I’ve been playing Halo 3 now almost nonstop since last night when I picked it up in a line of about 300 people in State College, PA. I really believe Halo 3 is living up to its hype. This is the best multiplayer experience I’ve ever seen in a video game. It combines great graphics with limitless options reminiscent of Timesplitters, and really great gameplay.

Once I’ve finished the campaign I’ll post my impressions. For now, here is a rundown [via thexboxdomain.net] of what you need to do to unlock each type of armor available to the Spartan or Elite.

Body Pieces
Spartan
EVA……………..Complete Tsavo Highway on Normal, Heroic, or Legendary
EOD……………..Complete Tsavo Highway on Legendary
Scout……………Unlock “Too Close to the Sun” Achievement (Destroy an enemy banshee with the Sp’laser or missile pod in a ranked playlist or campaign)

Elite
Flight……………Complete Tsavo Highway on Heroic or Legendary
Ascetic…………Unlock “Up Close and Personal” Achievement (Kill 5 enemies via melee or assassination in a ranked FFA playlist)
Commando….Unlock “Triple Kill” Achievement (Get one triple kill)

Shoulder Pieces
Spartan
EVA……………..Complete The Ark on Normal, Heroic, or Legendary
EOD…………….Complete The Ark on Legendary
Security……….Earn 750 Gamerscore Points
Scout……………Unlock “We’re in for some Chop” Achievement (Destroy an enemy vehicle with a piece of equipment in a ranked playlist or campaign)

Elite
Flight……………Complete The Ark on Heroic or Legendary
Ascetic…………Unlock “Overkill” Achievement (Get one overkill)
Commando….Unlock “Killing Frenzy” Achievement (Get one killing frenzy)

Head Pieces
Spartan
EVA……………..Complete Campaign on Normal, Heroic, or Legendary
EOD……………..Complete Campaign on Legendary
Security………..Earn 1,000 Gamerscore Points
Scout…………….Unlock “Used Car Salesman” Achievement (Destroy an enemy vehicle containing 3 enemies in Campaign or ranked playlists)
Mark V………….Unlock “UNSC Spartan” Achievement (Reach Sergeant ranking online)
ODST……………Unlock “Spartan Graduate” Achievement (Earn 5 EXP or complete 10 ranked matches)
Rogue………….Unlock “Spartan Officer” Achievement (Advance to the Spartan Officer ranks online)

Elite
Flight……………Complete Campaign on Heroic or Legendary
Ascetic………….Unlock “Steppin’ Razor” Achievement (Get one triple kill with an energy sword in ranked FFA)
Commando….Unlock “Overkill” Achievement (Get one overkill)

soon. so very soon.

What more can I say?

America’s favorite megastore will be joining in on the Halo 3 launch fun with Halo 3 dog tags for customers and dedicated checkout lines for buying Halo 3. They have a little tool there to apparently inform your friends of the time and location of your campout for Halo.

Personally I’ll be waiting outside the State College PA Gamestop sometime that Monday evening, with a charged DS and some Game Fuel, and a vacation day waiting for me on Tuesday.

A couple days ago Slashdot had an article about HD-VMD, a new contender in the High Def video market brought forward from until now unheard of New Medium Enterprises.  They promise capacity of 40 GB (right in the middle of what HD-DVD ad Bluray can support) at a price point only slightly higher than standard DVD media.  This price is possible thanks to reusing existing technology to manufacture the disks and lasers in the players.  Rather than a blue laser, VMD disks use the same red lasers as current DVD players.

Only a few titles will be available at launch here in the US, although with the players coming in under $200 (with $150 being the number that seems to be going around) and availability through Amazon, this could quickly be a major figure in the HD wars.

I like the idea of cheaper HD, but I’m afraid this will draw out the resolution of this media format war even longer, and make it even more complicated for us, the consumers.

According to Gamesindustry.biz, Best Buy will be sponsoring 3 days of free Xbox Live Gold following the release of Halo 3, from September 25th through the 27th. They also note that 10,000 retailers will be opening at midnight for the release party.

Let me tell you… I was excited to hear SNK Playmore had gotten on the XBLA bandwagon which means we may soon see Art of Fighting, Samurai Shodown, World Heroes, and maybe even King of the Monsters hah hah. Now onto the dirt…

Graphics: 68/100

The graphics are great, they look exactly as I remember them, pretty much arcade perfect though the game does show it’s age since they use such old school techniques as dithering. This version is also uncensored so you can see Mai in her bouncey glory *wink wink nudge nudge.* The character sprites have all their animation which is great seeing as the SNES and Genesis releases of this game had to scrap animation to fit it all in, next to no home version has been arcade perfect until now.

Sound: 80/100

As for the sound, it’s all there in it’s cheesy engrish mixed with japanese glory with all the old school BGM. I’m not sure if they redid the sound for Stereo Surround but it sounds really nice on my sound system.

Gameplay: 57/100

The game plays great, all the moves and strategies from the original Coin-op version are all intact but there is one very irritated thing that also translated over.. the difficulty..Did SNK decide to give all the damn characters SNK Boss syndrome? Am I just that bad at this game? I lost every match even on Easy with the CPU character reading all my moves before i did them and countering with no chance of blocking.. I nearly smashed my controller listening to Terry’s engrish victory phrase over and over and over again.. Whats even weirder is I was kicking ass when I played the trial version. As for the controls, well I still find the 360’s controller setup poorly suited for 2D fighting games, I had extreme difficulty pulling off moves with the Analog stick, to the point where you try to do a move but instead you do a playfield change instead (i.e. you jump to the background if you’ve never played the Fatal Fury games) and the D-pad sadly is so awkwardly placed for me I found it unusable.

Replay: 50/100

The difficulty is way over the top so unless your great at fighting games you may be swearing like a sailor between losses…

Overall for you fighting fans you can’t beat the price of Admission at a paltry 400pts for an arcade perfect piece of SNK history. I just hope they release more SNK arcade games on XBLA.

Yes you heard me! The Messenger Kit with the slick new keyboard attachment is slated to be released on the 4th of this month. The device itself as we all know having seen official images attaches to the bottom of the controller, how does this effect headset connectivity? Well.. unfortunately you can not use your standard headset with it BUT the device comes with a new compatible headset that has the volume and mute functions on the cord. I know I’ll be getting one when they hit the shelves.

Gear Live got the opportunity to get their hands on a pre-release and has posted a nice gallery of the whole package. Check it out!