Problem with Halo 3 beta access via Crackdown causes much annoyance amongst eager gamers.

Halo 3 screenshot

At 1PM GMT yesterday Xbox 360 gamers with a copy of Crackdown were expecting to begin their time with the highly anticipated Halo 3 beta, only things didn't go according to plan.

For an unknown reason the option to download the beta was greyed out on the Crackdown menu, and left gamers around the world without Halo 3 and generally very annoyed.

The good news is that Microsoft has worked out a fix that should download when you next load up Crackdown. Once installed it should be plain sailing to get that beta up and running.

What's better is that to make up for the delay, Bungie and Microsoft have extended the beta by four days. Yippee!