E3 07: Microsoft throws gauntlet at press conference

Finish the fight
If you thought Halo was going to be represented solely by a teenage cover band and a silly special edition console... well, you're crazy. The Microsoft press conference began and ended with Halo. The ending, a cinematic series of very quick flashes, showed off more of the single player campaign than we've seen to this date.

Cortana was definitely in there, suffering some kind of mental injury as the AI hologram collapsed to her knees in front of Master Chief. We also glimpsed Miranda Keyes, whipping dual pistols around with action hero style. And was that the Arbiter standing shoulder to shoulder with our Spartan hero on the cliff?

So what about those graphics? The ones that were less than mind-blowing in the multiplayer beta? We were definitely more impressed this time around, but that could have been due simply to the dark and dramatic new footage. While we're still not convinced Halo 3 will look better than Gears of War, we do hope the story and scale of the epic can blow it away. This trailer has our hopes higher than ever.

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