Gamers Grab Halo 3, Jump Online, Blast Things

After three long years, the final chapter of an epic sci-fi saga was finally unveiled last night. No, I'm not talking about another "Star Wars" movie—this is Halo 3, and in the gaming world, Halo is as big as it gets. Fans flocked to gaming stores for star-studded midnight sales that looked like movie premieres; they snapped up the game and headed home for their first online battles.

Yahoo! News reports that a crowd of 500 packed the Fifth Avenue Best Buy in Manhattan, where the first copies of Halo 3 went on sale at 12:00 a.m. sharp. A Halo 3-themed Hummer was on-hand, along with Master Chief himself (well, someone dressed like him, since we all known that the real Master Chief is off defending us from evil), a pair of New York Giants, and scores of cheering fans.

Where was I, you ask? At home, of course, playing furious Halo 3 multiplayer matches. Bungie's Halo 3 matchmaking servers were up and running by Monday morning, and already, an online crowd of about 7,000 was busy lobbing grenades at each other. The numbers grew slowly as the day wore on and then exploded after midnight. About 35,000 unique players had logged onto Halo 3 via Xbox Live by Monday afternoon; this morning, the number stands at about 413,000 players. Those office-mates of yours who called in sick today? Guess what they're doing right now.

Of course, the apparent success of Halo 3 is a huge boost for Microsoft and the Xbox 360, which has been hit with a barrage of bad press thanks to reports of widespread hardware failures (Microsoft ultimately extended the 360's warranty in the wake of the debacle). Not only has Halo 3 received a truckload of glowing reviews (including my own), it'll also rake in millions; Halo 2 (released back in 2004) racked up $124 million in its first 24 hours, according to Yahoo! News, and Halo 3 will doubtless blow the lid off that figure. The game will surely boost Xbox 360 sales, as well, and some analysts even think it'll catapult the 360 above and beyond the struggling Playstation 3, which is still in search of a must-have title.

So I'm guessing a lot more of you have actually played Halo 3 now—what do you think? Did it live up to the hype? Anyone actually finished the campaign yet?

Related:
Microsoft's "Halo 3" game launches amid spectacle [Yahoo! News]
Why 'Halo 3' will decide the Xbox 360's fate [CNET News.com]