Zereth Lancer
May 26th, 2007, 03:31:25 PM
The Halo 3 Beta has been out for about a week, but I've only begun participating last night. I was blown away. The game is not finished, obviously, so there are a lot of quirks and problems, but it is still an amazing experience. First off, the Graphics are beautiful. You really are not paying so much attention to the image detail and perdiness while your running around gunning down people unfortunate enough to have their back facing you, but when you stop to smell the roses, you can see that all the maps, weapons, and character models are highly detailed as only the Xbox 360 can. Okay, that statement is not entirely true, but let a guy have some pride in his system of choice.
Maps
There are only three maps available in the Beta: Valhalla, High Ground and Snowbound. Valhalla is a humongous level with high canyon walls on three sides, a river that flows through the middle and ends in a waterfall behind the Red team base. The middle area has high points that take you out of the river and plenty of boulders to hide behind, as well as a down pelican that serves no purpose save to look pretty. This looks to be the Halo 3 Blood Gulch-type map. The level offered access to Warthogs and Mongooses (More on those later), and combining that with the large scale and the set of the terrain would make it ideal for Capture the Flag, but rather terrible for free-for-all gametypes like Slayer. High Ground has a very Zanzibar feel to it, with a beach at one end and a fort at the other, although High Ground pales in size comparison to Zanzibar. Those on the beach get access off the bat to Battle Rifles and a sniper rifle, as well as active camo and bubble shield specialty items. They also get a pair of Mongooses, but these are particularly worthless when sieging the fort. Those in the fort get a wall between them and the outside, as well as access to relatively every weapon available, including the Spartan Laser and Brute Shot. With only three ways into the fort, it can be relatively difficult to get in. This is a good map for One Flag Capture, where one team plays defense inside the fort and the other tries to break in and steal the flag. Snowbound is a very open, flat snow field with a few structures doting it's surface that can he hopped on top of to shoot down at others or can be entered through downward sloping tunnels that take you into the structure and the weapon caches located within. The map possesses a small network of tunnels to hide in or to duck inside to avoid enemy fire. The map possesses a single vehicle, the Ghost, and there is no greater joy then buzzing around in the ghost and running over your opponents. The level is open and you can step out of the boundaries, but a picket of automated alien turrets line the boundary line, and if you step beyond it you get swiss-cheesed. I personally do not like this map, save for the fact that it has a ghost.
Weapons
Halo 3, as far as I can tell, has all the same weapons found in Halo 2, with the exception of the Magnum, which has either been removed or simply does not appear in the Beta. Most of the weapons are work the same as they did in Halo 2. They're only real different is a face lift, change in sound, and more dazzling spectacle as the bullets go zippin' about. New weapons include the return of the Assault Rifle, which in Halo 3 has less ammo then in Halo (1), but is far more accurate and more damaging. This weapon is the standard, starting out weapon. It's adequate for getting the job done, but I hope that Bungie tweaks it more before shipping Halo 3. The Assault Riffle only carries about... 30 rounds, I think, and the only way to kill someone with one clip is if you hit them with every bullet, otherwise you run out and have to reload, and that's all your opponent needs to turn around and fry you right back. So, I'm hoping Bungie will increase the maximum ammo for the weapon. Beyond the ammo, the weapons is grand and I'm happy it's back. Other new weapons include the "Spiker", which is basically a dual-wieldable plasma SMG that will serve as the secondary weapon for Brutes in the campaign. The Spartan Laser is, in all ways, an energy bazooka. You charge it up and hope the lance of uber red energy hits your opponent, but that can be bloody hard. I believe this weapon is primary created for the purpose of anti-vehicle, in which case it melts away vehicles instantly. A completely new weapon feature for Halo 3 is the ability to pick up mounted turrets and use them as super-huge minigun. A similar weapon, the Missile Pod, looks like a small cannon section of a tank, but it fires large missiles and can lock on to vehicles and follow with surprising accuracy. When using either of these weapons, the turret or the missile pod, you switch to a third person view, which is nice for the turret gun but bad for the missile pod, because it makes it much harder to hit opponents at great distances due to being pulled back so far.
The disappointing moment was the fact that most of the Plasma weapons seemed to be unfinished. Both the plasma pistol and the plasma rifle seemed unfinished in the way they worked, which was not at all as both seemed to do no damage at all, and the way they performed, which was little plasma bolts you could hardly see. This disappointed me a low, because I love nothing more then grabbing two plasma rifles and hosing opponents with plasma. It's sad that Bungie did not finish this in time for the Beta, but I have high hopes things will be different for the finished product.
Specialty Items
There are several new items available, which includes the Bubble Shield, Tripmine, Portable Reverse-Gravitational Lift, and the Power Drainer. The Bubble Shield works as advertised. Throwing it down to the ground it creates a spherical, indestructible shield around the device that you user can hide within and be temporarily invincible. This is rather useless, in my opinion, unless your using it to protect a mission item, such as a flag or capture point. While you cannot be shot from without, it's simple for an opponent to step inside the shield and smack you one. I stay away from them myself. The Tripmine I never used but I did see it used when my teammate threw it down on the ground and left it there, for one of my other teammates to set off five minutes later. He died, so it's works. The device is primarily tooled for throwing down in front of approaching vehicles and to safeguard bases. Good idea, really. The Portable Reverse-Gravitational Lift is an interesting item. It's basically a small portable energy lift, as seen all over in the other Halo games. You just throw it down and jump into it and you go shooting up into the air like a rocket. Very helpful for getting over the wall on the High Ground map. And last, but not least, is the Power Drainer, which is a device that drains the shields of every within it's radius of effect. I am unsure whether this effects the user or his team, but definitely effects opponents, sucking their shields down at a ferocious rate.
Vehicles
There are only three vehicles available in the Beta, and that's the Warthog, the Ghost, and a new vehicle: the Mongoose. The Mongoose is an ATV that can hold two riders, one driving while the other straddles the driver and shoots with whatever weapon is in hand. Kind of gay, but hilarious to watch. We had some interesting conversations about the Mongoose. All the vehicles, though, are unfinished, bouncy, and hard to drive. The Warthog feels like your driving a rock with wheels attached to the button. The attached Chaingun works just fine, though. No Gauss, not in the Beta. Sad. The Mongoose especially is hard to drive. It's over squirrelly and the physics are completely off, making it do random, impossible things at times. Like driving up a wall. The vehicles also feel very slow, but that may be just because of the scope of some of the levels. So, in essence, all the vehicles are worthless in the Beta, save for the Ghost, which works well enough to run some peoples over. They're fun to blow up, though.
Gameplay
Halo 3 plays just like the previous games. You run around, rather slowly, and shoot it out with anyone who enters your field of vision. There is no particular strategy, just how well you can shoot, jump about, and survive. Halo lacks the finesse of some FPS games, but the all out brawl feel more then makes up for the fact. The Beta allows for only basic gameplay modes like Rumble Pit (All vs all six player match), Team Slayer (4 vs 4), Capture the flag, Territories, and Bombing Run. That covers most of the basic gametypes, but there will hopefully be newer types with the final version. There is also no custom matches allowed in the Beta, so you just play whatever is put in front of you. Limited yes, but it's a Beta, what do you expect?
Features
Halo 3 possesses a few of the same features that made Halo 2 great, such as the ability to customize your appearance, although the Beta only allowed players to choose to appear as the Spartan. You can choose your primary and secondary colors from a palette which I believe contains all the same colors found in Halo 2. You can also choose a "Detail Color", which appears to be no more then a band of color of your choice that circles the spartan's right forearm and thigh. There could be more to it, but I did not notice anymore then that. You can also choose a colorable insignia and background to individualize yourself. I saw only a few new symbols to choose and the rest are all the same from the second game. I do believe that the final version with offer more choices. In addition to that, you also choose a serial number for yourself. This serial number is actually a letter (A-Z) followed by two numbers (0-9). These numbers replace the symbols on your HUD that show where your teammates are. So, instead of seeing your teammates custom symbol, you see their tag number instead. Each player is assigned a number, but you can change it if you so desire. My start out number was A30. I tried to change it to "O00", but it said that number was reserved for Bungie, basically.
In addition to the gametype specific number ranking system as found in Halo 2, there is also an overall military ranking system. You start out as a recruit and earn Reputation Points (RP) as you play and receive promotions. Work your way up to Private and then keep going. The sky is the limit. I've gotten as high as Corporal Second Grade (2G) after hours of play, so this form of ranking is much harder to progress through then the gametype specific system.
Closing
And that is the Halo 3 Beta as I can best describe it. If you are interested in getting into the Beta the easiest way is to purchase the game Crackdown, which comes with the Halo 3 Beta downloader. The Beta itself it actually played through Crackdown as well if you go about it this way.
There are other ways to get into the Beta:
* Phase 1: Sign ups on Halo3.com at the time of the "Starry Night" commercial release.
* Phase 2: Be among the first 13,333 to sign on Halo3.com after playing three hours of Halo 2 on Xbox Live in February
* Phase 3: Buy/Rent a copy of the Xbox 360 game Crackdown.
The game is highly enjoyable and fun. I cannot wait for the finished version. If any of you are playing the Beta, be sure to look me up. My tag is "Karagane".
That is all. Goodbye!
Maps
There are only three maps available in the Beta: Valhalla, High Ground and Snowbound. Valhalla is a humongous level with high canyon walls on three sides, a river that flows through the middle and ends in a waterfall behind the Red team base. The middle area has high points that take you out of the river and plenty of boulders to hide behind, as well as a down pelican that serves no purpose save to look pretty. This looks to be the Halo 3 Blood Gulch-type map. The level offered access to Warthogs and Mongooses (More on those later), and combining that with the large scale and the set of the terrain would make it ideal for Capture the Flag, but rather terrible for free-for-all gametypes like Slayer. High Ground has a very Zanzibar feel to it, with a beach at one end and a fort at the other, although High Ground pales in size comparison to Zanzibar. Those on the beach get access off the bat to Battle Rifles and a sniper rifle, as well as active camo and bubble shield specialty items. They also get a pair of Mongooses, but these are particularly worthless when sieging the fort. Those in the fort get a wall between them and the outside, as well as access to relatively every weapon available, including the Spartan Laser and Brute Shot. With only three ways into the fort, it can be relatively difficult to get in. This is a good map for One Flag Capture, where one team plays defense inside the fort and the other tries to break in and steal the flag. Snowbound is a very open, flat snow field with a few structures doting it's surface that can he hopped on top of to shoot down at others or can be entered through downward sloping tunnels that take you into the structure and the weapon caches located within. The map possesses a small network of tunnels to hide in or to duck inside to avoid enemy fire. The map possesses a single vehicle, the Ghost, and there is no greater joy then buzzing around in the ghost and running over your opponents. The level is open and you can step out of the boundaries, but a picket of automated alien turrets line the boundary line, and if you step beyond it you get swiss-cheesed. I personally do not like this map, save for the fact that it has a ghost.
Weapons
Halo 3, as far as I can tell, has all the same weapons found in Halo 2, with the exception of the Magnum, which has either been removed or simply does not appear in the Beta. Most of the weapons are work the same as they did in Halo 2. They're only real different is a face lift, change in sound, and more dazzling spectacle as the bullets go zippin' about. New weapons include the return of the Assault Rifle, which in Halo 3 has less ammo then in Halo (1), but is far more accurate and more damaging. This weapon is the standard, starting out weapon. It's adequate for getting the job done, but I hope that Bungie tweaks it more before shipping Halo 3. The Assault Riffle only carries about... 30 rounds, I think, and the only way to kill someone with one clip is if you hit them with every bullet, otherwise you run out and have to reload, and that's all your opponent needs to turn around and fry you right back. So, I'm hoping Bungie will increase the maximum ammo for the weapon. Beyond the ammo, the weapons is grand and I'm happy it's back. Other new weapons include the "Spiker", which is basically a dual-wieldable plasma SMG that will serve as the secondary weapon for Brutes in the campaign. The Spartan Laser is, in all ways, an energy bazooka. You charge it up and hope the lance of uber red energy hits your opponent, but that can be bloody hard. I believe this weapon is primary created for the purpose of anti-vehicle, in which case it melts away vehicles instantly. A completely new weapon feature for Halo 3 is the ability to pick up mounted turrets and use them as super-huge minigun. A similar weapon, the Missile Pod, looks like a small cannon section of a tank, but it fires large missiles and can lock on to vehicles and follow with surprising accuracy. When using either of these weapons, the turret or the missile pod, you switch to a third person view, which is nice for the turret gun but bad for the missile pod, because it makes it much harder to hit opponents at great distances due to being pulled back so far.
The disappointing moment was the fact that most of the Plasma weapons seemed to be unfinished. Both the plasma pistol and the plasma rifle seemed unfinished in the way they worked, which was not at all as both seemed to do no damage at all, and the way they performed, which was little plasma bolts you could hardly see. This disappointed me a low, because I love nothing more then grabbing two plasma rifles and hosing opponents with plasma. It's sad that Bungie did not finish this in time for the Beta, but I have high hopes things will be different for the finished product.
Specialty Items
There are several new items available, which includes the Bubble Shield, Tripmine, Portable Reverse-Gravitational Lift, and the Power Drainer. The Bubble Shield works as advertised. Throwing it down to the ground it creates a spherical, indestructible shield around the device that you user can hide within and be temporarily invincible. This is rather useless, in my opinion, unless your using it to protect a mission item, such as a flag or capture point. While you cannot be shot from without, it's simple for an opponent to step inside the shield and smack you one. I stay away from them myself. The Tripmine I never used but I did see it used when my teammate threw it down on the ground and left it there, for one of my other teammates to set off five minutes later. He died, so it's works. The device is primarily tooled for throwing down in front of approaching vehicles and to safeguard bases. Good idea, really. The Portable Reverse-Gravitational Lift is an interesting item. It's basically a small portable energy lift, as seen all over in the other Halo games. You just throw it down and jump into it and you go shooting up into the air like a rocket. Very helpful for getting over the wall on the High Ground map. And last, but not least, is the Power Drainer, which is a device that drains the shields of every within it's radius of effect. I am unsure whether this effects the user or his team, but definitely effects opponents, sucking their shields down at a ferocious rate.
Vehicles
There are only three vehicles available in the Beta, and that's the Warthog, the Ghost, and a new vehicle: the Mongoose. The Mongoose is an ATV that can hold two riders, one driving while the other straddles the driver and shoots with whatever weapon is in hand. Kind of gay, but hilarious to watch. We had some interesting conversations about the Mongoose. All the vehicles, though, are unfinished, bouncy, and hard to drive. The Warthog feels like your driving a rock with wheels attached to the button. The attached Chaingun works just fine, though. No Gauss, not in the Beta. Sad. The Mongoose especially is hard to drive. It's over squirrelly and the physics are completely off, making it do random, impossible things at times. Like driving up a wall. The vehicles also feel very slow, but that may be just because of the scope of some of the levels. So, in essence, all the vehicles are worthless in the Beta, save for the Ghost, which works well enough to run some peoples over. They're fun to blow up, though.
Gameplay
Halo 3 plays just like the previous games. You run around, rather slowly, and shoot it out with anyone who enters your field of vision. There is no particular strategy, just how well you can shoot, jump about, and survive. Halo lacks the finesse of some FPS games, but the all out brawl feel more then makes up for the fact. The Beta allows for only basic gameplay modes like Rumble Pit (All vs all six player match), Team Slayer (4 vs 4), Capture the flag, Territories, and Bombing Run. That covers most of the basic gametypes, but there will hopefully be newer types with the final version. There is also no custom matches allowed in the Beta, so you just play whatever is put in front of you. Limited yes, but it's a Beta, what do you expect?
Features
Halo 3 possesses a few of the same features that made Halo 2 great, such as the ability to customize your appearance, although the Beta only allowed players to choose to appear as the Spartan. You can choose your primary and secondary colors from a palette which I believe contains all the same colors found in Halo 2. You can also choose a "Detail Color", which appears to be no more then a band of color of your choice that circles the spartan's right forearm and thigh. There could be more to it, but I did not notice anymore then that. You can also choose a colorable insignia and background to individualize yourself. I saw only a few new symbols to choose and the rest are all the same from the second game. I do believe that the final version with offer more choices. In addition to that, you also choose a serial number for yourself. This serial number is actually a letter (A-Z) followed by two numbers (0-9). These numbers replace the symbols on your HUD that show where your teammates are. So, instead of seeing your teammates custom symbol, you see their tag number instead. Each player is assigned a number, but you can change it if you so desire. My start out number was A30. I tried to change it to "O00", but it said that number was reserved for Bungie, basically.
In addition to the gametype specific number ranking system as found in Halo 2, there is also an overall military ranking system. You start out as a recruit and earn Reputation Points (RP) as you play and receive promotions. Work your way up to Private and then keep going. The sky is the limit. I've gotten as high as Corporal Second Grade (2G) after hours of play, so this form of ranking is much harder to progress through then the gametype specific system.
Closing
And that is the Halo 3 Beta as I can best describe it. If you are interested in getting into the Beta the easiest way is to purchase the game Crackdown, which comes with the Halo 3 Beta downloader. The Beta itself it actually played through Crackdown as well if you go about it this way.
There are other ways to get into the Beta:
* Phase 1: Sign ups on Halo3.com at the time of the "Starry Night" commercial release.
* Phase 2: Be among the first 13,333 to sign on Halo3.com after playing three hours of Halo 2 on Xbox Live in February
* Phase 3: Buy/Rent a copy of the Xbox 360 game Crackdown.
The game is highly enjoyable and fun. I cannot wait for the finished version. If any of you are playing the Beta, be sure to look me up. My tag is "Karagane".
That is all. Goodbye!