Kurt Shintaku's Blog

Well, the cat’s out of the bag so here’s your official notice:  The testing has begun!

With it’s predecessor being the single highest selling game EVER, beating out even Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Halo 3 looks to tear apart previous records.  If I can dig them up, I have photos of the lines that were formed at BestBuy and EBGames for the release of Halo 2, and if that’s any indicator of the demand for this game, Halo 3 looks to just explode in 2007.

 

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This will all be right after the launch of "Gears of War", what IGN, OXM, and Gamespot all called, "the 2nd record-shattering franchise for the Xbox".  This game is sheer fun and anyone that liked Halo 2 will be just giddy when they play Gears this holiday season.

 

And it’ll be after the release of the XBox 360 Vision Camera.  There’s already a series of games that support the camera even though it’s not out yet.  I won’t point them all out but the most obvious of them is "Uno" on Xbox Live Arcade.

 

Of course Halo 3 will come out after "Viva Pinata", our answer to Animal Crossing, except it leverages XBox Live to connect people’s "farms" together.  Viva Pinata, with it’s cute characters, it’s relatively non-violent game play, and it’s simple yet obsessive gameplay will hook millions of players.  The games fun just to watch on the screen even if you’re not doing anything.

 

Oh, and there’s "99 Nights" and "Too Human".  Depending on your preferences, this is Microsoft’s answer to "God of War".  I’ve seen "99 Nights" which has been available in Japan for a while now, and it’s incredibly fun.  Really.  All your dreams of just utterly enkillenating 500-1000 enemies simultaneously with a single massive combo attack has been realized… without diminishing the quality of the graphics and animation you’ve come to expect from a next-gen console.  "Too Human" is more adventure like with your powers and capabilities growing with the game.  This is going to be closer in nature to Baldur’s Gate with much better gameplay, 3-D camera graphics, and infinitely better sound & graphics… not to mention a bitchin’ storyline.

 

And "Chromehounds".  The spiritual successor to MechAssault with more "Mechwarrior-like" features in it.  Chromehounds brings back some of the intricacies of the Mechwarrior gameplay with upgradable guns and armor and better tactical play while keeping the game action packed.  It seems to have suppressed a bit of the "arcade-ish" type of gaming that MechAssault provided in exchange for smarter gaming.  God bless them.

 

And then there’s the wireless headset.  Finally… no more wires.  It’s all about wireless gameplay and the XBox360’s gonna provide it.