24 Hours of Halo 3

Eventually, even the slowest connections came through and the Halo 3 Beta was downloaded on thousands of eager fans' hard drives across the world. We celebrated by joining our most fervent readers for some matches. The hours, which had gone by so slowly for the rest of the day, now passed happily.

GamesRadarTyler (10:48 PM): If posts are sparse, it's because, well, at this point, we're all playing. Glad some of you stuck out the wait and joined us - worth it, wasn't it? It may be getting late, but the battles are as heated as ever. Maybe more. The delirium only makes things more fun. Hopefully you're just reading this while waiting for your next match to load. If, unfortunately, you don't have the beta, either because it's still downloading or you didn't buy Crackdown, check out all of the awesome videos in this massive thread to get an idea of what it's like.

But don't think we're stopping! Not by far - there's still a lot more pwnage to come... we're going for the full 24 hours, after all.

Spydermanfbk (10:52 PM): WOOOOOOO!!!!!!!! Downloaded it loved it and need more of it. Here's the top 5 reasons it's totally rocking my ass off!
1. SPIKE GERNADES oh yeah stick this puppy to the other guys and watch the end result
2. MONGOOSE hop on with a shotgun and drive around popping off heads= me in love
3. NEEDLER never thought I'd say this, BUT it OWNS
4. GRAPHICS everything is smooth...me likey
5. MAN CANNON oh yeah...it rocks

Worth waiting 15 hours? Oh yeah!
P.S. Brett finally played that oddball game...it was insane.

Then, beyond all belief, disaster struck AGAIN.

GamesRadarCharlie (11:12 PM): Anyone seen this? "The Halo 3 Public Beta is either currently unavailable, or has expired. Look out for the official retail release of Halo 3 this fall!" More importantly, anyone know how to fix it?

GamesRadarBrett (11:22 PM): So yeah... we're waiting for anything to happen. It's been "Loading information from Xbox Live" for about 20 minutes now. Too many people? Beta busted? Dunno. Bungie's site still doesn't have an update, btw. Maybe it has something to do with the SIXTY SIX THOUSAND people on Halo 3 now.

GamesRadarCharlie (11:31 PM): Just in case you want to preserve this awful memory, here you go... the THIRD screen seen 'round the world.

Now imagine it flashing incessantly at you until you want to cry. Who knew our 24-hour play party would turn out to be more of a technical support forum than a party??