The 'Halo 3' ARG has begun....
2:44 PM, June 15, 2007
I think we need to start hunting for symbols.
Looks like the ARG has begun. Someone found a link in Sunday's upcoming Circuit City flyer...
It leads to this site. There's a symbol at the end of the short story (which matches the symbol from the Microsoft email) and some hidden numbers (which forum posters are claiming are IP addresses). I circled the numbers in yellow here...
UPDATE: OMG!! Click the hidden numbers in the right panel and they APPEAR... then SLIDE the last panel to the right... it reveals more hidden numbers and slide the left panel and find even more numbers. It's an IP address... here it is, click it:
It's a countdown... I think to the start of the game.
VICTOR: Okay, not to be a wet blanket or anything but... aw, the heck with it, being a wet blanket is kind of fun: Aren't all the marketing shenanigans behind Halo 3, and even Halo 2, kind of annoying?
I mean, when I read this part in that e-mail you quoted (and good catch on that, by the way), it kind of made me squirm just a little bit:
the program loops through many of the Microsoft consumer oriented products and services in an attempt to leverage interest in Halo across our properties (MSN, Live Messenger, Windows Live Search, Windows Live Maps, and more).
I'm sure the various Microsoft workers who labored to put this game together are huge Halo fans (as am I, by the way), but don't you just get the sense that Steve Ballmer or some other muckety-muck at Microsoft sat down, mumbled something about "synergy" or the ability to "leverage core competencies" or some other nonsense when the topic of this ARG came up, and that really all that boils down to is the the opportunity for Microsoft to sell you more software that has nothing to do with the 360?
What's more, these real-world scavenger hunts never really tell you anything critical about the game, because Microsoft can't afford to confuse the vast majority of video gamers who will never bother to investigate the ARG. So you get whipped into a frenzy, with no real payoff at the end.
Or maybe I'm just turning into grumpy gamer. Get off my lawn! And who took my false teeth?!
Comments
Countdown...
5016026000 seconds = 159.057141 years
So the start of the game is in 159 years? It's probably a countdown for an event in the game story line.
Why does that symbol remind me of the crackdown logo?...and that one Wario Smooth moves mini-game.
Doug note: Here is an explanation of how the time works. Looks like it's counting down to June 21st at midnight.
Posted by: 808Mel | June 15, 2007 3:40 PM