Halo 3 on IMAX Tonight, in Stores in Two Weeks

The Master Chief will be crashing his way onto S.F. and NYC IMAX screens tonight and Thursday, just two weeks before long-awaited game finally hits stores.

Personally, I'd think that watching the herky-jerky, first-person perspective of Halo 3 on a massive IMAX screen would be a recipe for disaster (not to mention guaranteed overtime for the cleanup crew), but hey—for die-hard fans of the hugely popular series, that's the price you pay. Anyway, you can catch the Halo 3 sneak peek tonight at the AMC Metreon in San Francisco, or Thursday at the AMC Loews Lincoln Square on the Upper West Side here in NYC. Of course, you can't just show up and watch; you first must play a Halo 3 "mini-game" at this Pontiac promotional site, hope you win a ticket, and then be one of the first 200 in line at the theater.

Meanwhile, the September 25 release date for Halo 3 is just two weeks away, and more than 10,000 stores are slated to open their doors at midnight to get a jump on sales. There's also a slew of promotions on tap, and some of them are kind of a stretch: a Halo 3-inspired car at the upcoming NASCAR Dover 400? Hmmm. Anyway, Halo developer Bungie is promising that we'll be treated to multiplayer madness against members of the Bungie team, as well as various celebrities-to-be-named-later. More Xbox Marketplace content is a given, and several giveaways (including a Pontiac G6 GXP Street Edition and a Samsung home theater) are also in the pipeline.

I'll be getting a chance to go nuts on the finished Halo 3 in the coming days, and I'll post my impressions just before the big launch.

Eager to get your hands on Halo 3? Sound off!

Related:
Halo 3 Launch Week [Xbox.com]
Play Halo 3 on IMAX in NYC and San Francisco [IGN]