Halo 3 is officially out now and has dominated my friends’ list to an extent I haven’t seen since Gears of War on Emergence Day. Before the launch, I was invited to a community lock-in event by Microsoft to spend all day on the 24th getting down and dirty with the new shooter.

It was an excellent chance to sit down with 16 other people and get my frag on. Arguably some of these guys are amongst the best Halo players in North America, and I had the honor of getting my fanny kicked by all sorts of people.

The morning was spent digging into the campaign, which I’ve now finished, but I don’t want to say anything about that right now, because I don’t want to spoil anything yet. You guys need to hurry and finish the fight, though, because I don’t know how long I can hold back.

The rest of the day was spent playing an assortment of 8v8 and 16-man free-for-all matches using a variety of maps, gametypes, and weapon loadouts. One would think that 9+ hours of multiplayer would get old, but just like it’s forerunners, Halo 3 is going to be the defacto LAN game of choice for many gamers. Game modes that seemed crappy in earlier editions, like territories, have been changed significantly to make them insanely more fun. Participants in the Beta will likely already know this.

There is also a smattering of new gametypes like VIP and Infection. Zombie games were never really my thing in Halo 2, so I haven’t bothered to try them out in Halo 3, but the new VIP modes are loads of fun.

After the fragfest, we headed over to the Bellevue, WA Best Buy to see Bill Gates, Warren Moon, and others. Bungie showed up in several buses, which disgorged a fountain of Halo 3 swag into the crowd. The people waiting in line were going crazy, and I did manage to interview several of them. Unfortunately, my poor little audio recorder wasn’t able to handle all of the background noise, so none of the audio was usable. Guess I need to invest in a better mic.

And no community event in Seattle would be complete without a trip to the Family Pancake House in Redmond, home of the Bacon Waffle.

Anyway, be sure to check out my flickr set and I’ll see you guys in Matchmaking.