Halo 3 is Coming and I haven't talked about it!

You can't have a real video game blog without talking about Halo 3. Like many other gamers, I have been following Halo 3 very closely and absorbing all the information and screens available to me. 1up.com has been the best source in the past couple weeks because they were invited to play the pre-alpha build and spend a day at Bungie. Please see this link: http://www.1up.com/do/minisite?cId=3154510
to catch up on all of the news that I will be commenting on.

First things first. The absolute best thing about HALO is its multiplayer. Even with Gears of War out (and amazing at that), I still get frustrated every now and then and think to myself "if this was Halo that wouldn't have happened." I'm sure in the months prior to Halo 3, I'll pop in Halo 2 to brush up on my skills. I should also note that I am a Halo 2 Fan and not a Halo 1 fan. I got xbox right after Halo 2 was released and eventually bought Halo 1 to fill in the single player experience. Halo 1's campaign is much better than 2's but I am a Battle Rifle fan and not an Assault Rifle fan. Furthermore, Halo 1 had no xbox live. Who has 15 friends with controllers and TVs to set up 16 player LAN play? What is all this rambling leading to?...Halo 3 multiplayer


Halo 3 Multiplayer
NEWS:
3 Maps revealed:

Snowbound- covered with snow and surrounded by auto-fire turrets that will kill foolish Spartans who venture out of this map's boundaries. There is also a new feature in shield doors, which are aptly named since you can see through them and no gunfire or explosions can pass through them.





High Ground- Reminiscent of Zanzibar- a compound, a beach and with objective gametypes in mind. The new twist- mortars firing and exploding on the beach, and explodable hatches and environmental elements.





Valhalla- the successor to blood gulch- Valhalla is a symmetrical map featuring the new spartan laser, mancannon and spartan mongoose ATV.




Brute Sandbox:
The brutes will finally get their own weapon set and vehicles and this goes beyond the brute plasma, and bruteshot of Halo 2. There are spike grenades, a brute ghost and I'm sure much more when the game finally ships.

HERE'S MY TAKE:
New is good! I'm excited for all the new weapons etc. to try out. The new starting weapon is going to be the Assault rifle. Hopefully it's revamped enough that I like it. I actually thought that the SMG was a decent starting weapon, but I see Bungie's point about the overuse of dual weilding and the fear after a respawn of being outgunned (though with the battle rifle as a starting weapon I was perfect). The ATV, Spartan laser and other new features are hard to comment on since I haven't played the game...and hopefully will all turn out well or be weeded out in the multiplayer beta. I am PISSED that the amount of grenades that you can hold will be halved! Yes we have a new grenade (the spike grenade) but not having enough grenades blows (Backwash anyone?). Hopefully, the spike grenades will be just as effective as the other two. I also don't know how I feel about the ManCannon which is pretty self explanatory and I guess shoots players across the map. Maybe it's just the name, since It sounds similar to the lifts/bounce pads on Ascension or Colossus. I am really excited about the fact that you can see both weapons a player is holding! The animation and ability to identify what a player is packing(as well as when they are changing weapons, reloading or whatever) was always one of the best things about Halo 2. Finally, we won't have to see that lacking animation of a player lowering his hands and then a new weapon blinking into place. Allowing guns to be slung over shoulders or attached to the hip will be absolutely incredible for multiplayer. I sort of already mentioned this, but the public availability (potentially) of the multiplayer beta would be sweet. Not only would it tide halo fans over, but it would help players work out the kinks of multiplayer so an immediate patch isn't necessary (Halo 2 def. improved after its patch). I really hope that the beta is available on Xbox Live for download. That would really justify the gold subscription and annual fee (Yes it's already justified and well worth it, but this would make it MAJOR). There's really not much to go into when it comes to the Single Player Campaign. Supposedly there will be a video record feature so you can record you pwnage of noobs in multiplayer or speed runs in the campaign (ok maybe not the whole run since the video can only capture so much). This will be a nice novel feature for the more hardcore player- I'm sure I would tool around with it, but ultimately not use it that much. It would be sweet if it had an autorecord function like that in Hot Shots Golf where quad kills or a multi sticky grenade kill is recorded and saved automatically. That's enough Halo talk for now. Just wanted to consolodate and summarize all the Halo 3 information. Again, check out 1up.com for more indepth coverage of particular topics.