It’s hard to know what to make of this. For my Riders on slow connections and those who just don’t want to click on strange links, what you will see there is a video (no doubt edited by a guy on his fifth cup of coffee) of the ‘exclusive’ Halo 3 Beta launch party held this week in Los Angeles.

Now some of you are going to accuse me of professional jealousy, and to a point, I agree. Why wasn’t the internet’s most cogent gaming culture columnist whisked out there on a private jet and allowed plenty of time to review the most anticipated release since Phantom Menace? (Ill omen bitterly implied) Well the truth is that I’m somewhat happy they didn’t.

There is an old saying: If you lay down with dogs, you’re going to get fleas (and probably arrested, but I digress). And as you saw, the line up of ‘celebrities’ attending is not exactly pedigree:

The star of the TV series Mutant X, Victoria Pratt! (Only off the air for three years!)

The guy who played a young Clark Kent in Superman Returns, Stephan Bender! (who’s Wikipedia entry hilariously makes my point for me with the statement “There are very few or no other articles that link to this one.”)

The guy who played Napoleon Dynamite’s brother…uhhh, I didn’t bother to write that one down.

What does this mean? Other then some has emptied the rolodex of L.A’s least expensive publicist? It means that someone doesn’t have the confidence in gaming’s biggest potential-sales no-brainer, Halo 3, and feels the need to wring the Hollywood dish rag dry of its last drop in order to get some attention. What, Gopher from Love Boat was busy? Or dead? (Huh? He’s alive and he was in Congress? I love this country.)

In other words, this is the: Worst. Hard sell. Ever.

Listening to these Dancing with the Stars rejects stumble out a few facts about a game that they (almost) memorized from a press release isn’t going to convince anyone who’s never played Halo 1 or 2 to suddenly start the series with number 3. Any Rider will tell you I am all about getting positive attention for the industry, but this? I’m only glad Paris was locked up, or I wouldn’t be able to look my Xbox in the eye again without feeling dirty.

The real launch is in four months. Let’s hope they can do much better then Andrew Keegan (much, much, much better) or get some people whose opinions actually matter.

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Back of the Bus is © 2007 by Seth “4:10” Robison, used with exclusive permission by gamertransit.com. Reproduction without permission is prohibited.