Master Chief saves the world again when “Halo 3” comes out Sept. 25.

It’s 9 days, 17 hours and counting until the year’s biggest gaming release hits store shelves and makes a gazillion dollars for its makers, video game creator Bungie Studios and software/electronics behemoth Microsoft.

In Central Oregon, video game fans are counting every second until “Halo 3” is in their hands when it’s available Sept. 25.

“It’s gonna be huge,” says Cody Felder, owner of Cat 6, a gaming lounge in west Bend. “It’s one of the best games ever made.”

Which is why more than a million gamers nationwide have shelled out cold cash for “Halo 3,” the latest installment in Microsoft’s wildly popular trilogy for the Xbox and Xbox 360 video game consoles. And that’s before the game is even available; Microsoft has received more than 1 million pre-orders for the game, it says, and since the purchase price is a minimum of $59.99, studio execs expect “Halo 3” to earn more revenue in its first 24 hours of sales than blockbuster movie “Spider-Man 3,” the highest-debuting film ever, made during its opening weekend ($151 million in three days).

At Bend’s Game Crazy store alone, gamers have pre-ordered more than $22,000 worth of the “Halo 3” game, said gamer and worker Stephen Auker.

“It’s the biggest thing since ‘Halo 2’ came out,” Auker said, referring to the mega-best-seller released in 2004 (it made $124 million in its first 24 hours of sales).

Several local game stores plan midnight release parties for the game. At Game Crazy, a “Halo 2” tournament will precede the midnight release of the game. Auker expects a big turnout.

Master Chief to the rescue

“Halo” is a first-person shooter, which means players assume the role of the main character and see the world from his point of view, then shoot lots of bad guys with a variety of weapons available in the game. But what sets the “Halo” series apart from many other games is its plot — that’s right, plot. Fans say the game, first released in 2001, broke ground among first-person shooters in offering a cinematic, detailed storyline, not just lots of guns and violence.

The story goes like this:

In the year 2552, humans have long been at war with an alien civilization called the Covenant. The Covenant believes it can embark on a religious journey by activating a series of vast ring-shaped structures (Halos) throughout the galaxy, and in the meantime, they want to destroy humanity. But the Halos are actually a last-resort weapon system put in place long ago to destroy a sentient and deadly parasite called the Flood. As civil war breaks out among the Covenant, Master Chief, the game’s main character and the last fighting member of a legendary human battle force, must fight to preserve life in the galaxy against the threat of the Flood and of the Halos, which will destroy all sentient life in their effort to stop the Flood.

Whew. Master Chief has a lot on his armored shoulders. It’s a classic Hollywood plot: One man out to save the world. Master Chief could be Frodo, or Luke Skywalker, a Bungie spokesman told “Entertainment Weekly.” Fortunately for residents of the “Halo” world, the soldier has an impressive collection of guns, grenades, vehicles and helpers to accomplish the goal.

But the main story of the game — called the campaign — isn’t all there is to “Halo.” Players can play through the campaign, but they can also take their game online, where millions of Xboxes are linked to allow multi-player games set in the world of “Halo.” With Internet connections, audio feeds and worldwide popularity, “Halo 2,” in particular, became a phenomenon that has seen more that 500 billion matches played online, according to Bungie Studios, and more than 9 million games sold.

“Halo 3” is likely to smash that record, in time. With expanded features that allow up to four people to play through the campaign phase of the game together, and the fact that “Halo 3” is the first of the trilogy designed for the Xbox 360 instead of the now-outmoded original Xbox, the multi-player and online aspects of the game are expected to outshine predecessors, Bungie says.

Get in the game

The “Halo” franchise has fans, there’s no doubt. Some might even call them fanatics.

When Bungie released a preliminary multi-player version of “Halo 3” for testing by select gamers in May, Daniel Husted of Bend, 19, played the game, called a beta test, for 24 hours straight. Then he slept for two hours, woke up, and plugged back in for more.

“Once you start playing, it’s really hard to put the controller down,” said Husted, whose full-time job is building wiring harnesses for specialty cars.

That beta test, offered to 800,000 gamers in 25 countries for one month, was one of the ways Bungie worked bugs out of the game and improved design before its release. But the company has other methods of collecting data. Whenever someone played “Halo 2,” for example, Bungie got a download to its server, the studio said. Bungie knew exactly where in the game players lost interest or felt defeated. Consequently, “Halo 3” was structured to reward players and make them feel included.

Bungie also says the game isn’t just for “Halo” heads who already know the story. Frank O’Connor, lead writer for the game, said on Bungie’s Web site:

“‘Halo 3’ is designed so that anyone can pick it up during this chapter. It would be horribly egotistical to assume everyone has already played, or ‘gets’ ‘Halo,’ so as ever, we’ve made it approachable from a gameplay perspective, with settings to suit any player, of any skill level. We’ve also tried to ensure that the new players don’t need to read up on Halo lore to get the fiction. This is the final chapter in the trilogy, yes, but as such, it’s a big picture painted with broad strokes. A hero trying to save an imperiled galaxy. But fiction fans don’t need to worry — we’ve layered in more answers than they perhaps expect.”

Husted will get his copy of “Halo 3” on Sept. 25 — he ordered the mid-level “Limited Edition” version of the game, which costs $69.99 and comes with extras. Husted refrained from the $129.99 “Legendary” version, which comes packaged in a Master Chief helmet, but 87 others who ordered at Game Crazy bought the most expensive of the editions, Auker said.

Felder’s getting 16 copies of the game on Sept. 25 for his gaming lounge. He, too, ordered them well in advance. Based on gamers’ reaction to the beta version — they were in the lounge playing “Halo 3” all day, every day, for the duration of the test — Felder expects a big “Halo” crowd when the game’s out.

“It’s going to be crazy,” he said.

Julie Johnson can be reached at 383-0308 or jjohnson@bendbulletin.com.