GameDaily Biz is reporting that Microsoft will be releasing three different versions of Halo 3 to squeeze every last dollar out what everyone assume will be a megahit game.

Collector editions are a widely accepted part of the industry. True blue fans are willing to pay extra for figurines, t-shirt, posters, fancy boxes and all the other stuff thrown into a collectors edition. Publishers are more than happy to take the money. Never one to miss out on a few extra bucks, Microsoft is releasing a collectors edition AND an even more expensive Legendary Edition for $129. The Legendary Edition comes with the typical bonus content and a Halo helmet. EBGames is already taking pre-orders . Due to the size there is an extra $10 shipping.

Are people going to buy this? Probably. Are the uber hardcore going to buy BOTH the Legendary and Collectors Edition? Probably. Is it really worth it? You tell me.

I put a pre-order down on the Legendary version on January 6th. I'm a sucker for limited collector's stuff, and this just takes the cake.

The price though... I can understand it being that high if the Legendary edition is extremely limited. Justifies the price somewhat. If I'm going to see just as many Legendary boxes as retailers are willing to sell, then that is asking too much.

I always go for deluxe packaging, which is something I don't see too often on console games these days (cheers to the late Working Designs). Then again, I spend too much money on videogames :P

Hm, will we accept a photo of the helmet as the cover for the legendary version? it seems right...

Nah, if it comes in a box, it's more likely to submit the helmet photo to that "extras" section of ours (as soon as we have it, I mean).

Members of the elite Halo worship cult will like this, but I personally think this is going too far. Remember when Halo was a video game, and not a religion?

Halo not a religion? Don't be silly! Next you'll tell me that Scientology is a money-making scam!

I assume that there's a normal release, right?

I hear their temples are all built around the same set of rooms.

Well, as soon as they announce a Halo edition which consists on a game that's not a Halo game (i.e.: a proper FPS), I'm so sold!!!! \o/

I'm confused are you wanting a Halo game that is a proper FPS or one that isn't? If the former, what's so improper about Halo 1 & 2? If the latter, you may like Halo Wars.

Halo is the most overhyped game in existence.

I was almost shocked when I realised how ordinary Halo was when I played it. If that's the best FPS consoles can come up with I'll stick to my PC, thank you very much.

What, more than Half-Life?

Lol, I wonder if Legendary Edition actually comes with the game or if you have to buy that separately.

You can whine all you like have about HL in pretty much every aspect, but you just can't say it's a bad shooter. You can not. Period. As FPSs, both HL's are as good as they come (each one in its own age).

Halo, on the other hand, is ugly to look at (the design of the creatures is mind-numbingly stupid, the color palette looks like something from a Mario game), unresponsive to play (at least the pc version runs like crap no matter how insanely powerful your system is), it has some of the dullest maps ever (which not only are poorly designed but more often than not either look just like one another or you have to backtrack through them a lot), the atmosphere can't possibly immerse anyone (there's a scene that's ripped off straight from the movie "Aliens", but it's all so poorly crafted you can't help but laugh at the whole thing), and whenever you fire a gun it just doesn't feel like you're firing a gun --which is sort of an important thing for a game that's cataloged as a SHOOTER.

Wait a sec, I didn't say that Halo was better than Half-Life. I asked: "Is Halo more overhyped than Half-Life?" I didn't hear phrases like "best game ever!" or "amazing story line!" about "Halo". At least not here on MG.

Well, maybe not on MG (we are quite the intellectual elite of the gaming community, after all ;) ), but all over the internet you see people (both professional reviewers and regular-Joe gamers) bow down to the name Halo like it's the second coming or something. Just go roam around some random forums. There are people that are actually religiously insane about the game.

To be quite honest, maybe Halo's hype is on par with that of Half-Life, maybe it's even lower; but my point is, HL is, at the very least, a good shooter, whereas Halo isn't even that.

I dunno. Halo did two things pretty rare in a shooter.

1) It had a pretty open environment. Most are tunnel crawlers. Halo is the first I remember with tons of big expansive open spaces.

2) It was brightly lit. Most are grey, brown, dark etc. Halo had all these bright colors and for that I liked it. No reason why you can't shoot people on a sunny day outdoors.

But one thing is to be brightly lit, which I'm fine with (Half-Life 2 takes place mostly on quite sunny outdoors areas), another entirely different thing is that idiotic color palette Halo uses. I mean, there's purple and green and electric blue and hot-passion red and yellow and it all just looks like someone's having a birthday party.

Or the textures were designed on MS Paint.

Or you're trapped inside a homosexual cyber-fetishist's wet dream.

You get my point.

You sure like those shiny colors huh?

Oleg, remember that this is still predominately a site for PC fans. Go to a place like gamefaqs.com and you'll see some hard-core Halo worship.

(yeah, I know there's a PC port of Halo)

Well, GameFAQs is clearly biased towards consoles (same way as MobyGames is biased towards PC). So when I want to discuss Japanese RPGs, I'll listen to what GameFAQs people have to say; but FPS is a PC-oriented genre, so I'll listen to PC players. Among true FPSs fans, Halo is certainly far from being as hyped as Half-Life.

Did maw specifically talk about PC games somewhere in the post you replied to?

Half-Life had outdoor environments and brightly-lit areas too. Here's but one example: http://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/half-life/screenshots/gameShotId,193273/

Methinks your memory is dusty. Half-Life had this stuff long before Halo did.

I played a 16-player Halo game with a group of friends and 4 xboxs connected to 4 TVs once. I kept asking them to turn the sensitivity of the gamepad up because it wasn't turning fast enough for me. They said "that's as high as it goes". I honestly don't see how people can play FPS games on a gamepad. My theory is that they simply don't know any better.

Want to know the dirty little secret of programming a console FPS? There is always some sort of auto-aim involved. Otherwise you can't hit a single thing.

Halo 1 had exactly two things that impressed me:

1. The design of Halo ("planet") itself... I'm a sucker for good scenery in a game, and it was just really cool to be able to look up and see the "ring" wrap around itself... though I haven't checked to see if the landmasses were accurate to where I've explored before.
2. vehicles. The best times I had in Halo were when I was driving a warthog, tank or flying jet thingy. It's a shame none of them fit everywhere, particularly underground areas.

Aside from that, Halo didn't impress me much. The indoor levels/bases were particularly bland looking, and when they threw in the undead, I just rolled my eyes. The rest of the FPS (and weapons) were pretty average... with some fun ways to kill moving enemies... but nothing outstanding.

Haven't played Halo 2... but it seemed like more fun from watching others.