London IMAX showcases Halo 3's UK launch

LONDON--Gamers, journalists, and a major hip-hop star gathered at the BFI IMAX cinema in London's Waterloo this evening to celebrate the arrival of Halo 3. The outside of the IMAX was entirely covered in Halo 3 branding, as were many of the London buses which flow past the roundabout on which the cinema is situated.

As journalists waited in a nearby lounge, rap star Pharrell Williams was greeted by paparazzi and fans as he arrived for the event along with the ubiquitous supersized bodyguard. He posed for photos with an actor dressed as Master Chief outside the building before heading upstairs to get some Halo 3 practice in before the main event.

After drinking the seemingly understocked bar dry, the press and VIPs went upstairs to the IMAX itself to join the hundreds of competition winners who had won tickets through outlets such as Xbox.com, KISS FM, and MySpace. The Halo 3 logo was projected onto the huge IMAX screen; using around half of the available space, it was an impressive sight as everyone settled into their seats.

At the front of the seats was a small stage with three flat-screen TVs and two sofas, all set up for the game everyone was waiting to see. The evening's host, British comic and known gaming fan Iain Lee, first introduced a trailer of the previous Halo games to refresh memories of what had gone before. Showcased on such a large scale, the graphical improvement as the series progressed was plain to see.

Next up were Bungie producer Joe Tung and cinematographer Lee Wilson, who gave a demonstration of a two-player cooperative campaign. They were playing on normal rather than heroic difficulty, said Tung, because "Lee isn't very good." Even so, they managed to out-fight the enemies while showcasing a variety of moves, weapons, and vehicles.

With the expert demonstration finished, Iain Lee introduced the night's headline event--a match over Xbox Live between celebrities and prizewinners in London, Paris, Madrid, Milan, and Amsterdam. London's celebrity was the diminutive Williams, joined on stage by an unnamed friend and Mark Webb, who had won a competition on MySpace. Other celebrity players included rapper LL Cool J and actress Carmen Electra. After a short delay while the match was set up, the fragfest commenced--and then paused as Williams insisted his controller configuration was changed to his preference.

The match was hard-fought, with the contest winners mostly coming out on top--Webb managed around 30 kills to finish in second place, with Electra last (one kill) and Williams coming second-to-last with two kills. There was clearly a fierce hip-hop rivalry within the match--upon killing LL Cool J, Williams stood up and exclaimed, "**** yeah!" The match was also peppered with celebrity friend requests--time will tell if crabsticks18 does end up on Williams' buddy list, but it seems unlikely.

While some in the audience clearly felt that this match had been the main event and left almost as soon as Williams was no longer onstage, Iain Lee then announced another competitive game. This time the setup was a two-versus-two deathmatch, with teams selected from the audience, half of whom had blue wristbands, and half red. Despite a few hiccups organising the teams, four players did eventually take the stage--and were told that whichever team won, that half of the audience would be given a free game. This announcement drew some cheers, and a few nervous looks.

After a 10-minute deathmatch, the red team was the clear winner with a score of 57 to blue's 34 (despite some confusion caused by the fact that the red team were wearing blue onscreen). Luckily for the audience members with blue wristbands, Microsoft's UK head of gaming and entertainment, Stephen McGill, was on hand to declare that there would be enough games for everyone.

While many of the audience then headed on to the multitude of Xbox 360 pods set up in the foyer to take each other on at multiplayer, a fair percentage headed to the exit, swapped their wristband for a copy of Halo 3 and a T-shirt, and set off into the night to "finish the fight."