Halo 3 Beta Unveiled

[xboxrulz1405241485 0]

 

Straight from the source: Bungie.net

 

The Halo 3 Multiplayer Beta will go live on May 16th at 12:00 AM PDT and run through June 6 th at 11:59 PM PDT. That means that folks who purchased specially marked copies of Crackdown, or won a spot in the Beta through the âRule of Threeâ or other regional promotions, will be able to log into their Xbox Live Gold accounts, download and play the Halo 3 Multiplayer Beta and enjoy an early peek at the multiplayer aspect of the game.

 

If youâve been sitting on the fence, and are interested, you can still enter the Beta by picking up a specially marked copy of Crackdown, which would ordinarily be a chore, but thankfully Crackdown is an awesome action game which might ironically distract you from the Beta Iâm pimping here. Bungie is also giving out a few Friends and Family spots to valued community members, but those are few and far between, so itâs safer to assume youâre not getting in that way.

 

Now, I will say this again and again â the game youâre going to play one month from now, is Beta software â and while it will look somewhat close to the final game, it IS Beta â and will contain quirks, a couple of roughedges and all that jazz. But weâre pretty confident youâll find it a dynamic and exciting taste of whatâs to come in Fall.

 

The Beta itself consists of three maps â Valhalla, High Ground and Snowbound â graphically improved since our first MP screenshots â and all three will be playable in Matchmaking only (that is after all, what weâre Beta testing here). All three maps are suitable for a wide variety of gameplay types, and you will have the chance to try all manner of game types, familiar and new.

 

There are a number of new features youâll get to test out â including a new grenade type, a completely different class of weapon and some of the enhanced online functionality we plan to bring to the game â but it should be noted, a lot of secret features are hidden in this Beta. Weâre keeping a lot of our powder dry for Fall. In May, when your firing the Spiker, sniping vehicles with the Spartan Laser and sticking fools with the Brute Spike grenade, remember that itâs just a peek-a-boo fraction of whatâs to come.

 

And do me a special personal favor â walk down to the beach, the river or the lake in High Ground and Valhalla, and take a look at the water.

 

There will also be new guns, vehicles and gameplay features to try â including the mysterious âX-Buttonâ functionality. But you donât have to wait to find out what that is, since you can now view part of its functionality in our latest Vidoc, âIs Quisnam Protero Damno!â a long look at the making of Halo 3âs Multiplayer game.

Finally, we Halo fans can get a taste of the beta test really soon any I'm psyched to try it out. I gotta definitely work out my kinks on Halo 2 before going on the Halo 3 beta test

 

Also, the latest ViDoc is available on XBOX Live Marketplace, for those who already have an XBOX 360. For the unfortunate ones, click here for the PC version.

 

xboxrulz

[Arkane 0]

Yay, I am defiantly glad to hear this. I'm a huge fan of the Halo Franchise and an avid player of both games. The release of this game will be a milestone in the decline of my productive activity as I spend many more hours in my basement playing Halo 3 with 15 friends on 4 TVs. Even more so, I will finally have a new campaign to play, and hopefully they will allow warthogs to run into each other and go hundreds of feet into the air, like in halo 1 (One of the most fun things to do in my opinion) Anyway, thanks for letting me know =D

[unimatrix 0]

I liked Halo 1 a lot. Again, though, I was in college and getting 8v8 in the dorms was pretty easy and a lot of fun. I rented Halo 2 and was frankly disapointed. Beat the game and went...WTF...OH another Squel. Now that it is coming out on the 360, chances are I won't be playing it. I just refuse to spend $500 on a gaming machines. I guess it's the curse of getting older. I used to like computer games, but between the fact that no one is making games I like to play (other than the Vega Strike folks and Freespace OSS projects, which happen to both be free and off Mac ports). If one of my friends gets a 360, I'll be playing...otherwise, probably not.

[kgd2006 0]

I was a halo fan, keyword "WAS". Reason is that bungie lost me when they rushed halo 2. Although HALO 2 had many features that were cool and fun the gameplay was broken to the adjustment of weapons. Not only that but the game was very short which made many of the consumers that purchased the game who was expecting a even larger game was saddened to a short game that left us hanging for number 3. Hopefully HALO3 will offer everything as promised plus more. Halo is a very unexpected game to blow up as it did. And if they go down hill from halo 2 it would be a waste expecially since microsoft has very high standards for its marketing scheme. I am very interested in how much HALO 3 will be changed and its improvements but until bungie have dug themselves out of the hole I will probably jump back on their wagon.Halo 1 for instance was a very interesting game on its own. I for one played that game for hours on end because of its story and gameplay that surpassed other games. Its multiplayer was spot on where my friends and I would have war games at times. HALO 1 you needed skills to win, in HALO 2 it seems like that whoever has the better combo dual weapon will win the shoot out battle, or more specifically who has the better weapon will win. For example in Halo 1, a pistol could go up against a rocket launcher alone even with its splash damage. But with the pistol it is harder to aim and kill unless you have the skill to aim directly at the head of the opponent. In Halo 2 they included a knife which everyone runs and scavanges for and that seems to be the weapon of choice now that makes the battle unbalanced to a point.So Im very interested in seeing the improvements to HALO 3, and what they have to offer us. I was sort of expecting that masterchief gets a more revamp on his armor, but I guess that would lose the inconsistency of the series.