The Official HALO 3 thread - Page 3

Are coagulation and the hang em high remake that are on halo 2 that much different from the original maps? Or are you talking in the sense of gameplay...

Gameplay. They ruined (IMHO) much of the gameplay dynamics that I loved about the first Halo. Which has been discussed to death, so I won't repeat the complaints here.

From Nick Gameplay may be King, but with the power these systems have at their disposal and the chronically long Halo development times, I see no need for the King to look like shit.

Comparing graphics between games does not, per se, make people "idiots". Comparing graphics without taking into account, genre, platform, and overall gameplay is, however, idiotic.

coagulation is still pretty much the same as blood gulch from halo 1.

but thankfully the halo 3 iteration of it looks to have added a lot more to the map.

Anyway, just wanted to comment on nick's article. You said what everyone else is thinking right now...but I have one caveat to add.

it is taxing being an informed gamer. The blogosphere has accustomed us to immediate information for those seeking it...and it has created a very short tempered audience.

Sometimes I envy the kid who just shows up to their local eb games and for example just asks if they can buy gears of war 2 months before its release date because they saw a cool commercial for it on tv...while 90% of the customers roll their eyes in unison and call the kid "noob" in their heads.

EDIT: and just for the record, Halo is definitely a gameplay first AAA title. I never finished the campaign mode in either 1 or 2 because i found the story shitty and repetitive. It was purely a multiplayer experience for me. They just get it when it comes to the feel of the gameplay. It is some sort of intangible that other game companies just dont get. Gears is a wonderful example. Great campaign mode, but the multiplayer is and forever will be broken. The weapons are nothing more than for show and dont respond how you want them to...it is epitomizes broken gameplay because there is only one way you can play to be successful in it. There is no role for players who like to sit back and snipe or players who like to play support etc etc. It is a very individual experience online, no matter how hard you try to make it a team game...but the game is pretty and the characters in it curse a lot!

If that's the same message everyone else is talking about, it's from the Australian Halo3 website, and is just referring to what the "normal" release time for them would be.

So when I get home tonight from work at 3am EST I shouldn't shocked when I see no Beta test up.

This map thing brings up what I miss about Unreal Tournament and the like on the PC. With developer-supplied editing kits, it seemed like every other week some schmoe was putting out a kick ass map that you could download. I understand that doing so on the 360 may be more problematic, but I am suprised that more maps aren't released at a reasonable cost more frequently.

The Gears of War versus Halo 3 graphics debate is already tiresome, and the goddamn game hasn't even come out yet.

Gears had tiny multiplayer maps and caps the experience at eight players; Halo 3 features enormous environments, land and air vehicles, and up to four times as many players dashing around. You've got two different graphic engines trying to do two very different things.

Expecting Bungie's game to look as good as Gears is just as ignorant as thinking that Gears could add another 24 players without the game's performance taking a drastic hit.

I wasn't going to bother with the Beta (I've never played either of the first two in Multiplayer) but playing with folks from CHUD instead of the usual flood of assholes sounds really good. I'll try and get on the Beta (if it ever works).


GT: Midi Pulse

update: bungie.net says the problem should be fixed in the next 3-6 hours.

i dont even care anymore (lie)

I agree with Nicks article, especially the part about the GOW graphics comparison. This is a Beta and should be treated as such. Even if you ignore Halo's focus on gameplay, and Gears smaller game maps, you would still be ignoring the fact that Gears is a retail game, and Halo3 beta is just a beta.

I'm not sure what the aim of Nick's article was..I see the Gears graphics point, but reading through those forums, it seems all people are complaining about is not being able to DL the beta. So are we criticizing the people who have the game and don't like it or criticizing people who don't have the game but should have by now and are whining?

edit: Also Faze, in GOW's defense, I don't think they were going for Halo's MP experience. That may well have been a bad choice (and was IMHO), and the lack of a matchmaking party system is what keeps it out of rotation in my 360.

Came home from running errands to discover no beta yet, but I see Slater enjoying it online. I voiced my displeasure with him immediately.

Guys, I am finally downloading..here's what you need to do if youa ren't prompted for the update. Do the cache clearing trick. Go to your memory on the system blade, then press Y on your hard drive..you should be on the screen that says rename and format. While rename is highlighted, press xx LB RB xx. This will say that system maintenance has been performed. All it does is remove software updates, no saved games or downloadable content will be erased. Now accept the update when you start up crackdown and download the beta we were promised 14 hours ago!

damn, I was off to a running start and it has slowed to a crawl. Guess I wasn't the only one to try this yet. Anyone get prompted for the crackdown update without clearing your cache?

Edit..it appears within a few minutes after I did this, bungie updated their site to say that the problem was completely fixed. 13 percent..see you on there in an hour or so!

Edit again: They givin us reparations!! Four extra days on the beta!

How do we join the chud clan? Is their some way to join groups I don't know about?

Since they nuked the clan playlists, the clan list right now is nothing but another in game friends list and a little name beside your gamertag. You'll need someone inside the clan to send you an invite.

I just checked and got the same "Check back later" message I have been getting all day.

Did you try the clearing your cache thing? It will re-force the crackdown update.

Also..Nick, how in the hell did you get it so fast? I'm going up a percent roughly once every 2 and a half minutes.
Edit: one percent every five minutes..keeps getting slower.

My copy of Crackdown listed the Beta as available without having to dump the cache. Now for the really, really long wait...

Yeah, it's out there, they only spread the prompt to update to spread out server load. Some will be prompted and some wont..but if your copy doesn't prompt you to update and you still get the greyed out halo 3 button, clearing your cache will do the trick.

yay 1 percent complete...

The dump worked, thatgum. Thanks. Currently at 1%!!! Woohoo!!

The good news is i haven't had this many people online in my friends list since halo 2's launch. The bad news is that at this rate its going to be anther 3 hours to download it and I think I'm held hostage in the download screen since its from within the game.

Reggie List would love to be in the clan, should someone get the notion. (Changed Live accounts a few months back, lost all affiliations)

Thanks Gum, I never did the cache clearing trick before. Your right about being held hostage with the download screen. I planned on actually playing crackdown while downloading it but no dice.

91%

16% after 30 mins or so.....I had it at 12% like in 30 secs but it stopped kinda, i thought it froze or something so i cancelled and deleted and started again, then it has crawling from 0 ever since, now at 16%.

76%

Whew. I'm plum tuckered out from all that Halo 3'n.

Such a bitch, Slater.

About 70 minutes in and 50%. Looks I'll taste your rockets tomorrow, chaps.

ETA: Oh yeah, would love to play with ya all in some clan matches. If not clan, then at I least have a chunk of you in the Friends list to hunt down.

Slater and Medium Dave were some good squadmates. Tomorrow night I hope to see more of you guys on there. Man, what a fun game. We gotta get a 4X4 CHUD match going one night.

Guess it's time to put my Gamertag in my profile...

I'm almost there!

Man, people online are so inconsiderate.. just one round I'd like to walk around and enjoy the pretty textures and water effects and player models.. but nooo.. everyone has to go off guns blazing like its some kind of shoot-em-up extravaganza..

It is? Oh.. well.. *blam blam*!

Hopefully I'll randomly get teamed up with some good ol Chud folk

pretty much exactly what i expected...awesomeness.

graphics are notable for the fact that the maps actually look like real places rather than exercises in geometry like a lot of the H2 maps. Zanzibar was really the only fully thought out map in my opinion...and High Ground seems to be taking a lot of cues from it.

Valhalla, the blood gulch successor, is super awesome as well.

Gameplay, it feels like halo, you jump right in and are ready to go. The new button layout takes time to get used to, but it works much better.

Grenades are very underpowered. very small blast radius. Spike grenades are insanely fun to use...i can see them be the weapon of choice for last minute tosses as you are about to die. Sticking a spike grenade into a wall as you run away from an attacker only to see the "you have killed..." text message is pretty satisfying. One pretty cool thing though, jumping on top of a frag gives you a very noticeable boost in the air.

Equipment is amazing. Bubble shield is brilliant. power drainer is a real momentum shifter. Trip mine...well its too easy to spot right now with its beeping. Grav lift is awesome.

Weapons. Dual spikers is deadly. Needler doesnt home as well, but actually can kill people. BR is pretty much the same. SMG is even worse than it used to be. Assault rifle is a very weak weapon as well, but decent if you are moving in a group. The real star though is the Laser. It just FEELS powerful firing that thing.

One thing that has bothered me though, I didn't expect the options in the beta to be so limited. There is no custom game options. Everything is limited to 4 v 4 right now. Not enough CTF and bomb in team skirmish modes.

Well now I've tried a couple of matches all I can say is... Science dammit. That was some good stuff.

If there are any chud clan matches happening, count me in.

A thought occurred to me that the fact Slater has been playing for a day more than the rest of us could be some good karma, perhaps to make up for any incidents involving asian guys and towels.

Now that things seem to be working, I'll be able to download and boost everyone else's kill count tonight.

Great Game Anybody Want To Get At Me Look Up

Os The Iceman

My favorite part about all this is the sudden lack of bitching.

no. shit. I hear ya there.

By the time I got the file downloaded it was 1am. I snuck out of bed and got to play a few quick rounds, but unfortunately they were all Slayer on Snowbound. Can't wait to do some actual team stuff later today.

I was able to download the Beta via Crackdown this morning in 9 min or less - last night, I gave up after 40 min and @ 20%.....

Played one round and it does look nice. I'll be on later to kill you all!!!!

Gametag: Matt VT Schlo

It's like any loser junkie- when you give them their fix, they shut up for a little bit.

Speaking of loser junkies, anyone else fiending for a fix today at work? I played a few games that I thought were enough last night but all I can think of right now is blasting someone with that big ass laser.

I know it's been said before (and in a much more negative context), but it's nice to see that, for consistency's sake, they didn't trouble themselves to update the visuals from H2 all that much. If it had looked as good as Gears of War, I would have been all confused and disoriented by the normal mapping and high quality textures, and I might have lost my focus, which is why I'm really dreading Unreal Tournament 3.

The laser is nice, though.

throw a grav lift under a oncoming vehicle...VERY satisfying.

Wow. I actually had fun playing this last night. Question. How do you use the bubble shield? I would pick it up but cycling through my grenades didn't access them.

And the spike grenades are the shit. Really.

The X button deploys equipment.

Big fan of ripping the mounted chain gun out and walking around with that. Something REALLY satisfying about standing on a cliff and shooting into a crowd below you--chunk chunk chunk chunk!!! Pretty badass !

Were is that? I've only played the snow level and High Ground. High Ground has a turret, but I was never prompted to remove it (that I noticed).

I tossed the launcher at a guy running at me with a machine gun, sent him flying, then blasted him with the laser just before he hit ground. I thought I was the shit. Then I played with some other people and was reminded that I suck.

The battle rifle (3 shot scope one) seems really weak.

I didn't expect GoW level graphics, but I was hoping for at least CoD2.