[360] Halo 3 Special Edition 360

Picked mine up at midnight, the Wal-Mart I got it from only got 10 in, so it seems like these will be pretty limited. Anyway, I took some pictures of the real thing and decided to give a mini-review on it.

Click here to see all photos in full resolution







Here's the box. Looks pretty sweet, even though the idiot at the register was rough with it and made a corner have a little dent in it. I should have asked for a 50% discount as a result, but oh well.





The console itself, in my opinion, looks very nice. I think the color of green they gave it fits really well and does not remind me of throwup in the least.





However, the controller it comes with almost does. It is just the plain green without the cool "battle damage" effect or any UNSC logos/writing/etc.





The headset is nice because I finally have another one of these cheap pieces of garbage that look different than the rest, so I can finally claim one as my own and make my friends use the other ones. Other than that, it sucks. The green does NOT go at all well with the rest of the (gray) headset. And it doesn't even have the Halo logo or anything on it. Same as normal headset except with the terrible green/gray theme.



To my surprise (since I never read up on it that much since I knew I was going to buy this regardless), the console also comes with a play-and-charge kit. If you don't already have one (I do), this is a great addition, especially since it includes a rechargeable [black] battery out-of-the-box, as well as the standard AA batteries.

Unfortunately, it does not come with an HDMI cable, but it does have an HDMI port which is something I always wanted on my other 360s.



The biggest weakness on this console is easily the hard drive. You cannot easily swap it unless you want the new one to look ugly and not match, so you're stuck with this useless 20GB one. 20 gigs is not enough space, it's as simple as that. Out of the box you have 9.XX GB free because of the reserved system space, and a bunch of gay demos like Madden 07 (doesn't even make sense since 08 is out and they all suck anyway), which I promptly deleted. My 120GB HDD on my other 360 is just freakin' sweet. You never even get close to running out of space, and it's completely overkill, which is a good thing. They should have at least made the Halo 360 have 40 gigs, which would be acceptable. Oh well, at least it looks awesome.

You also get the exclusive codes to download the Halo 3 Special Edition Theme and Gamerpic Pack, which I have included in the picture for those curious about what they look like. Pretty neat.

Xbox Live Blade:


Games Blade:


Media Blade:


System Blade:


Guide:


Gamerpics (7 of them beginning with the thing to the left of the 3 logo):


Overall, this is a great thing for a huge Halo fan. Though most people aren't big enough fans to want to pay an extra $400 for this. You're basically getting a 360 Premium ($350), with HDMI ($??) (though aren't they all going to have it eventually?), and a Play and Charge Kit ($20), Exclusive DLC ($5), which means you are paying an extra $25-ish for the Halo makeover. If you think that's worth it, go for it. Otherwise, the 360 Elite is easily the best value (in my opinion).

Finally to answer questions I've seen people ask about it, I am not sure if it has the new GPU cooling stuff, since I haven't decided to void my warranty yet and check, though I'm 99% positive I will give in and do it anyway very soon. And the DVD-ROM drive that mine came with is the Hitachi.



Jam it back in, in the dark.

You guys are totally just jealous. Keep the hate comin'.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by Elixir

It isn't "hating", this is "pretending my opinions can be considered fact."

No wonder I stopped coming here.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Also, for the record, I have 1 white premium 360, 1 black premium 360 (painted) with added 120GB HDD, and now 1 Halo 3 360.

So if you want to ignore the obvious fact that I bought it because I'm a fan of the series and don't find the design ugly, I still did get an upgrade. Namely, HDMI, and the newer GPU cooling system, since I actually checked it today. And I certainly plan to replace the 20GB with another 120GB HDD. It's simply an annoyance because I'm obviously going to have to swap the external HDD shells so that my Halo theme remains intact, and yes, the price for 120GB HDDs is high.

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