And with the success of Halo and Halo 2, despite the Halo movie being postponed, the buzz around Halo 3 is massive, with great expectations placed on Microsoft, Bungie and the Xbox 360 to deliver the next-gen Halo goods that we’ve all been promised.

Interestingly, the February activity centred around Halo 3 is only to register to take part in the Halo 3 beta. If you thought you’d be playing the beta in February, this isn’t the case.

What will happen is that if you buy Crackdown, an interactive fighting game that promises eye popping next-generation graphics, is set in a massive world where anything can be used as a weapon. Microsoft’s site on Crackdown has more information. This act could help turn Crackdown into a massive best seller, even though there’ll be no Halo 3 beta code on the disc. Crackdown looks like it will be a massive hit anyway, but that’s virtually guaranteed now thanks to the Halo 3 tie in. There’s already humorous speculation online as to whether or not the disc should be called the ‘Halo 3 beta featuring Crackdown’.

Crackdown will go on sale February 20 for approximately US $60. It guarantees that when the Halo 3 beta program starts, you’ll be able to place your Crackdown disc in the drive, go to Xbox Live, elect to download the Halo 3 beta, whereupon your Crackdown disc will be checked, and then you’ll be able to download the Halo 3 beta direct to your Xbox 360’s hard drive. Pretty nifty.

The other way revolves around playing 3 hours of Halo 2 on Xbox Live from the 1st to the 3rd of February, and being one of the first 13,333 people to do so. It’s called the ‘Rule of 3’, and you’ll find more information at www.halo3.com next month.

With Gears of War selling well over 2 million copies and becoming the latest Xbox 360 benchmark game, Halo 3 has some stiff competition and a massive reputation on getting this right.

Thankfully the beta process will help in ensuring that Halo 3 is as amazing a game as can possibly be, and will only serve to increase the anticipation for the final game, as the final should provide even more surprises to keep the entire Halo experience as fresh as possible despite possibly months of beta play.
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