Halo 3. It will probably become the biggest selling game on the 360. Halo: CE, was one of the main reasons for the original Xbox's success, the series has spawned spin offs, all the usual, and soon, a new (probably series) of games: Halo Wars. It's everywhere, even if you're not interested in games, you'll almost definitely know there's something coming out to do with a man in a green armoured costume with an orange visor...Because the Master Chief is everywhere.

Where I stand (or rather, stood), was here:

Halo: CE, is still my favourite FPS ever. I don't know if it will ever be surpassed, but even if it's not, it will always have a special place in my heart. It was a fantastic game, with a brilliant story and campaign, and the coop and multiplayer elements were undeniably good. The storyline finished, and there was undoubtably going to be a second.

The hype started for Halo 2. Bungie and Microsoft brought it on hard and fast. FLashy trailers, the MC jumping off spaceships...the Covenant have found earth we learn, the big defensive is on, time to defend the human race...Flashy graphics, bring the family, the whole kids, yipee.
Alas, there was no big defence. The campaign mode that I had been so frivilously anticipating fell drastically short of my expectations. The storyline and missions revolved not around defending Earth, but unearthing some (albeit interesting) Covenant political upheaval, going to another ring world (it did send a bit of a shiver when the Gregorian monk chant came on at the site of the new ring world) and doing all sorts of stuff...Furthermore...You didn't even fill MC's boots for the whole game, but were dragged out of them to play as some Elite that you didn't relate to or care about, all you really wanted to be doing was killing the big bad covenant and stopping them from destroying precious Earth.

So Halo 2 ends, Cortana's eloping with some Flood intelligence, the Elites are seperated from the rest of the Covenant, and the Brutes are now the baddies.

"Spartan 117 reporting for duty...[I'm here] to finish the fight."

Alas, we didn't get the chance to finish the fight. I felt cheated, dismayed, and irritated by the poor, unproductive and quite plain plot of Halo 2; many people were...Then came the first trailer for Halo 3, sub-titled:

FINISH THE FIGHT

Naturally. I was done with Halo though. I might pick up Halo 3 eventually, I'd just read about what happened. The Halo 3 beta which I got with Crackdown was also extremely uncompelling, felt like Halo 2 with some extra icing.
Then the hype. The genius, genius hype.

"Believe" would seem to be the main word they're using. I was walking around Edinburgh and saw a double-decker bus park right beside me on my way to the station with a massive poster of the MC, looking epic, and the almost cheesy, but for some reason desperately passable "A Hero Never Dies" tagline beside him. "Believe".

From the station I came home. Came on the internet, and watched the John 117 monument video, then the war veteran one. Both of them cheesy, but both of them, for the sole reason that the MC is at the core of them, pulled on my heart strings. I now started thinking "How can I just let the MC pass me by and read about what happens? I have to see the MC to victory..." and so it began.

Here I am now, planning on going into town to see if any shops here have broken the embargo, and if not, I'll click the "Checkout" button on Play.com, be £40 poorer, and for what? A game that I don't actually expect to fully satisfy me? Yes.

This is, without doubt, the epitome of how powerful the Microsoft-Bungie hype machine is. I was consciously opposed to the hype of Halo 3, knowing what the same hype had done for Halo 2...But I can't leave the MC out to dry, I have to play Halo 3, complete the campaign, because the MC that "gave the soldiers hope", the MC that is the "Hero that never dies", is just too much of a cheesy, but compelling history not to be a part of.

It's actually quite depressing that I can't resist the temptation...but maybe I wont regret it...Although I probably will.

I don't believe your hype Microsoft...I don't believe your hype Bungie...But I believe that the MC is a legend as far as computer game characters go, and if only for him, the MC that I took through Assault on the Control Room so many times, that I dragged through the Library on Legendary, that I drove to safety through the crumbling Pillar of Autumn...With that same MC, I just have to finish the fight.

Looks like I've been fooled by hype I don't "believe". Dammit.