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Halo 3 was recently released amidst great fanfare as an exclusive title to the latest Microsoft gaming console: the Xbox 360. The Halo games have been the flagship titles on the Xbox consoles since the first Xbox was released with the first Halo back in 2001. Halo: Combat Evolved quickly became a popular culture phenomenon, being hailed by many industry authorities as the best first person shooter available on a console. It quickly spiraled into an industry of its own, spawning original novels, comic books, toys and more.

Halo is the evolution of a genre that goes back to the earliest 3D game graphics. Once it became possible to put a game character in a maze and then show that maze from the character's perspective - the first person perspective - rather than the overhead view previous video games had used, it opened up the door for the development of the "first person shooter", or FPS. The original FPS, Wolfenstein 3D, looks crude by today's standards, but it was cutting edge in both graphics and sound quality on its release in 1992. Certainly it was unlike anything that anyone had seen at the time. While the concept was simple - you walk through a maze and shoot bad guys - its execution allowed gamers to feel like they were inside the game in a way that hadn't been experienced before.

Prior to Halo, the most well-known FPS was the second major FPS to hit the market: Doom. Doom gained notoriety beyond the gaming world for its violent content and rampant popularity. It was the first FPS to allow multiplayer gaming over a modem or network, an updated version of which is one of Halo's main selling points. Doom became popular enough that a major Hollywood movie was made, starring The Rock and Karl Urban. Following in Doom's footsteps, Halo is also slated to be made into a motion picture, though - as of writing this article - that project is still in development.

Each installment of the Halo series has only increased the frenzy around these games as Bungie and Microsoft come up with new features to add to increase replayability and multiplayer functionality. While Halo 2 sold eight million copies worldwide and was the most played game on Xbox live for two years, Halo 3 is expected to eventually blow those figures out of the water. 4.2 million copies were shipped to retail outlets for the release date and its release has nearly tripled sales of Xbox360 compared to pre-Halo 3 sales of the console. There's no denying that the Halo series of video games has become a major force in popular culture, and will likely remain so for years to come.

posted by 55208  # 3:53 AM