Halo 2 day is approaching and the worst thing that can happen to a gamer on that auspicious day is to encounter a technical fault with his xBox. Not even the genetically enhanced super-soldier, Master Chief could help him out on this one. He’d be too busy acting as a buffer between the relentless Covenant and the destruction of all humankind.
Halo 2 has broken video game records, with pre-orders of more than 1.5 million in the US alone and is even projected to bring in more revenue than any day one box office blockbuster movie including Spider-man 2, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and Matrix: Reloaded. No other game has ever surpassed one million.
Some 6,500 US stores plan to open just after midnight on Tuesday 9 November for the game’s release, and the Toys R Us in Times Square, New York, will sell the very first copy. Halo 2 will be released in the UK and Ireland on November 11th. Many are already dubbing this Halo Flu day, predicting the number of people taking the day off sick.
Five million copies of the original Halo: Combat Evolved, were sold on Xbox, PC and Mac platforms, so one can only imagine that it successor will at the very least equal this figure.
Halo 2’s burnished armour may have been slightly dulled by the release of a reportedly French language pirate version onto the Internet last week with illicit code turning up on a several piracy websites and newsgroups – a development which apparently angered many fans. Not surprisingly, Microsoft intends to pursue the culprits using the full rigour of the law.
The people at Bungie Studios, Halo 2’s developers are understandably aghast at the thought of years of hard work being stolen, and the ‘Underground Army’ has been called into action to short circuit the spoilers. Perhaps Master Chief will also lend a hand.
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