[GAME] Halo 3

[Emperor]

Can someone summarize the review for me as I don't like watching video at work...

[SinisterDeath]

Is the spartan helmet wearable?

 

No.

 

]Can someone summarize the review for me as I don't like watching video at work...

 

Its not exactly a review that can be summarized, it loses what it has in a summary, half the fun is listening to it.

[Emperor]

Microsoft today announced that their super-blockbuster shooter Halo 3 has made over $300 million in its first week of release. With that kind of money, you could buy like 15 hamburgers!

 

Additionally, Microsoft reports sales of Xbox 360s have doubled since the game was released last Tuesday.

 

“‘Halo’ is truly a cultural phenomenon, and the launch of ‘Halo 3’ is an important milestone for Xbox 360 and for video games as entertainment and as an art form,” said Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft, as he swam about in a pool filled with liquid gold. “‘Halo 3’ embodies our vision for the future of entertainment, where some of the world’s greatest creative minds will deliver a new generation of interactive storytelling.”

 

"Now get out of here before I have you murdered, peasant," he did not add.

 

[Tenshin_Xo]

yeah to echo that, I'm considering hocking my wii for a 360.

[Vemynal]

that was perhaps one of the most awesome things i have ever seen (the halo 3 review not the game)

 

Anyways i finally got to play the game today and i thought that halo 3 was really good. Is bioshock better then it? probably (I actually don't know but I've seen so many video's of that game I don't know whether to play it or try and sleep with it^^)

 

But Halo 3 is about the multi-player, its about getting 15 friends to come over to your house with their shit, getting wasted/stoned w/e your preference and trash talking each other and you try and knock the opposing player out of his/her warthogs with your warthog^^

 

Thus Halo 3 = awesome imo^^

 

And if you hock your wii can I have it? SSB: Brawl is coming out soon^^

[Silver]

too bad it aint coming out for the PC

 

PC FPS > Console FPS

[SinisterDeath]

too bad it aint coming out for the PC

 

PC FPS > Console FPS

 

All the other Halo's came to pc, I see no reason why they wouldn't put it on the pc. :P

 

Bioschock is great, but I don't think it has Multi-player? Or if it does, it sucks.

[Silver]

Halo 2 only JUST came to the PC. and it's only for Vista!

 

 

edit: and by just, i mean May for US, and June for UK

[Emperor]

Ummmm yeah... check this...

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/07/us/07halo.html?_r=4&pagewanted=1&oref=slogin

[SinisterDeath]

Ummmm yeah... check this...

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/07/us/07halo.html?_r=4&pagewanted=1&oref=slogin

 

Requires loggin >_>

[Emperor]

Do I have to do everything for you sin... want me to call and read it for you too *g*

 

First the percussive sounds of sniper fire and the thrill of the kill. Then the gospel of peace.

 

Across the country, hundreds of ministers and pastors desperate to reach young congregants have drawn concern and criticism through their use of an unusual recruiting tool: the immersive and violent video game Halo.

 

The latest iteration of the immensely popular space epic, Halo 3, was released nearly two weeks ago by Microsoft and has already passed $300 million in sales.

 

Those buying it must be 17 years old, given it is rated M for mature audiences. But that has not prevented leaders at churches and youth centers across Protestant denominations, including evangelical churches that have cautioned against violent entertainment, from holding heavily attended Halo nights and stocking their centers with multiple game consoles so dozens of teenagers can flock around big-screen televisions and shoot it out.

 

The alliance of popular culture and evangelism is challenging churches much as bingo games did in the 1960s. And the question fits into a rich debate about how far churches should go to reach young people.

 

Far from being defensive, church leaders who support Halo — despite its “thou shalt kill” credo — celebrate it as a modern and sometimes singularly effective tool. It is crucial, they say, to reach the elusive audience of boys and young men.

 

Witness the basement on a recent Sunday at the Colorado Community Church in the Englewood area of Denver, where Tim Foster, 12, and Chris Graham, 14, sat in front of three TVs, locked in violent virtual combat as they navigated on-screen characters through lethal gun bursts. Tim explained the game’s allure: “It’s just fun blowing people up.”

 

Once they come for the games, Gregg Barbour, the youth minister of the church said, they will stay for his Christian message. “We want to make it hard for teenagers to go to hell,” Mr. Barbour wrote in a letter to parents at the church.

 

But the question arises: What price to appear relevant? Some parents, religious ethicists and pastors say that Halo may succeed at attracting youths, but that it could have a corroding influence. In providing Halo, churches are permitting access to adult-themed material that young people cannot buy on their own.

 

“If you want to connect with young teenage boys and drag them into church, free alcohol and pornographic movies would do it,” said James Tonkowich, president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy, a nonprofit group that assesses denominational policies. “My own take is you can do better than that.”

 

Daniel R. Heimbach, a professor of Christian ethics at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, believes that churches should reject Halo, in part because it associates thrill and arousal with killing.

 

“To justify whatever killing is involved by saying that it’s just pixels involved is an illusion,” he said.

 

Focus on the Family, a large evangelical organization, said it was trying to balance the game’s violent nature with its popularity and the fact that churches are using it anyway. “Internally, we’re still trying to figure out what is our official view on it,” said Lisa Anderson, a spokeswoman for the group.

 

There is little doubting Halo’s cultural relevance. Even as video games have grown in popularity, the Halo series stands out. The first Halo and Halo 2 sold nearly 15 million copies combined. Microsoft says that Halo 3 “is on track to become the No. 1 gaming title of all time.”

 

Hundreds of churches use Halo games to connect with young people, said Lane Palmer, the youth ministry specialist at the Dare 2 Share Ministry, a nonprofit organization in Arvada, Colo., that helps churches on youth issues.

 

“It’s very pervasive,” Mr. Palmer said, more widespread on the coasts, less so in the South, where the Southern Baptist denomination takes a more cautious approach. The organization recently sent e-mail messages to 50,000 young people about how to share their faith using Halo 3. Among the tips: use the game’s themes as the basis for a discussion about good and evil.

 

At Sweetwater Baptist Church in Lawrenceville, Ga., Austin Brown, 16, said, “We play Halo, take a break and have something to eat, and have a lesson,” explaining that the pastor tried to draw parallels “between God and the devil.”

 

Players of Halo 3 control the fate of Master Chief, a tough marine armed to the teeth who battles opponents with missiles, lasers, guns that fire spikes, energy blasters and other fantastical weapons. They can also play in teams, something the churches say allows communication and fellowship opportunities.

 

Complicating the debate over the appropriateness of the game as a church recruiting tool are the plot’s apocalyptic and religious overtones. The hero’s chief antagonists belong to the Covenant, a fervent religious group that welcomes the destruction of Earth as the path to their ascension.

 

Skip to next paragraph

Enlarge This Image

 

Kevin Moloney for The New York Times

Gregg Barbour, in baseball hat, the youth minister of the Colorado church, with Jason Bacon, left, and Tanner Bell, both 14.

 

Enlarge This Image

 

Kevin Moloney for The New York Times

The Colorado Community Church is one of many across the nation reaching out to young people through the video game Halo.

Microsoft said Halo 3 was a “space epic” that was not intended to make specific religious references or be more broadly allegorical. Advocates of using the game as a church recruiting tool say the religious overtones are sufficiently cartoonish and largely overlooked by players.

 

Martial images in literature or movies popular with religious people are not new. The popular “Left Behind” series of books — it also spawned a video game — dealt with the conflict preceding the second coming of Christ. Playing Halo is “no different than going on a camping trip,” said Kedrick Kenerly, founder of Christian Gamers Online, an Internet site whose central themes are video games and religion. “It’s a way to fellowship.”

 

Mr. Kenerly said the idea that Halo is inappropriately violent too strictly interpreted the commandment “Thou shalt not kill.” “I’m not walking up to someone with a pistol and shooting them,” he said. “I’m shooting pixels on a screen.”

 

Mr. Kenerly’s brother, Ken Kenerly, 43, is a pastor who recently started a church in Atlanta and previously started the Family Church in Albuquerque, N.M., where quarterly Halo nights were such a big social event that he had to rent additional big-screen TVs.

 

Ken Kenerly said he believed that the game could be useful in connecting to young people he once might have reached in more traditional ways, like playing sports. “There aren’t as many kids outdoors as indoors,” he said. “With gamers, how else can you get into their lives?”

 

John Robison, the current associate pastor at the 300-member Albuquerque church, said parents approached him and were concerned about the Halo games’ M rating. “We explain we’re using it as a tool to be relatable and relevant,” he said, “and most people get over it pretty quick.”

 

David Drexler, youth director at the 200-member nondenominational Country Bible Church in Ashby, Minn., said using Halo to recruit was “the most effective thing we’ve done.”

 

In rural Minnesota, Mr. Drexler said, the church needs something powerful to compete against the lure of less healthy behaviors. “We have to find something that these kids are interested in doing that doesn’t involve drugs or alcohol or premarital sex.” His congregation plans to double to eight its number of TVs, which would allow 32 players to compete at one time.

 

Among parents at the Colorado Community Church, Doug Graham, a pediatric oncologist with a 12-year-old son, said that he was not aware of the game’s M rating and that it gave him pause. He said he felt that parents should be actively involved in deciding whether minors play an M-rated game. “Every family should have a conversation about it,” he said.

 

Mr. Barbour, the youth pastor at the church, said the game had led to a number of internal discussions prompted by elders who complained about its violent content. Mr. Barbour recently met for several hours with the church’s pastor and successfully made his case that the game was a crucial recruiting tool.

 

In one letter to parents, Mr. Barbour wrote that God calls ministers to be “fishers of men.”

 

“Teens are our ‘fish,” he wrote. “So we’ve become creative in baiting our hooks.”

 

 

[SinisterDeath]

Do I have to do everything for you sin... want me to call and read it for you too *g*

 

Yes.

 

About the article, interesting, very interesting indeed. Would almost make a worthy topic of D&D, alas, it involves Halo 3, so it won't do. :P

 

Well at least there is one good news out of this.

Those churches aren't trying to make 'cheap' video games like the infamous "Bible Games".

 

But I have to wonder, instead of calling your friend who killed you in halo 3 at that event, "an ass" or "bastard" would you be instead have to use 'curse words' used ni the bible? Or quote passages about doom and destruction? :P

[Emperor]

Wow... it is like Sin's words are coming out my mouth. 

[Vemynal]

Empy, any chance you live in Sonoma County California? We just had a newspaper feature that like exact same article here.

[SinisterDeath]

Wow... it is like Sin's words are coming out my mouth. 

 

It was a wierd bug, there was no

at the end of my post, so it should have been broken, but instead it quoted the entire post...

 

I blame Seg, he obviously editted my post because it was sooo great, it had to have come from emp, not the likes of me. :P

 

 

This is me editing your post:

 

HALO3 RULES!  I WILL PWN J00Z!

;D

[Emperor]

No, I live in Philadelphia.  I did live in CA for a few months though. 

[Segurant]

Sin,

 

If I edited your post it would be pro Halo.

[SinisterDeath]

Sin,

 

If I edited your post it would be pro Halo.

 

Or maybe, you editted my post and to cover up your mischief deeds, you make it sound ilke some sorta non-you who editted it. :P