The Video Game Critic

Well the Halo 3 beta came out today.  It was supposed to come out yesterday but they had problems.  I've been playing it for 3 hours, and here are my views on it.


Halo 3 looks and feels more like Halo 1 than 2.   For example they brough back the assault rifle from Halo 1 and made it the default weapon.   They also made the needler much more powerful, but now its 2 handed now. 

At first the graphics don't look much better than halo two.  It looks severely downgraded from the first trailer  But the more you play it, the better it looks.  You will notice the attention to detail, but still you will notice some last gen textures.   It look pretty good, but overall Gears of War is still the graphics king, unless they completely change it by release. 

The weapons feel perfectly balanced.  The grenades are powerful, its fun to melee and they made the lesser guns from halo 2 more powerful.    They also added  a "bubble shield" which basically puts a bubble you can walk in and out of that stays in place, that you can't shoot in or out of. This can add a great new layer of strategy.   You can pop one up and stay in it, until they grenade you out.  But for the most part the weapons are the same and they only made minor improvements, which is OK considering how great the weapons from Halo 2 were.

Not much has changed, it still feels like the same old halo, but they have come close to a near perfect Halo.   This will not redefine the series like Half Life 2 did,  but it should be awesome.  There is no single player in the beta, but Bungie promises it will be twice as long as Halo 2.  This should be a great FPS when it comes out but not anything new, just highly polished, almost to perfection.  But from what I played, I like Gears of War better, which is perfection.

You're judging a beta against a complete game?  That's seems a little harsh.  Why not judge Gears against Halo 3 after it ships and not while it's still in "tweak" mode.

I was able to play two games last night and enjoyed every minute of it.  It's not signifigantly different but it seems really polished with what's there.  Hopefully, I'll have some more time tonight to dive into it a bit more. 

The levels themselves are beautiful, especially the way the force shields waver and shimmer as you stick a brute grenade on them.  It's stupid but I dug it.  It looks like with the deployable equipment you'll be able to setup ambush zones anywhere on the map.  I found something that zaps your shield when deployed that allowed me to get an easy kill.

All in all I can't wait for the real deal and am enjoying what's there so far.

Well I consider it a good thing that I am comparing it Gears of War the full game.  I am comparing it to it because as I said, it's gameplay is almost as good(well its multiplayer that is.)  That can't be anything but a good thing to be seen to be in the same light as Gears of War  I don't see anything wrong with it, and when it comes out again I'll review it and I expect it to be even better.

I jumped online last night after a happy hour and had a blast.  So far I've only seen Valhalla and the snow level. 

Okay, on to my point.  This game kicks ass with the deployable equipment.  On Valhalla I found a trip mine and thought of a great place to use it.  I make my way over to the opposing side's base and wait till they clear out.  As I'm running up there I accidently deploy it just on the outside of their base.  Thinking my plan was screwed I head inside and up top.  Low and behold they left their trip mine behind.  I set it it up right in front of their man cannon and bolt quickly to get back into the fray of things. 

After a battle, loss, and respawn I come back to hearing the most beautiful words imaginable...Double Kill, Triple Kill, Killtacular!!!  I had single handily wiped out their entire team.

After we slaughtered the opposing team I ended up partying up with them for a few more games.  The one major complaint I have right now is it takes too long for a new match to start which might be due to having so few players in the beta.  Either way, I can't wait for the real deal.

Good times!

I haven't had the pleasure of playing the beta, but the impressions on the net have been mixed.  Its not fair to judge this game at all since its just a beta...but its certainly not getting the resounding praise that I thought it would get. 

It seems like Bungie is taking the baby steps approach with Halo and they are being very careful not to screw anything up.  Its sort of a double edged sword because that approach will only work for a few games before the Critic's come crashing down on it.  I hope I'm wrong and Bungie blows us all away with Halo 3.  At this point I'm still skeptical.

I doubt Halo 3 will revolutionize the FPS genre, but it will still sell better than anything else when its released.  

I agree that critics are going to begin to sharpen their fangs regarding Halo, because the critical press seems to have this hypocritical notion that a game series *must* make radical changes every other iteration to be considered worthy.

I call that hypocritical because, when/if those major changes are made, then those same critics whine that they stripped the franchise of what made it great in the first place! Does it not make since, when you have a monster hit, to refine and polish as opposed to completely change?

What I want from Halo 3 (I didn't do the beta thing) is, in this order:

1. Continue to deliver the strong points of the series. Exciting campaign mode and incredible multiplayer. Perhaps make the multiplayer more like Halo 1 than Halo 2.

2. A friggin' satisfying ending. No cliffhangers, please!

3. Some cool new weapons.

4. Updated graphics and sound for Xbox 360.

-Rob

[QUOTE=JustLikeHeaven]I haven't had the pleasure of playing the beta, but the impressions on the net have been mixed.  Its not fair to judge this game at all since its just a beta...but its certainly not getting the resounding praise that I thought it would get. 

It seems like Bungie is taking the baby steps approach with Halo and they are being very careful not to screw anything up.  Its sort of a double edged sword because that approach will only work for a few games before the Critic's come crashing down on it.  I hope I'm wrong and Bungie blows us all away with Halo 3.  At this point I'm still skeptical.

I doubt Halo 3 will revolutionize the FPS genre, but it will still sell better than anything else when its released.  
[/QUOTE]

Well, at one point on the bungie weekly update they were going to add in the ability to customize the properties of the game itself and make everything changable.  For example, the overshield grants you the ability to jump twice as high and run twice as fast.  Essentially, you'd be able to make up your own funky game types for wacky gaming in the custom game types.  As we don't get the option in the beta for custom game types I've no idea if they've continued that or not.  If so that would be awesome. 

The only thing that Halo 3 really needs is the option to create your own custom maps.  Far Cry, TimeSplitters, and Pariah all have maps you can share on the consoles.  That to me would be best thing possible to do as you'd extend the multiplayer into new directions weekly.

Halo 3 multiplayer isn't completely different but it does feel more similar to Halo 1  but with a faster pace.

I love how there are hills everywhere which completely cut down on the spawn to the sniper shot to the head.

I know the Single player mode is supposed to be twice as long as Halo 2.   I hope they don't do it by cutting and pasting level design like in Halo 1.  I'd rather they make a short game that doesn't repeat, but I will be glad if the game is 15 hours without a bunch of repeating areas like Halo 1.

I love the beta so far. One thing is that the SMG sucks and the Spartan Laser is cheap. Anyway it's good so far and I will have a full review soon guys.