Halo 3 opens fire in the UK

Thousands of UK gamers got their hands on the most eagerly awaited game of all time last night at midnight, when Halo 3 for the Xbox 360 launched across Europe.

The game, which had clocked up a massive 1.5 million pre-orders in the US before its launch, is expected to shatter all games sales records in the coming weeks.

Halo 3 is the final installment in the hugely successful Halo series, fronted by the mysterious Master Chief super soldier and following his fight against the alien invasion force known as The Covenant. The early reviews for the first-person shooter have been resoundingly excellent.

Microsoft will be relying on Halo 3 to help drive console sales and finally make some money for its gaming division, which has yet to turn in a profit in its six years.

The game was launched in the UK last night at a high-profile media event at the IMAX cinema in London, attended by hundreds of fans and celebrities including Christian Slater and Pharrell Williams.

“With Halo 3, Bungie Studios has further mastered the art of marrying fantastic gameplay with the intangibles that make the experience extraordinary for gamers, evoking incredible emotion through its story and character development,” said Shane Kim, corporate vice president of Microsoft Game Studios.

“That emotion is at the heart of what makes this more than a game and why Halo connects with its audience in the way other great stories like Star Wars resonated with theirs. But unlike the static experiences of a great film or novel, Halo 3 offers a dynamic and social interactive entertainment experience that enables players to finish the fight themselves.”

There are three versions of the game on offer including the Standard Edition (£49.99), the Limited Edition (£59.99) and the hard-to-find Legendary Edition, which boasts lots of extras and a replica of Master Chief's helmet. Unsurprisingly, UK gamers will be paying almost double what gamers in the US are paying for Halo 3.

In related news, Microsoft has addressed the issue of some copies of Halo 3 arriving with scratched discs. It has confirmed it will replace any defective discs for free, up until the end of December.