Halo 3

So three days after "Halo Day" has it changed the world of video games as we know it? No, but that's not to say it isn't special all the same.

In case you missed it - and I have to say, even if you are not a gamer I don't know how you could not have been exposed to at least some of the hype on this game, it even made the BBC evening news (albeit with footage of a different game) - Halo 3, the final (yeah right) game in the Halo series was launched.

I wasn't going to get it as I am not that big a Halo fan. I enjoyed the single player campaign of both its predecessors - it is actually one of my favourite FPS now I come to think of it - but the Xbox Live experience has never really made me want to go online and play. Mind you the same could be said about any FPS. However since I have found a whole load of easy going 30 something UK gamers to play online with I thought I could give it a go. That and the fact that when I looked to see who was playing what on Wednesday every single person on my friends list was playing Halo 3, even my brother in law who is not a FPS fan at all.

The campaign is so far pretty damn good. The game looks amazing, the enemy grunts are as stupidly funny as ever and the enemy AI (something I loved about the first one) is great with them taking cover and generally making your task difficult. The big set pieces are great - taking down the Scarab tanks for instance - and the difficulty is just right (for me anyway).

Online with friends however is a total blast. I have not had so much fun playing an online multi player game ever. Blasting around a level on the back of a warthog shooting everything that moves while your team mate driver laughs as he runs over the opposition is amazing. Team shooters are nearly always fun, but the vehicles in Halo 3 make it near gaming nirvana.

Then you add in the fantastic website at bungie.net with the game stats tracking and ability to download, share and replay an entire match from any angle!! Let me say that again. Any game played can be saved off to an online share where others can download it to their console and replay it from any angle or point of view of any player. That's pretty impressive. For the "pro" clans out there it will make practice and analysis of games pretty easy to do in an organised manner. For the rest of us its a cool feature to send clips of especially sweet kills to those who you fragged.