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Been playing Halo 3
It's 3:00 am. I can't stop playing Halo 3. This is not a good sign, because I'm only playing a three-level beta right now. How on earth will I be able to handle the final game with all the modes and maps put in? Answer: I'm doomed.
So here are some random notes and thoughts about the game, in case you haven't read it elsewhere...in bullet form because my brain is way too wasted to write an essay right now.
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Graphics: Like we said before in our first Halo 3 cover story...
looks good, but it's not that in-your-face "Oh my god Gears of War" great. But that's OK because: 1.) Halo has a different art style, and for Halo's art style, Halo 3 looks damn good. 2.) I'd rather have performance over looks, and Halo 3 runs smooth as butter. So far,
no lag in our eight-player games (*knocks on wood*)
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Sound: Now, this is in-your-ears "Oh my god" great. When you get sniped, you hear the bullet exiting your wet, bloody, pulpy body. When your comrades are fighting in the distance, you can hear the faint echoes of gunfire. The guns sound (and feel) powerful. Special effects for stuff like the bubble shield sound all sci-fi cool. I've never been happier to have 5.1 surround sound!
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Guns: I'm really enjoying Halo 3's arsenal ever since it hit me that, I really didn't care what weapon I was holding -- they were all effective and fun. In the past Halos, I always looked for certain weapons (rocket launcher, shotgun, etc.), but here, everything was fine by me. Needler...dual-wielded combos of submachine guns or spiker guns...assault rifle...brute shot...
I never felt like I needed to find replacements for whatever I was holding in my hands at the time. Granted, I've only been playing a day, so I may not understand all the balancing intricacies yet....
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Modes: Lots of cool new ones and nice updates to old ones. We've been playing whatever the matchmaking servers have been serving us, but ones of note:
VIP: One "VIP" is overshielded, but he's the only one whose death equals a point for the other team. So protect him...and go after the other team's VIP.
Territories: Slightly different now. If I'm not getting my mode names mixed up, this one had one team having to defend five markers. The other team has under three minutes to capture them all. Gets intense when time's running out, and only one or two markers are left.
Land Grab: Like the old Territories in Halo 2. (Again, it's 3 a.m....I might be getting the names mixed up. If you have any corrections, please share!) Except, once you capture a point (and it takes a looooong time to do so), it's yours for good. So the fights are not the back and forth of capturing and recapturing points to get to the time goal the quickest (by having more points captured than your enemies). It's to be the first team to capture the majority of the five points on the map. Very fun when it's tied 2-2 and everyone's going after the last one!
Oddball/CTF: Is it me, or is the melee damage with the oddball or flag much greater than before? Now, you can one-hit kill anyone with a melee attack with either of those two things, and you don't even need to be behind him. If I'm not mistaken, it took at least a couple of hits in previous Halos.
(I'm too tired to research this properly right now.)
My only complaint: The modes need some quick instructions at the lobby screen, because we were all confused with what our objectives were at first. It took some trial and error to figure things out...especially for Territories. ("Why can't we capture this point? Oh...we're supposed to defend them...")
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Maps: I like a lot, but after a few hours of play, my group was voting down almost any match that was to take place on Valhalla, the big, Blood Gultch/Coagulation-style map (two bases, lots of land in between them). It just took too long to play, and objective games (like one-bomb assault) took even longer. But this is a personal preference thing. I know lots of people who loved those long Blood Gultch/Coagulation matches. Not me, though. Quick, intense action for me, please. But VIP on Valhalla was awesome. You can see where the VIP is from anywhere, so we'd have to send out "hunting parties" to take him down, and make decisions like whether to leave our VIP behind to fend for himself, or leave some body guards with him, or let him go out with us to kill the other VIP. Because of the extra real estate on Valhalla, VIP mode felt more intense, because you could be alone when the other hunting party finds you....
# Other random bits of gameplay info:
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You can pull guns off their turrets for mobile chain-gun action. Goes into third-person view, you can't reload, you have high recoil and slow moving speed, but...it's a chain gun. It's bad-ass.
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Needlers: also bad ass now. Can't dual-wield them, that's why. (Bungie nerfed Halo 2's Needlers because dual-wielded, they were unstoppable.)
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Brute Shots: 6 shots before reloading
-Active Camo: Now a giant, shimmering ball instead of that little blue pyramid pickup. No sigh of overshields anywhere (except in VIP mode, when the VIPs are automatically overshielded).
-Banshees have a torpedo attack.
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Warthogs and two-man Mongoose ATVs: L trigger = power slide.
-Plasma pistol: Keeping it charged will drain your ammo, so you have to keep that thing quiet until it's time to attack. It also doesn't track as well now. This is
in attempt to cut down on cheap moves, such as Halo 2's "noob combo." But it
does serve as an EMP gun. Shoot it at a vehicle to disable it.
-Special "X button" power
pickups:
Bubble Shield (instant shield),
Track Mine (proximity mine),
Personal Grav Lift (put a lift anywhere you want to reach higher altitudes),
Energy Drainer (continually hurts everyone within a small radius). One time, I dropped a Bubble Shield right when I turned around the corner and someone launched a rocket at me. Just in time -- the rocket exploded harmlessly against the transparent shield instead of harmfully against my face. Thanks Bubble Shield! You saved my life, and we both looked damn cool while you did it!
OK, that's it for now. I'll proofread this later...if I can pull myself away from the game....
Especially when he picks up the chaingun, it's like they borrowed the Gears of War animations (great view of the lighting on the armour -> not overly glossy, looks like painted metal). 
