Halo 3 Beta available in 3 to 6 hours, Bungie says

As seen on Bungie.net:

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Halo 3 / Crackdown : UPDATE!
SketchFactor writes:
UPDATE : 5/16/07 3:55 p.m. (PDT)
“We’re happy to finally announce that the issues being faced with the Halo 3 beta and Crackdown will be resolved shortly. The Microsoft team has found a solution and it’s undergoing final testing now.

Assuming the test pass goes according to plan, the fix will come in the form of a Crackdown title update within the next three to six hours.

We understand many of you were eagerly awaiting your chance to jump into the Halo 3 Beta and this technical issue has put a damper on your plans. Thankfully the fix is incoming and we’re sincerely sorry for any inconvenience this has caused. Ultimately we hope this will all soon be a distant memory once you pick up the Spartan Laser, launch yourself from a Mancannon and enjoy online shenanigans with your friends.

As a reminder, people who already have the Halo 3 Beta are unaffected by this issue. We’ll keep you posted as soon as we have more information.”

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Looks like we might be able to step in the boots of Master Chief before the day is out. Let’s cross our fingers and hope they’ve got their crap together this time.

Halo 3 Beta still unavailable

(Updated 3:40 P.M. PDT)

I don’t know how it is for the folks who got invited to the beta through means other than Crackdown, but if you fire up your copy of the game right now and expect to be playing Halo 3 in a few minutes, you’re wrong.

In the downloads section of the main menu of Crackdown, the Halo 3 Multiplayer Beta option is still grayed-out. If you select it, there’s still the same default message of “come back at a later date.”

Microsoft’s official Xbox site announced that the beta would be available at 5:00 A.M. PDT on May 16, 2007. That’s 7:00 A.M. and 8:00 A.M. for you central and eastern time-zone people, respectively.

Bungie released a short statement regarding the delay, which can be viewed on their site HERE. Major Nelson’s blog and Xbox customer support have been temporarily flushed down the toilet due to excessive load. Related game forums are ablaze with insanity and rampant flames. You’d do well to keep away from them. Far, far away.

Anyway, you can watch a live feed of the Crackdown download menu HERE. Y’know…to see if the option to download the Beta becomes available.

You’ll have to wait a little longer for next-gen Master Chief.

Hopefully Microsoft and Bungie will clear up this mess soon. More news as it comes.

The Price Is…um, really wrong.

So I’ve been hearing a bit of hype lately for Monster Madness: Battle for Suburbia. The demo came out a few weeks ago and I tried it out, thinking, “Oh, well, this seems interesting. I suppose it’ll be a good Xbox Live Arcade game when it’s done.”

Well, folks, guess what? Turns out that Monster Madness isn’t an Arcade title. It’s an honest-to-goodness real game, with a real disc and box and instructions and the like. This also means it carries the honest-to-goodness real price of $59.99.

Wow.

First off, let me mention that $60 is a high price to pay for many things, including games. I have a hard time parting with that much money even when I know the disc on the other side of the glass case is a grade-A title with tons of replay value. But paying $60 for a game that should essentially be a $10 Xbox Live Arcade game?

That, folks, is garbage.

I bet there’ll be a bunch of downloadable content, too, so you can pay $10 for a couple of costumes and bring up the final price to somewhere near eighty dollars.

Anyway, the reviews haven’t been so hot, so apparently the industry is getting a whiff of the stench brought on by this whole deal. Gentle reader, do yourself a favor—stay away from this game. That way, your wallet won’t explode once it realizes what kind of scam it’s being suckered into.