Halo 3 is a first-person shooter video game developed by Bungie Studios exclusively for the Xbox 360. The game is the third title in the Halo series and ends the story arc begun in Halo: Combat Evolved and continued with Halo 2. The game was released on September 25, 2007 in New Zealand (which due to its midnight release made it first available for official retail), Australia, Singapore, India, Mexico, Canada, Brazil, and the United States; September 26, 2007 in Europe; and September 27, 2007 in Japan. GameSpot reported that 4.2 million units of Halo 3 were in retail outlets on September 24, 2007, a day before official release, a world record volume release. Halo 3 also holds the record for the highest grossing opening day in entertainment history, making US$170 million in its first 24 hours.On October 4, 2007, Reuters UK estimated that Halo 3 may have sold up to 5.2 million copies. The game features new vehicles, weapons, and gameplay features not present in the previous titles of the series. Halo 3 focuses on the interstellar war between 26th century humanity and a collection of alien races known as the Covenant, who after a decades-long war have begun the invasion of Earth. The player assumes the role of the Master Chief, a cybernetically enhanced supersoldier, as he wages war in defense of humanity.

Features:

Forge: New to the Halo series, Forge is a tool that enables players to insert game objects into existing maps. Bungie considers Forge more a gametype than a tool. Almost all weapons, vehicles, and interactive objects can be placed and moved on maps with Forge. In games where Forge is enabled, players can switch to the editing mode at any time. While in this mode, a player appears to other players as a Forerunner Monitor and is still vulnerable to being attacked and killed. Objects can be spawned into the game in real-time and parameters such as ammo counts (for weapons) and respawn rates can be altered for each object.The number of objects that can exist in a map at any one time is limited, however, as each object created takes up a set amount of credits from the particular map's limit.Players can remove some of the default objects to regain credits. Altered maps can be saved and then recalled in a normal multiplayer game mode. These altered maps can also be transferred to other players using the File Sharing features.

Saved films:

The 'Saved Films' feature allows players to save a copy of multiplayer campaign game data to their Xbox 360's hard drive, so that they may watch it later on. One hundred files can be saved on a hard drive at a time.Though the public beta's implementation was very limited, its functionality is greatly extended in the final game.Players are able to view the action from almost any angle and any player's perspective (including a free-roaming camera), as well as being able to slow down the speed, though the "film" can not be played in reverse since it is actual game data. The Saved Films can even be edited in game to create a shorter clip of a particularly amazing or special moment. Players can also use the tool to take still pictures from films and upload them to the Bungie website. As the Saved Films are only the game data (not an actual video), this allows the file sizes to be relatively small. A recording for a typical "long" game is in the region of only 6 MB.Films are also be played back at whatever resolution the Xbox 360 is set to, regardless of the resolution at which the player was using at the time of the recording. All games are recreated in real-time on the Xbox 360 using the Halo 3 engine. This allows them to be shared amongst any other Xbox 360 without any compatibility issues because they all run off the same code. The Saved Films feature is described as an "excellent training aid" since players can gain valuable tactical insight into the strategies of other players by viewing the saved films.

File share:

File Sharing in Halo 3 is an online storage and sharing service for a range of files that are created in the game, and is an extension of the game's online capabilities. Files such as Saved Films, screenshots, custom gametypes and Forge settings can all be uploaded to the File Share. When the game launches, items stored there then appear on a players Bungie.net Halo 3 profile, with the ability to comment on them and queue items to download for when the player next plays the game online. Players can view and transfer these files individually to others while they are online, but can also upload them to a central, Bungie run server so other players can then download and view them even when the creating player is not online. Each player has 25 MB of storage space on the File Share. Players are able to purchase additional storage space and slots for 750 Microsoft Points, dubbed "Bungie Pro"; all Gold subscribers get 6 file slots and 25MB of storage. Bungie Pro bumps storage up to 24 slots and 250MB. While players with Xbox Live Silver do not have access to the free file-share, they may purchase Bungie Pro to share their files. Bungie has also extended the file-share to their website; players may "flag" files for download (up to 8) on Bungie.net. The next time a user signs on to their Xbox, it will automatically download the flagged files to their hard drive.