Mark puts Bungie’s Halo 3 Beta through its paces...
Having been playing the Halo 3 Beta for a week now, my initial
impressions have been confirmed. Halo 3 is, in fact, a lot like Halo 2,
offering subtle new additions which add to the experience without
intangibly corrupting the Halo formula.
Somewhat disappointing, however, are the visuals in the Beta, which
wear Halo 2’s heritage a little too starkly. The art style is familiar,
architecture and Master Chief character models instantly recognisable,
and it all appears to be a shinier, HD form of its forebear.
However, when you get up close you begin to smile at the details;
weaponry floats downstream on immaculately rendered shimmering water,
freshly fragged foes ragdoll violently in front of you, and Bubble
Shields deploy in all their light-refracting glory.
Forever blowing up bubbles
Indeed, the Bubble Shield represents Halo 3’s single most iconic
change. A giant ammo-absorbing transparent dome, firepower can neither
pass into or out of it, meaning you can drop it when you’re taking a
pounding and take cover inside – unless of course your foe decides to
mosey on in for a bit of up-close melee action.
It’s not just the Bubble Shield either; there’s a shield-lowering
Energy Drainer, Tripmine and a rather nifty Portable Grav Lift too, all
useable with the X button. Indeed, the latter two both work as
effective offensive weapons when placed in front of an oncoming enemy
Warthog – or the vehicle’s new smaller variant, the two-man
quadbike-esque Mongoose.
My first hour saw plenty of attempted reloads turning into hilarious tripmine-induced suicide-betrayal moments.
With X now taken up by the new functionality, picking up and
reloading weapons has shifted to the bumper buttons. It’s an intuitive
change which allows for independent reloading of dual-wielded weapons,
but it does take some getting used to, and in my first hour saw plenty
of attempted reloads turning into hilarious tripmine-induced
suicide-betrayal moments.
Speaking of explosives, grenades have not escaped Bungie’s
painstaking refinement process. A new Spike Grenade falls somewhere
between the human Frag and the sticky Covenant Plasma; able to wedge in
flat surfaces and, indeed, attach to players themselves for instant
kills. Frags and Plasmas too have been overhauled, boasting new
texture-sensitive properties, so they now bounce differently depending
on the surface you use them on.
Contrasts in the killing fields
Which probably had a hand in Bungie’s decision to go with three such
contrasting maps for the Beta. High Ground, a sandy, crumbling
hill-topped Planet Earth fort, owes a lot to Halo 2’s Zanzibar, and
feels incredibly different to Snowbound; a fittingly white landscape on
a seemingly alien world boasting a perimeter of Covenant gun turrets,
and a series of energy shielded underground rooms which necessitate far
closer combat than the ostensibly open surface.
Lastly, Valhalla is an eye-watering ground-up re-edit of the classic
Blood Gulch and Coagulation. Set in a now forest-green canyon, its
wide-open expanses, rocky outcrops, dual base Man-Cannoning goodness
and vehicle quota offer by far the best example of Halo 3’s new
gameplay components coming together.
An increasingly deep paper-scissors-stone that the best players and biggest Halo fans will happily lose hours of their life to.
Which brings us to Matchmaking. Largely, it’s the same as Halo 2,
with ranked and unranked options for solo and team play, but with the
option to Veto (that is, vote against) Matchmade selections. Got a
level and gametype combo you don’t like? Simply press X, and if a
majority (5 or more – the Beta is limited to 8 players per game) agree,
the game will select a new match. Be warned though, you’re stuck with
whatever comes up next, so use those Vetoes wisely people!
So much said and yet little mention of weapons. The Assault Rifle
returns from Halo 1 as your standard artillery piece, while much of the
Halo 2 arsenal (Energy Sword aside) makes an appearance in the Beta,
largely the same though slightly rebalanced for power.
Brute Spiker beats paper
New additions include the Brute Spiker, a Covenant variation on the
SMG, and the much talked-about Spartan Laser, which takes a few seconds
to charge, but then instant kills any player it touches. In all, the
Beta boasts yet another brilliantly weighted ballistic feast, but with
the Bubble Shield thrown into the mix, makes for an increasingly deep
paper-scissors-stone that the best players and biggest Halo fans will
happily lose hours of their life to.
Or, more precisely, the next three weeks. Even with Bungie recently
extending it by four days, the Halo 3 Beta will still be over all too
soon for the Halo series’ legion of adoring followers. The great news
though is that we won’t have long to wait when it does; with Halo 3
recently confirmed for September 26th, we’ll all be experiencing the
Master Chief’s third outing far sooner than predicted. Summer can’t
come and go fast enough.
Preview by: Mark Scott
Preview Published: 18.05.07