If you couldn't tell, Halo Fever is in full force right now. The game may not be perfect (sorry Eurogamer) but it certainly has its selling points and I think Microsoft's boast that they want to dethrone Spider-Man 3's mammoth opening weekend with a mammoth Halo 3 launch day aren't that outlandish.

We've sent our very own Fahey over to New York City to check in on the Halo-mania going on later on tonight. Remember at the stroke of midnight you can pick up a copy of the last in the Halo trilogy... unless you picked it up at one of the many places that seemed to have sold the game early. Once you play through the entire game I'd love to hear your thoughts on it.

In the meantime sit back and check out these pictures from New Zealand, the first place in the world where Halo 3 launched. Nicole Sinclair and Ryan Marsden, both 19, were the first two in the world to pick the game up from a retailer.... who didn't break embargo.

New Zealand Microsoft also celebrated the launch by freezing 50 prize discs in a one ton block of ice. Gamers have until 6 a.m. to melt the ice with water guns and get the prizes.

With all the cold shoulders the PLAYSTATION 3 has been getting in PAL regions, we have been looking for good news. Sadly, we haven't found any. But, Kotakuite Petr from the Czech Republic sends this:

It was for the first time that something like this has happened here. Never before were there official console launches in CR. Anyway, the whole event was held in a specialized Sony Store named Elvia-Pro in the centre of Prague. It was advertised in print and online media for a good half of March. In spite of this, my expectations regarding number of people willing to stand in line for several hours for PS3 weren't overly high. So, I was surprised to find out, that thirty minutes before midnight, the line was 15 - 20 meters long. According to Sony Czech, there were at least 130 people waiting for PS3 including some minor celebrities. After several hours, PS3 was sold out (there were only about 1000 PS3 for CR launch), which is true for all the Czech Republic. In the end, PS3 launch in CR was by my opinion fairly successful.

Whew! And we were getting worried. Brian Ashcraft