Games of the Generation: Halo 3

This one might seem like a bit of an obvious choice for someone who worked on Halo 4 and now works at Bungie, but it is a bit of a different, interesting milestone for me in this generation.  I highly respect and like Halo 3, I think it's a great achievement, but what sticks out for me, is that Halo 3 is the first game this generation with truly out of control hype.  The hype machine was turned to 50.  Halo 3 brought a ton of stuff with it, four player co-op over live in a game with complicated physics, an incredible matchmaking system and some of the best multiplayer ever in video games.

But man, it also brought an incredible hype train.  The Believe ad campaign, the Starry Night ad, just and incredible tour de force of advertising, making sure the world was ready for another Halo game.  I remember standing in line for my midnight copy outside of Gamestop in Westwood Village in Los Angeles, and not only were there tons of "norms" lined up, there were frat boy types driving by in trucks cheering us on yelling "HALO", not making fun of the people lined up for a video game.  It was really an incredible event, and a turning point in AAA gaming.

A bunch of us at Pandemic (including what turned out to be 3 future Bungie employees) picked it up at midnight and went home and played until we finished the game the next day.  We actually took the day off to play through Halo 3, that's what an event it was for us.  It was a great campaign, but it was buoyed by the incredible hype machine that came before it. It also sort of marks the "end" of an era of shooters.  More run and gun shooters came after Halo 3 (Notably Halo: Reach and Halo 4), but the next game in my Games of the Generation was about to change everything.