Halo 3 comes out tomorrow, and it’s a sure bet to make Bungie enough money to choke a whole fleet of Arabian stallions (which is the unit by which I measure money). Their innovative advertising, depicting a diorama of the ubiquitous final battle between the Covenant and Master Chief, has been no small part of the hype machine leading up to the game.

On one hand, it’s nice to see that we’ve progressed beyond the need to prove in our gaming ads that our game can function successfully while wide-eyed eight-year-olds play and an urban stereotype declares it “radical.” Gears of War kicked things off nicely with their cinematic ad, and the Halo 3 team has followed in kind. On the other hand? The above ad, depicting a thinly veiled Russian Holocaust survivor reminiscing about how Master Chief allowed him to hold out hope against the invading Naz…uh, Covenant horde.

Major Czerneck even describes how they “ran out of ammo” and had to scavenge bullets from bodies on the ground, a familiar scenario for anyone who’s played the Russian part of Call of Duty. Maybe I’m a little oversensitive, but come on, are we really going to start marketing the HOLOCAUST now? Look out for Bungie’s next title, World of Warcraft: Birkenau.

Believe: in the power of American advertising.

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