 | | The Halo 3 multiplayer beta is go! Snowbound here is one of three maps included, featuring Hoth-style underground caverns married with a bright, sunny, yet sparsely covered exterior...where all hell often breaks lose |
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Our first glimpse of Halo 3 multiplayer then...what's the verdict? One of mixed feelings, actually. In fact I was severely underwhelmed at first. What the deuce? Numero uno Halo fanboy Senior Diggler wasn't struck down with a case of erect nipples at the mere whiff of Halo troi? Nope. Soz.
I'll just say it - what everyone else is thinking, most likely - Halo 3 is fuckin' ugly. Exaggeration? Not in my eyes. For a triple A exclusive of such high caliber, the game is surprisingly lacking on the visual front. I dunno what's going on in Microsoft land right now, but with both this and Forza 2 looking about as far from as lush as
Gears as you can possibly get, one ponders whether that 360 power is all but tapped out right about now. Hmmmm.
Architecture is low polygonal for instance, jaggies are out in full force, and you have to get right up close 'n' personal to the character models to make out any kinda detail resembling impressive whatsoever. From afar, shit looks five years old.
Of course, this isn't the final game. It's a beta test, no? So spit and polish has yet to be applied? And major revamps are in the works even as we speak? With just four months left, one hopes so. In fact, word of mouth speaks of the single player mode looking vastly more impressive already, making one ponder if this is all a bit of a
GRAW/Rainbow Six Vegas style situation here. Wildly varying graphical quality between its single and multiplayer modes. Time will tell I guess.
All Personality
 | | Valhalla sucks balls as a map, way too large for small groups, and downright ugly to boot. It does however, evoke major Halo 1 flashbacks. Much of this game does, actually |
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Thankfully, overlooking the distinctly average visuals, one finds a friggin' fun game in Halo 3 though. This beta includes only 3 maps, but there's a fuck-ton of game-modes to enjoy - including both free-for-all and team-based stuff - as well as (one presumes) the vast majority of the final weapons, along with three vehicles and the fab new "equipment" feature.
While I do dig me some online Halo, none of my mates do, thus I've never really given the series the good seeing to it deserves outside of the main single player campaign (and, of course,
co-op). This is all a little new as a result, and drawing comparisons between it and
Halo 2 proves tricky. What I can attest to though, is how surprisingly tight it all feels. Guns handle blissfully, map layout is great (awful "Valhalla" map aside) and the weapon balance in particular is nigh-on perfect.
The new Brute "Spiker" pistols are a true bastard of a weapon when held in tandem for example, but turn shockingly shit the second you go to reload 'em and are essentially out of action for five painfully long seconds. Or how about the sniper rifle; powerful and mean on the face of it, but damn hard to aim for all but an expert, with a slow rate of fire to boot. Even the bog-standard Assault Rifle - the return of which from the original Halo affords pleasing wood - is fab in its own right, even if far from the most powerful of Halo 3's weaponry. Right across the board, this results in a selection of guns that all have their strengths and weaknesses though, and you never pick one up and think "Ugh, not this". Sure, one tends to gravitate to their faves, but you can essentially survive on pretty much anything this time out. That sir, is aces.
Niceties
 | | Highground is the pick of the new maps. It's also by far the most visually impressive, almost looking good. Almost |
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Other little bits and bobs that stick out, include the ability to save films of your matches. One hopes the final game lets you utilize some decent camera angles and start chopping shit up with full-blown video editing features, but even just a bog-standard replay mode here proves awesome and hilarious. I've already begun compiling a selection of my greatest in-game moments - surprisingly big already - despite only playing for a week. Being able to upload and share this stuff rounds it all off beautifully, and is just the sort of revolutionary online integration Live needs to start pushing to help maintain its lead in the online world right now.
The matchmaking and party system also impresses. Grouping up with your pals then just sitting back while the game finds you matches is blissfully effortless, and really should be in all Live multiplayer offerings at this point. I like how Halo 3 subtly inserts itself into the main dashboard too, allowing you to browse buddy's stats and such from the side bar at any point. All very intuitive. All very cool.
I could spooge for hours over the little things as well. That new bubble shield thing. The superb use of force fields. The much-improved Territories mode. And - of course - the sexuality explicit "Man Cannon" to name but a few. Above all else, I gotta praise the sound though. Bungie have truly raised the bar in terms of audio design and sound effects here, and with a mad phat 5.1 rig, it'll suck you in in a way the graphics so depressingly fail to. Just the way distant gunfire echoes and reverbs out around the map is enough to make an audiophile blush.
Minger
 | | All the goodies you know and love return, from Battle Rifles to Warthogs. They've brought new friends with 'em though, and a barrage of tweaks and re-jiggers result in a far more cohesive experience |
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In light of all this then, tears continue to flow in light of how mediocre it all looks. The water effects are gorgeous - especially the way weapons, items and even dead bodies float and bob while being carried off downstream - but it's one scarce glimpse of visual beauty that I would have expected to see right across the board from gaming's most popular and successful of franchises. What a let down. If nothing else though, Halo's lack of graphical detail does afford it the ability to boast humongously large levels, ludicrous draw distances, and a super smooth frame-rate that never buckles, even in its busiest group bundles.
All in all Halo 3 may not be the huge reinvention of the franchise some might have hoped for then, but from what I've seen, it does feel so much more sleeker than Halo 2, hella more fun, and boasts that indefinable "one more go" quality that makes it undeniably hard to put down. Each and every time a round ends, you feel a little bit sad more than anything...
Roll on September.
