to keep up with him. I like Halo games, and I’ve played the original two, and this is by far the best. Too bad a really good Halo is still doesn’t come close to Gears of War.
Speaking of Gears, its finally making the leap from Xbox 360 to PC. I’m a little peeved that the PC version will contain extra content and missions not featured in the original port.
Apparently Halo 3 is pretty popular, bringing in $170 million on its first day and a whopping $300 mil worldwide in week one. While its still early this isn’t very close to Spiderman 3’s total $890 mil worldwide, it won’t be long before video game releases will start to rival major motion picture releases. Although I don’t have the actual amount I can only imagine the budget for Halo 3 wasn’t anywhere close to Spidey’s $258 mil.
Imagine this if you will… a free Mario Kart game, that you can play online with seven other people, the graphics are on par with the GameCube, and you can earn in-game money (or buy it with real money) to pimp out your Kart. Did I mention it was free? This is the concept behind KartRider a game that is quickly becoming the national pasttime in Korea. The American version just hit the net in the form of a beta, and its pretty dang good. I have raced through all the beginner tracks and unlocked my rookie license and it was a blast. The idea behind the game is that they’ll provide you an addictive gaming enviornmen, and you’ll pay your real money to buy stuff to pimp out your Kart. The game has a buddy list feature, so you can race with your friends. It also features solo and team racing in item-based or speed races. The item-based races are similar to Mario Kart where you throw turtle shells at each other. Like I mentioned earlier, the game is completely free, free to download and free to play. The only catch is that you’ll probably want to buy better stuff for your Kart and thats where you’ll want to pay up.
My favorite new band is Dethklok, these guys are AWESOME! Don’t look for them to be on tour anytime soon, they’re a fictional band and stars of Cartoon Network’s Metalocalypse. The writers of the show have taken all the great metal cliches, put them into a blender and turned up the volume. The result is a hilarious 30-minute rock’n'roll gorefest, this show isn’t for the weak of heart. If you think you can “hack” it, check out a full length episode of Adult Swim’s website.
