Everywhere I went this week, I saw Halo 3. Even in school on the day before the game was to be released, I saw people in the cafeteria playing Halo 2 on the flat screen as a sort of send off to the epic game. All of my friends were calling me to ask if I was going to get the game; of course, I would reply, “HECK YEA!” Even people who I knew didn’t game or own a console were talking about Halo 3. NYC was crazed with the anticipation of Halo 3 and the Best Buy midnight launch event which I didn’t get a chance to go to. I had my reasons (I got my hands on the game the day before, tee hee). But from what I heard, it was pretty cool since the first two people in line got their copies for free from the Chief himself. I even heard that one of them cried a little; well, at least he didn’t have any shame.

The day after the midnight launch was probably one of the worst days for Halo 3 to come out - well, for me it was. Tuesdays are the days that I have the longest school schedule, 9am to 9pm classes. Luckily, I have a break in between, which gives me a chance to head over to Manhattan and record Level Up. FYI - for those who don’t know, Level Up is a video game show in Maxim Sirius 108 that I co-host. Since it was a special day we had two very cool people in the studio (or as my co-host Scott would like to call them: the Matt Damon and Ben Affleck of the video game industry), Xbox Live’s Major Nelson and Geoff Keighley from Game Head. It was great having them on the show since they had tons of experience with Halo 3 and they gave callers some great advice.

One of the funniest things that happened on the show was when Scott asked, “What were people’s excuses to not go to work so that they can stay home and play Halo 3?” One guy told his boss that he had to pick his cousin up from the airport while another guy told his boss that his girlfriend have him an unpleasant STD. In response to the STD excuse, his boss told him, “Take as much time off as you need.” These are great things to keep in mind when choosing what to say to your superior at work when you want to stay home and game. I don’t know about the STD thing though.

Happy Halo!