So, rhythm games. I have to say, when it comes to this genre, I have never been a fan. DDR, Amplitude, In The Groove, and about a bazillion clones and homages - they just never struck me as “fun” and since “fun” is why I play games, they never really got much time in any of the various game machines I’ve owned.

This all changed a couple weeks back, when a demo of Guitar Hero III was released on XBoxLive. For some reason, I decided to give it a chance, and it really really grew on me. I’m now the proud owner of the retail version of the game, complete with a wireless Gibson Les Paul-alike controller. I should actually have two of these controllers, but that is a story for later.

Playing with the not-quite-a-guitar-but-almost controller makes the game even more fun. And while I am being forced, in Career Mode, to play some songs I would rather not [Stevie Ray Vaughn's 'Pride & Joy'? As an encore? REALLY??] there are also some tracks I love, including Dead Kennedys‘ Holiday in Cambodia and Black Sabbath’s Paranoid. Better still, I’m being exposed to good music I’d never heard before, including heard-of-but-never-heard Die Toten Hosen’s Hier Kommt Alex.

The difficulty ramping of the game is well done. Playing on Easy mode [I'm a wimp, shuddup] I found that it started as a complete doddle, but a few hours in, it’s gotten to the point where it’s obviously more difficult, but I’ve gotten better at about the same speed, so there’s a good feeling of “hey! look at me rock!” as I play more complicated note progressions and chords.

Now, if only I had that other controller, Chelle and I could be playing Co-op Career mode.

So, on the 25th of September, I dutifully rocked up at my local Game and bought Halo 3. The ‘limited edition’ steel case version, because She thinks they look better on the shelf.

I’m not sure what is so ‘limited edition’ about it - I didn’t have a pre-order, and the sales clerk looked a little befuddled when I suggested that asking if they had any left might be a stupid question.

Now, I haven’t had a lot of time to invest in Halo 3 yet , but what I have seen - a small amount of the solo campaign, and a couple hours of online Slayer - is quite enjoyable. I quite definitely intend to put in the effort required to complete the campaign, and I know from the ‘beta test’ that I’ll probably log a good lot of hours in online play, even if I do suck at it.

What I am having trouble fathoming is the Halo 3 hype-machine. Why is this game getting 100% reviews from most of the mainstream press? It’s a good game - a great one, even. But it’s not exactly ground-breaking. It is visually attractive, but certainly not as stunning as Gears of War or Bioshock. To call the gameplay ‘derivative’ would be an understatement. And while I haven’t seen enough of the story to give an accurate appraisal, I will certainly be surprised if it is a better story than Bioshock. I’m personally expecting something of about the calibre of Gears of War as far as Halo 3’s story is concerned.

I can’t help but feel that a lot of the reviewers awarded their 100% ratings before the game was even out of the packaging, mistaking ‘how badly I want to play this game’ for ‘how good this game actually is.’

Then we come to the ‘amazing’ ‘ground breaking’ ‘new’ features in Halo 3. Theatre, and Forge. Both excellently implemented, and both wonderfully suited to a game like Halo 3. But I am reading people in awe that the recording is done as a data file format, rather than a straight live camera video, like it’s a new idea. As if it isn’t the Way Things Have Been Done for god-knows-how-long, because a 5 mb data file of an entire match has significant performance and storage advantages over a 5gb video file of same.

I’m not bagging out Halo 3 here - it’s an excellent game, and I’m excited to find the time to play it properly. But no more excited than I am to find the time to play Stranglehold, nor than I was to play Gears of War; and not as much as I was to play Bioshock.

So why is this game selling hardware? Why are people swallowing everything the MS/Bungie hype-machine spews at them and having nerdgasms spontaneously as they respew the same hype back to eagerly awaiting others? Why is ‘Xbox 360 Exclusive “Halo 3â€? Registers Biggest Day in US Entertainment History with $170 Million in Sales’ an actual, real sentence?

It’s a good game, and I’m going to enjoy it, but the majority of the press I’m reading about it is just making me think BFW.

I’m glad the game is selling well - it deserves to. But there are plenty of other games that deserve to sell as well, if not better.

Update: I’ve now put a decent number of hours into Halo 3’s single player campaign, and everything I have said thus far holds true. Additionally, I am noticing something… When did reviewers decide it was a-okay to give 100% reviews to a game which stalls for 1 to 5 seconds while ‘loading’ part of a level? I’m not talking about a loading screen while I transition between areas, I’m talking “game freezes in place while I’m mid-step and ‘loading…’ appears in the bottom left corner” kinda thing. It’s doesn’t happen every time - sometimes the ‘loading…’ thing comes up and it is as seamless as I have come to expect from current games. But more often than not, it at least lags for a second, sometimes longer. It’s not game-breaking, but in a world-without-hype, it’d certainly rate a mention in a review, and at least a 1% rating loss.

100% awesome.

It’s shaping up to be an expensive month for gaming, with the next few months looking to be not much better.

Firstly, just around the corner we have Shadowrun -  a First Person Shooter based on the old p+p RPG that is seeing simultaneous release on PC and xb360, and cross-platform online play. Criticisms I’ve seen so far range from “no depth” through “no single player campaign” to “this is nothing like the old RPG” and similar sentiments.

The latter seems a bit dumb, since it’s not an RPG. If you don’t like shooters, you’re not going to like a shooter based on an old RPG any more than one based on anything else.

The lack of single player campaign would be a bit of an issue if the game was being released at full price, which it seems *is* the case in the USA. However, here in Australia [and I believe the situation in the UK and Europe is similar] it is being released at $65 - a smidge over half the price of many regular XBox360 releases. And besides, there is an offline single-player mode - it’s just bot-based matches, much like Unreal Tournament had.

I played the demo for a little while before work this morning, and I have to say it plays beautifully.  The graphics aren’t amazing, but they’re good enough - what makes it for me is the gameplay. I think this is a must-buy for me.

A little further ahead this month we have Overlord - somewhere between Dungeon Keeper and Black & White,  this looks like a real fun time. The demo is downloading while I work, so I should get a look at it tonight, but the screens and videos I’ve seen so far look great. Another probable must-buy.

Tenchu Z,  The Darkness, and Armored Core 4 are all also coming out this month, and look interesting enough to at least have a closer look at.

In the following months, GTA4, Mass Effect, Kane and Lynch: Dead Men, Halo 3, and many others will be vying for my attention and dollars - I think I’m going to need a second, and possibly third job.

Oh my. Where is this game? Why am I not playing it right this very minute?

So a few days ago, the Halo 3 Beta went live.

Now, truth be told, I never really got into Halo, and I don’t think I ever even played Halo 2. The small amount of multiplayer Halo I played seemed sluggish, unpolished, and somewhat boring. The high-speed action of Unreal Tournament just blew Halo multiplayer away, at least in my experience.

Halo 3, on the other hand… Wow. I wasn’t actually expecting a lot from it, but since I had bought Crackdown - a great game, and anyone who bought it just for the H3 Beta invite should be shot - anyway, I figured I’d grab the beta and see what all the fuss was about.

Visually, it’s stunning. These days, I don’t expect much less than awesome from 360 visuals - everyone seems to have gotten a good grasp on the hardware now, and so even crappy games look good - but Halo 3 is really beautiful. Amazing scenery, grass waving in the breeze, awesome explosions; it looks great.

More surprisingly though, is that it also plays brilliantly. The Matchmaking system seems fair, the gametypes are well balanced, and the netcode makes the entire experience feel like I am playing on a LAN.

I’m absolutely pants at it, of course - FPS has never been my strong suit, and console FPS even less so - but it’s a lot of fun, and I kinda feel if I stick at it, I may actually lern2play. I’ve had a few lucky victories in King of the Hill games, but usually I’m in the bottom half of the table. Still, I’m having fun with it.

So I’m impressed - Halo 3’s “maybe rent” has turned into a “almost definitely buy” for me.