That was the question I found myself asking for the past few months ever since I started seeing news about it. Is it a game? Is it a stat tracker? Is it just an easy way for Microsoft to try to sell me crap? And, most importantly, does it deserve to be on my “Nav”? Well, since it was a free download, I put it in my queue and gave it a whirl last week, and this is what I found.

I think first and foremost, this is a ploy by Microsoft and Bungie to try to make some money, both directly and indirectly. That being said, there are definitely some positives that come out of this free download. I’ll just focus on those.

There is a section dedicated to tracking your Halo career, which spans three games: Halo 3, Halo 3: ODST, and Halo Wars. It adds up your gamerscore for the three games and unlocks various goodies depending on how many achievements you have. There are medals for various achievements, although for the most part they don’t interest me too much, especially because I couldn’t figure out how to compare medals with friends.

The real winner here, however, is Avatar awards. I think EVERY game should do this, unlock cool stuff for your Avatar depending on the achievements you have. I managed to deck my character out in an entire ODST suit, but I later opted to just wear a recon helmet instead. Even if you haven’t played any of the games, you unlock the “monitor” for your Avatar just by booting Waypoint up.

The other section is called “Intel”, and it basically consists of strategy videos and developer interviews. It’s okay, but something I wasn’t too into. Supposedly they will use that to further the lore of Halo in the future, which could interest me. The cash grab in this section is Halo: Legends, an upcoming anime compilation that is due next year (on DVD). They previewed the first episode, “The Babysitter”, on Waypoint for free this past Saturday, and I checked it out. It definitely had some cool moments, but I was watching at 2 AM so I was falling asleep for part of it. I guess that’s how anime always makes me feel though.

Overall, Waypoint does give you something for nothing (the Avatar awards), and it’s nice to compare scores with your friends across all three games. There definitely is potential for something greater here, but whether that happens or not is in Bungie’s court. I’m waiting for the Halo: Reach trailer…