Halo 3 Beta: May 16th - June 7th

[pipo]

Halo 3 Beta: May 16th - June 7th (+ new Vidoc)

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/26466/Halo-3-beta-test-for-May-16th

Microsoft has today confirmed that the long-awaited Halo 3 multiplayer beta will go live at 1pm GMT on May 16th – but keen shooter fans will only have until 7:59pm on June 7th to get their fill of Bungie’s latest.

Also at: http://www.bungie.net/News/content.aspx?type=topnews&link=MPBetaAndVidocRelease

NOTE: All of the game footage in this doc was taken during the Alpha stage and isn’t even representative of what you’ll see in the Public Beta, let alone the final game. You will see frame rate skips, unfinished animation and graphical features that will change come Fall. All the footage is clearly marked Alpha. You’re looking at the features here folks, not the final quality bar – which we’ve set pretty high. Your next taste of that will be in May.

And there’s a ton of stuff in the Vidoc you simply haven’t seen before (including the X-Button) – and it’s well worth the download. Now, there’s nothing like seeing it in 720p in Dolby Digital, so remember this Vidoc is also available today on Xbox Live Marketplace, where big screen TVs can do it more justice than your PC.

 

[JardeL]

Probably I'll get so much neg reps but I have to say ; Whats special about Halo ?.. I don't get why people hype Halo this much ...

 

[TheChefO]

Probably I'll get so much neg reps but I have to say ; Whats special about Halo ?.. I don't get why people hype Halo this much ...

I can only answer with my personal opinion: Halo 1 rocked.

Great story, great gameplay, and great graphics for the time.

Halo2 was a big let down in SP but they did so well (IMO) with Halo1 that I give them the benefit of the doubt for Halo3.

It seemed many others agreed with my Halo1 sentiment and bought Halo2 in droves.

 

[rbushner]

Whats special about Halo ?

Because, obviously alot of people do like it. In essence, you are asking why other peoples' opinions matter when they are different than your own. :smile:

Halo2 was a big let down in SP but they did so well (IMO) with Halo1 that I give them the benefit of the doubt for Halo3.

Agree. Other than Live support Halo > Halo2. I always felt Bungie was pushed by MS because of the pending 360 launch.

I'm still unsure if this (Public Beta) is going to be good for MS/Bungie. It seems very possible to have some pretty major backlash (like Vista did). Especially with how easy it is to get into the Beta. We'll see how it works out, I sure hope they nail the SP (like they did the first time) in Halo3.

 

[JardeL]

Because, obviously alot of people do like it. In essence, you are asking why other peoples' opinions matter when they are different than your own. :smile:

I played and finished the Halo 1 too , for me it was very boring and I know a lot of people had the same feeling with me...

I am not judging people , I just want to know what they like about it...

In my opinion Halo does not deserve this much hype , not that great... Its just " its an American hero , Japanese have MGS etc. and finally we have our hero !!! " thing ... Americans love to create heroes ... Please don't come with sale numbers , they mean nothing to me... For this kind of hype [ with huge media support ] you can sell millions of copies of Daikatana ...

But I have to say it again I'm not judging you for loving Halo ...

 

[archangelmorph]

Please don't come with sale numbers , they mean nothing to me... For this kind of hype [ with huge media support ] you can sell millions of copies of Daikatana

Suuuure you can!



Not a very fair assessment if you ask me..

And as far as i'm concerned Halo is by far the most entertaining FPS i've ever played, mostly because it had such a great balance of FPS-gameplay, vehicular mechanics with a "just-right" feel that i've still yet to see in another FPS and a very strong and compelling narrative that never gets boring from start to finish.. It's just such an engaging experience when you you're playing a game and you (as the player) have such a strong sense of purpose in terms of what your character's goal is and how, incrementally you're achieving it as you progress through the game..

You never EVER feel like your just "playing for the action" like you do in games like FEAR just because the designers didn't have the time/expertise to successfully communicate to you who you are, what your supposed to be doing and how your supposed to go about it at any given time..

If Halo got anything spot on it was it's ability to drive an engaging plot which really help to immerse you inbthe action and makes you "feel" like master chief in "mission" and in "motion" (even in the most abstract circumstances, like when you're playing co-op with a friend and for some strange reason you're both controlling the same character..)

If you're not a fan of action games (whether your into First Person ones or not..) however then you probably won't be able to relate to this at all..

Ah well..

 

[scooby_dooby]

I played and finished the Halo 1 too , for me it was very boring and I know a lot of people had the same feeling with me...

I can only guess you played it on the weaker difficulty settings?

I've never heard anyone who played Halo1 on Legenedary describe it as boring. The funnest thing about Halo to me was using a variety of tactics to try and overcome the most difficult areas, of course this can only happen if you have the game set to hard.

I'd imagine on easy difficulty, where you just breeze through the game, it would probably be pretty boring.

 

[22psi]

There is a new vid doc located here:

http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/13214/New-Halo-3-ViDoc-Is-Quisnam-Protero-Damno-Trailer/

also the vid doc is now on Marketplace!

 

[rbushner]

For this kind of hype [ with huge media support ] you can sell millions of copies of Daikatana ...

What media support? The original Halo had very little media support. It was sold by word of mouth more than anything.

Like it or not, Halo not only sold well, but had alot of fans. I still play Halo, I've got many friends that still play Halo. A run through on Legendary is always fun, and never the same. If you can't understand it, that is fine, but it is your opinion vs. other's opinions.

 

[Tap In]

3 weeks? well better than nothing. maybe they'll do another testing session later in the year too, prior to release?

That Vidoc is really cool. It reminds me why I liked Halo2 so much. the multiplayer GAME PLAY, was the best ever.

Graphics are all well and good (and I'm a graphics whore) but the game play is what keeps you coming back. As to the guy who doesn't want to discuss sales... that's fine ...but as the guy in the vidoc said, Halo2 multiplayer game sessions have been played 4 BILLION times.

that's why it's popular, forget sales, people enjoy playing the multiplayer over and over.

 

[dobwal]

I played and finished the Halo 1 too , for me it was very boring and I know a lot of people had the same feeling with me...

I am not judging people , I just want to know what they like about it...

In my opinion Halo does not deserve this much hype , not that great... Its just " its an American hero , Japanese have MGS etc. and finally we have our hero !!! " thing ... Americans love to create heroes ... Please don't come with sale numbers , they mean nothing to me... For this kind of hype [ with huge media support ] you can sell millions of copies of Daikatana ...

But I have to say it again I'm not judging you for loving Halo ...

Why does the general hype of a game have to correlate with your personal opinion of the game? Have you ever pondered the possibility that in this instance the general feelings of Halo don't mirror yours and thats the reason why the popularity of Halo is so high?

You honestly think marketing can manufacture and maintain hype through the original game and two sequels? If throwing huge amount of marketing money can produce 2 of the top 8 highest selling games in America, then Im at a lost why just about every other publishers isn't following MS and Bungie's crude yet highly successful strategy for profits.

 

[Tap In]

holy crap

I just read that each MP game session will be saved as a replay to MC or HDD for review! Also shown at the end of the Vidoc but didn't realize what they were talking about. Slow mo replays, change camera angles etc.

add to that the new personal cache of Shield, Anti Gravity pod and Trip Mine and this game is going to be intense.

 

[scooby_dooby]

What media support? The original Halo had very little media support. It was sold by word of mouth more than anything.

Very true. If you look at the sales figures for Halo, it started off relatively slow and snowballed over the 3-4 months after launch as word spread about what a cool game it was. It certainly did not sell on the pre-launch hype, contrary to Halo 2....

Personally, I really like Halo, but it's nowhere near the top of my most anticipated list. Still, I can't wait to play it, the soundtrack, the AI, the story are all so top-notch, it makes for a great gaming experience every time.

 

[aselto]

Graphics are all well and good (and I'm a graphics whore) but the game play is what keeps you coming back. As to the guy who doesn't want to discuss sales... that's fine ...but as the guy in the vidoc said, Halo2 multiplayer game sessions have been played 4 BILLION times.

That's only ~500 game sessions per each Halo 2 player.
There were a lot of new ideas and gameplay features sjown in this ViDoc. I'll probably finally subsscribe Live Gold when Halo 3 is out...

 

[Tap In]

Very true. If you look at the sales figures for Halo, it started off relatively slow and snowballed over the 3-4 months after launch as word spread about what a cool game it was. It certainly did not sell on the pre-launch hype, contrary to Halo 2....

Personally, I really like Halo, but it's nowhere near the top of my most anticipated list. Still, I can't wait to play it, the soundtrack, the AI, the story are all so top-notch, it makes for a great gaming experience every time.

I played Halo1 extensively in SP but only played about 25 minutes TOTAL of Halo 2 SP.

Conversely, I played online MP for about 15 mos straight.

 

[Tap In]

That's only ~500 game sessions per each Halo 2 player.
There were a lot of new ideas and gameplay features sjown in this ViDoc. I'll probably finally subsscribe Live Gold when Halo 3 is out...

And I think "sessions" is defined as "matches" meaning that there were from 8-16 players in each of those 4 billion sessions.

yes, yes, yes... this game alone is worth the price of Live Gold.

 

[pipo]

I played and finished the Halo 1 too , for me it was very boring and I know a lot of people had the same feeling with me...

Far more people don't share that feeling though...

 

[kyleb]

Yeah, Halo 2 singleplayer was rather weak, but the multiplayer utterly rocks, and judging by this new video Halo 3 online gameplay is bound to rock even more. Looks like that Crackdown disk I was suckered into buying is finally going get some good use.

 

[Tap In]

Blim has some captures

 

[Fu3lFr3nzy]

Blim has some captures

Global HDR is sexay!