By: Chella Ramanan

GiN European Correspondent

The queues were already building outside Game Stars and there was an air of quiet anticipation. The doors opened and it was a question of locating the Xbox stand as soon as possible. I did and got myself in the sweet position of being about 15th in the queue – result!

The stand was dressed to the max, with palm trees and rough terrain, featuring real packed down rocks to get us in the mood. A huge screen played a rolling demo, complete with commentary from the dev team. An hour later and I was ushered into the Halo style building. We were the red team and our job was to shoot all living hell out of the blue team in the room next door.

Needless to say our 15 minutes ended in what seemed like five.

Because it was a multi-player experience and all sorts of carnage was taking place, it was difficult to concentrate on graphics and the like. One thing I can say is that Halo online is going to be awesome. It looks like the team have taken note of the one complaint we all had last time – too many boring, samey environments. We were in a semi demolished base, featuring bridges, balconies and great vantage points. Then we headed down to the beach for some full on action.

An all too brief session with Halo 2, but it's looking good and news of improvements such as destructible vehicles, a boost button and the ability to steal banshees off opponents, means roll on November.

And judging by the monumental queues that formed once Game Stars was open to the public; it looks like I'm not the only one waiting expectantly.