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On May 15, 2007 the information was published, that Halo 3 would be released on September 25 in North America and the 26th in Europe. Halo 3 marked the third in a very popular series for the Xbox 360 called ‘Halo’. According to the vice president of Microsoft’s interactive entertainment business, Halo 3’s release was much more than only a video game release, it was the biggest entertainment event of the year. He might just have been right as well.

The history of Halo 3 really starts with the release of the first game in the series ‘Halo: Combat Evolved’. In November, 2001, when Halo was first released, game consoles were somewhat of a joke for one person shooter games. Yes, some games existed, but there weren’t the popular communities that the PC games in the genre had.

That all changed with Halo, in which players could fight aliens on foot and in vehicles, in order to complete objectives, while trying to uncover the secret of the Halo. Halo pioneered limiting the amount of weapons a player could carry to two, which in turn, meant forcing the player to make strategic decisions.

Enthusiasts waited for the release of Halo 3 with baited breath. They awaited the continuation of the one-person, shoot-em-up combat format that had been prevalent in the two former parts of Halo. Microsoft calls it the ‘Golden Triangle of Halo’, which consists of gun-type weapons, grenades and others. In reality, this was not new to one-person, shoot-em-up games, as it had existed since the very first Doom and even the predecessor to that game, “Wolfenstein”.

So, with all of that history behind it, people were very excited about the Halo 3 release date. How popular and welcome was the game? Well, before its release, 3.1 million copies were sold in advance orders and retailers were sure that that was insufficient.

The game grossed $300 million in the United States in just its first week. Overall it has sold over nine million copies worldwide and was the best-selling video game in the USA in 2007. Even the critics loved it, ranking it the seventh highest on the all-time list of Xbox 360 games.

The Halo 3 release date, like the release date of many widely popular video games was almost like a national holiday like Christmas or Easter. It beggars the question of just what will happen with video games in the near future?

When a video game series is as widely famous as the Halo set is (which includes Halo 3, of course) then it’s bound to result in there being thousands of screenshots available. This piece focuses on some of the weird and wild Halo 3 screenshots.

Before getting on to the Halo 3 screenshots specifically, let’s take a look at the figures that create all of this media. Over 9 million copies of Halo 3 have been sold so far. That means that if each person who purchased the game plays for only 10 hours, there are more than 90 million hours of game time from which to choose screen shots. A lot can take place in 90 million hours, and with all the picture-uploading websites available to people, loads of it has been documented.

One of the things in Halo 3 that has frequently been documented in Halo 3 screenshots is what Master Chief looks like or more specifically, what his face is like. If you use a search engine to look up the top 10 Halo 3 screenshots, you’ll find a screenshot of Master Chief lying dead on the ground, clearly not showing a face inside his helmet. This explains why we never see his face, say many people, because he does not really have one.

Another one of the top Halo 3 screenshots showing in the 10 most popular Halo 3 screenshots is the one of a Marine getting hammered on a floodgate. Someone posted that it looked a little bit like Han Solo when he was frozen in Carbonite. And guess what? - they’re totally right.

The designers of Halo 3 wanted to make it a lot simpler for people to take Halo 3 screenshots and to share them all over the Internet. To accomplish this, they created a ‘Saved Films’ feature in the game. This feature permits people to slow down the action, or even to freeze it, change the camera angles and even move the camera around to get exactly the screenshot they want to have. Generally speaking, the ‘Save Films’ feature records all the action that takes place in the game, so it can later be turned into videos are screenshots.

Another feature that has a little bit to do with Halo 3 screenshots in the ‘Save Films’ feature, is the viewing of previously saved films. You see, the saves are not just images or video, they’re actual game data. This means two things: 1] the file size is very small and 2] the whole game can be watched from different angles on the Xbox 360.

This means to say that a person could replay a game again and again, seeing new things in new places every time they watch it. That’s a lot better than plain Halo 3 screenshots.

Generally, a Halo 3 mod is considered to be any software modification that alters the game play in the very popular video game for the Xbox 360, Halo 3. But the term also encompasses many other modifications, such as physical alterations made to the Xbox 360 console to show everybody that you are a hard-core Halo 3 fanatic.

However, before someone can create a Halo 3 mod, they need the proper tools, together with some technical expertise and knowledge. These tools would usually includes a number of pieces of software that allow people to de-construct, edit, and reconstruct Halo 3 files. It would also involve some hardware to allow the Xbox 360 hard drive to be uploaded into a PC and the files to be restored to that hard drive.

This is necessary because the Xbox 360 is not a unit on which files can be altered. Previously, the hardware developers, in this case Microsoft, would make the tools available to people who paid the licensing fee. But over time, especially with Halo 3 mods, the community has developed a number of tools and techniques to accomplish what has to be done for modification.

A Halo 3 mod also includes, as written earlier, physical changes to the Xbox 360 console. Some people, for example, remove the case and actually carve the words ‘Halo 3′ into it. They might also accompany this by painting the console red, blue or green to match the colour of the armour of the characters in the game.

However, it’s a rather extreme way to announce to the world - I like Halo 3 - in that it could result in actual damage that renders the Xbox 360 unplayable. People often display their customized Xbox 360s on photo-sharing sites such as Flickr and when they go toattend live LAN events.

One of the things that people who are interested in the world of the Halo 3 mod try to insist on is that these should not be used for the purpose of cheating. Modifications are fun to get a new aspect on Halo 3 play or a new look for certain levels. But if they’re used to make the game unfair in favour of one person or team, they ruin the overall game experience for everyone.

One website where a person can find many a Halo 3 mod is H3mod.com. The site calls itself the ‘future of Halo modding’. It seems to be a good place to begin if you really want to learn about a Halo 3 mod.

The other day, while surfing the Internet for details on the Halo 3 weapons cheats, I came across a number of what-if scenarios? What if Master Chief took on different famous characters from films, comic books, and legends? Here is a list of some of these battles and my idea of the result.

While it is technically not a Halo 3 weapon cheat, the match-up of Master Chief versus Robocop would be hot. According to the information on the Internet both have some similarities. They’re both human, they’ve both been enhanced, they both have fantastic armour and they are both experienced combatants. Most respondents thought that Master Chief would defeat Robocop, but let’s be honest here, Master Chief can be defeated with a hand-gun, whereas Robocop was still going after being blown up at a gas station. The victor has to be Robocop.

If Master Chief battled with the next fighter he would do well to have a Halo 3 weapon cheat. I’m talking about MacGyver. Master Chief has a lot going for him. He is proficient with a number of weapons; he has that fantastic armour; he has some incredible vehicles at his disposal; he’s a Clint-Eastwood-type loner and he can regenerate himself. However, in short, MacGyver has brains. It would probably boil down to the same thing in a fight between Batman and Superman. However, if it’s a closed arena where it’s man against man, Master Chief will win. But put this battle in the real world with Swiss army knives and duct tape at his disposal, and MacGyver’s going to murder our bionic pal.

So far Master Chief is 2-0 down, it’s starting to look like he can really use a Halo 3 weapon cheat. But let’s give him another go. This time it’s Master Chief versus Terminator. We already know Master Chief’s strengths, the Terminator’s consist of an ability to master any weapon, relentless willpower, indefatigability, amazing detrermination to destroy his target. It all boils down to the Spartan laser weapon. As one respondent pointed out, if Master Chief can destroy vehicles with this weapon he can certainly put a pretty big hole in the Terminator too.

Let’s have one more battle before Master Chief discovers his Halo 3 weapon cheat. What would he do against Boba Fett from Star Wars? The main differences between Master Chief and Boba Fett are that Boba has no shields, owns his own ship and has a jet pack.

Many people believe Star Wars would come out on top in this battle, but Master Chief’s weapons are far more powerful than those owned by the bounty hunter. This one makes it evens at 2-2.

So, those are the results. In this small poll that we found on the Internet, Master Chief is your average sort of super hero, who is not sure to win every fight, unless he finds his weapon cheats or the story writers want him to, that is.