Rampancy

ax pointed out in the community forum that Planet GameCube is reporting that Nintendo is allowing retailers to sell the GameCube as soon as it arrives in stores. Apparently the FYE stores in Connecticut are already selling the new system, which wasn't originally going to be made available until November 18.

If you have pre-ordered the GameCube, you may wish to call the store you purchased it from because if they have received the shipment, you will be able to start gaming a few days earlier.

While they called the graphics undeniably pretty and loaded with all sorts of eye candy , PlanetXbox has been less than completely pleased with Halo as a complete package in its latest review:

Since finishing Halo a week ago, I've had a hard time deciding how to review it. On one hand, Halo is a darned good game -- it's ambitious, has some great action and an engaging story. If you pre-ordered an Xbox months ago, Halo should absolutely be in your shopping cart when you wheel your new Xbox out of the store.

At the same time, I can't help but feel a little disappointed -- Halo is hardly the revolutionary game it's been hyped up to be. It contains some truly brilliant moments, but along with feeling like a PC game trapped in a console's body, it also contains a frustrating amount of uninspired, repetitive gameplay that may well have you yelling at your TV.

While the review takes care not to give away anything about the story, the reviewer does suggest that some may have issues with the direction the story eventually takes. Interesting. What could it mean? The review goes on:

While I was a bit disappointed that there weren't more than two races represented within the Covenant, it should be noted that there are other threats in the game that (purposefully) haven't been mentioned in previews or shown in screenshots. I won't give away any spoilers here; suffice it to say that they're not in short supply...and many may find them eerily reminiscent of another popular game...

Normally I'd expect a remark like that to fuel some rampant speculation; however, I suspect a large number of us are going to know in a few days time, which will bring us the difficult tasks of how to manage spoiler information for those who won't have their hands on an Xbox for a few weeks (like me) or are waiting for the Mac/PC version of Halo, as about half our readers are, according to the most recent poll.

The Xbox commercials are now all over television screens, including Halo's commercial. Within 90 minutes, I caught the Oddworld commercial two or three times and Dead Or Alive 3's commercial once on Fox. Shortly after, I saw the Halo commercial on The WB. Of course it was only a matter of time before these commercials became available online, and well, now they have.

TeamXbox has got the first four Xbox commercials available for download on their site in ASF format. If you are looking for the Halo commercial in MPG format, then you can thank Kayas for sending a 320x240 version to HBO, who has in turn uploaded it to their Mac.com server. Get downloadin'; it's good!

no7orious was kind enough to write not one, but two great reports covering his experience at the Halo launch party. The first report covers the span of the entire launch party, describing who did what, who played what, and what was played. The party started with an on-screen Halo drill sergeant getting people in line:

Right away a Halo drill sergeant was on the screen telling the attendees that he was expecting muscular good looking participants, and instead he had a bunch of pussy geeks in front of him. After that though he gave us a very short introduction to Halo, showed us the enemy (a grunt) and then shot it in the back. People cheered. The party had (officialy) begun.

The second report gives some Bungie responses to rumors, such as the Mac and PC versions of Halo, Phoenix, and SeventhColumn.org.