Halo 3 had a pretty great ad campaign, including a short film by District 9 director Neil Blomkamp showing the “Landfall” of Master Chief after the events of Halo 2. Halo 3 ODST followed suit last fall. Then this spring there was a Halo Reach beta test commerical. Yes, an ad for the beta.

But this one takes the cake. Not as deep on story, but its full of action. Its not hard to imagine a Halo movie now after all this.

You can see more abstract shorts on Remember Reach.

Preordr HALO REACH on Amazon to get a $20 store credit on your next game!

XBox.com has news that some of the Game Developers from High Moon Studios will be online tonight (7/29) from 9PM EST until Midnight, playing mutliplayer matches on War for Cybertron. Dev Gamertags will be
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so send an invite or friend request to one of these gamertags to get in on the action!

This weekend will also play host to the second double XP multiplayer weekend for the game. This will last from Friday at 9PM EST through Monday at 3AM EST. Play any matches during this time and earn double the experience points. This is sure to help any players having trouble racking up those multiplayer achievements based on levels.

Look, we all miss Conan. Its OK. Lets move on.

Late Night With Jimmy Fallon is probably the most geek friendly network TV show on the air, and they tested the limits. This week was “Video Game Week” since Jimmy couldn’t go to E3, he brought on a game demo every night. Last night for the finale he had Nintendo of America Reggie Fils-Amie show of Donkey Kong Country Returns. Jimmy mentions the last DK game he played was on N64, and then Reggie tried to correct him by saying it was a Super NES game. Nintendo’s revisionist history at work.

Hit the jump for demos for Jimmy playing Killzone 3, Need For Speed Hot Pursuit, Kinect, and Call Of Duty Black Ops. [Read the rest of this entry…]

Its the last day of E3, and all the publishers, studios, businessmen, designers, and artists have played their best hand of the year. There is no comparison in any other industry. Imagine if Hollywood showed a trailer for every movie of the next year on the same weekend. Thats crazy! And yet its E3.

In that spirit, those of us who follow at home don’t get hands on impressions, we just get 2 minute snippets of the games we’ll be playing from now until next E3. Who had the best?
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March 10, 2000 is widely regarded as the peak of the “dot com boom” with the Nasdaq hitting an all time high. This is an interesting historical foot note as its the day tech giant Microsoft announced they were getting into home video game business.

Going back a long time, its kind of interesting to look at how the game business evolved, or more accurately grew up. Atari and the NES were for kids. 16 bit era added a layer of complexity to keep older kids interested. In the mid 90s, Sony’s Playstation kept teenagers playing with more mature games. As the Atari and NES kids grew up it would take a big evolutionary leap to keep games in their lives and into the dorm rooms. Thats what I think of the original Xbox: the first console built for dorm rooms.
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Stand up comedian and actress Aisha Tyler is a well known Halo fan. In fact, its been rumored for a while that she has a role in the Reach game, though thats unconfirmed.

What she definitely does have a role doing is introducing the Beta test to gamers via this 6 minutes primer video. While you’re waiting for the Reach Beta to download (its 1.2 GB), it wouldn’t be a bad idea to watch this recap of all the new games, areas, and weapons you’ll discover.

If you need more details, check Bungie’s FAQ.

The Halo Reach Beta is available for a limited time to those who have been given a download code from Microsoft or accessed from the Halo 3 ODST Main Menu. Don’t have ODST? Why Not?!?

Last Night Microsoft started the TV ad campaign for Halo: Reach with an ad for the Multiplayer Beta next week. Its true, the above commercial doesn’t even mention the full game coming this fall, just the Beta starting on May 3!
The ad shows the augmentation of Carter 259, the Spartan III leader of Noble Team in the Halo: Reach story.
This is the extended version of the ad, available on Halo Waypoint via Xbox 360. You’ll be able to get the full ad in HD on the Reach site, Welcome to Noble Team later today. Some new footage of the Multiplayer Beta itself is after the cut. [Read the rest of this entry…]

Halo: Reach Multiplayer begins May 3. Its going to be big. Bungie estimates over 3,000,000 players will join in the fun. But more than fun, its serious business and the fact that we get a taste of the game is secondary to the object of the test. Bungie wants us to break the game, find flaws, and give feedback so they can improve the final product this fall. I remember the Beta for Halo 3, the covenant Carbine was a death machine, and was scaled back for the final release. To this day, I still pick up that rifle in a heated battle and wish it made my R trigger the win button it was back in Spring of 2007. With jet packs, invisibility, grenade launches, and super fast Elites, theres a lot of new stuff to exploit!

You can access the multiplayer madness shown in the video above via the Halo 3: ODST campaign disc’s “extras” menu.

If you want to know more about the final product, know that you’ll have to get your wallet ready for the Legendary Edition. Halo 3’s most deluxe package was all wrapped up in a replica Spartan Mark VI helmet. Reach will be incased with a 10 inch McFarlane Toys produced statue of the Spartans of Halo: Reach. Noble Team will bring with them an art book, and downloads for a flaming Spartan head for multiplayer, new armor for an Elite, and probably other non disclosed items like a documentary. This will knock you back $149.99 US.

The Limited Edition is $79.99 Still gets you the book and the Elite armor, and its a bit more reasonably priced. Standard gets you the full game in a colorful green Xbox 360 game case with glossy paper insert. Images below.

Are you playing the Beta? Are you going to run out and pre-order Legendary? Comment today!