Halo 2 brings new cyberstar

There’s a new media king, only he isn’t on the radio or in the movies. His name? Master Chief. His role: Interstellar soldier and star of Halo 2, one of the most anticipated video games ever.

Across the United States, fans lined up for hours at some 7,000 planned “midnight madness” events Tuesday to get first crack at the $50 (€38.80) sequel from Microsoft Corp.

Millions have apparently caught Halo 2 fever. Microsoft said it had 1.5 million copies pre-ordered, and predicted first-day sales of more than $100m (€77.5m).

Three years in the making, Halo 2 pits super soldier Master Chief against throngs of vicious aliens called the Covenant.

It picks up right where the first game ended. It’s the year 2552, and Master Chief – a last-of-his-kind engineered fighting machine who wears full body armour and a protective helmet – has just destroyed a giant ring world called Halo.

The ring turns out to be an ancient alien artefact that was built as a last-ditch doomsday weapon against an all-consuming life form called the Flood.

After decades of skirmishes with various human colonies, the Covenant has finally found humanity’s home world. It’s up to the player, who assumes the role of Master Chief, to stop them at all cost.

Getting to play as the lead character is part of Halo’s attraction, but the real draw is the multiplayer feature. The original game, which has sold five million copies, is limited to split screen battles with interconnected Xboxes.

Halo 2, by Microsoft’s Bungie Studios, is much more ambitious, allowing up to 16 gamers to play against each other from anywhere in the world using Microsoft’s $50 (€38.80)-a-year Xbox Live service.

Greg Kasavin, editor at the video game website Gamespot.com, attributed Halo’s popularity to its story, which is rich for a video game and has been further chronicled in a series of novels and spawned an array of fan offshoots, such as the short Red vs Blue Internet films.

“Those disappointed by the Star Wars prequels or how The Matrix panned out probably find solace in the no-nonsense action and great sci-fi presented in Halo,” he said. “Above and beyond that, though, the original Halo game featured some outstanding, never-before-seen gameplay.”

Halo 2 debuts in the middle of a busy time for video game fans. Several other high-profile games have either recently come out or will be released soon, including Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and Half-Life 2.

Kasavin said he didn’t expect Halo 2 to affect those other games much, because each one is unique to a particular platform. Halo 2 is Xbox only, while San Andreas is exclusive to the PlayStation 2 and Half-Life 2 is for personal computers.

Independent filmmaker Brian Josselyn, 30, said he waited about three hours at a mall near his home in Andover, Massachusetts, to buy two copies of Halo 2, one for himself and one for his brother.

He said video games are simply the newest media to snare a base of dedicated fans.

“Earlier on it was poetry and books. Then it went on to voice acting and radio. Then motion pictures.

"Games are just the next step,” he said.