Halo "Believe" Campaign

As anyone who's ever played a videogame can probably tell you, Halo 3's upcoming release is pretty big stuff. Halo 2's first-weekend revenues exceeded any Hollywood movie release of all time, including all the Spider-Mans and Pirates of the Caribbeans, and Halo 3 is expected to be even bigger, with better graphics, more multiplayer options, better online support, and a conclusion to the trilogy's storyline.

Recently Microsoft has kicked off a new "Believe" campaign for the game, which focuses on the "humanity at war" aspect of the series, earlier this week premiering a new Saving-Private-Ryan-esque TV ad with an old man visiting the "Museum of Humanity" and looking at a model of one of the battles as he recounts how he survived. See it here:

On the heels of that, however, Microsoft opens up this website, which -- after certifying that you're old enough to enter -- which allows visitors to take a 3D Flash tour through the same battlefield model the old man was staring at, stopping along the way for 360-degree views and the ability to click on icons buried in the model for more info, screenshots, and screensavers. It looks rather like a real model they built, with cotton used at one point to represent a tank's rocketfire, and plays sad piano music in the background to presumably build up the sense of loss from the war.

It's all very well done and does a fantastic job of drumming up the epic scale of the coming "war". Here's hoping the game itself is as good at creating such a mood.