Halo 3 Beta Is Trial by Fire and Snow

The Halo 3 beta has, at long last, gone live. And it plays better than most game designers' finished projects.

The launch was not without its snags. The vast majority of the beta invites (about 900,000 of them) went to purchasers of the Xbox 360 game Crackdown, but those players found that the download link in the game's menu screen didn't work. Bungie Studios furiously worked to fix the problem, but Crackdown players weren't able to pull down the 900 MB download until about 7 p.m. Wednesday.

In apology, Bungie extended the beta test by four days. The mayhem is now scheduled to end June 10.

As expected, Halo 3 is wildly popular. Microsoft said that 294,821 players have played 355,011 matches in the first 24 hours since the beta went live.

Halo newbies (like me) shouldn't expect a slow-paced introduction to the world of Spartans and Elites. This is trial by fire -- the game is multiplayer only, and as soon as you start you'll be taking potshots from all sides. But Halo 3, like its predecessors, is meant to be a pick-up-and-play party game, so you'll get the hang of things soon enough. (And Bungie has put up a helpful guide.)

The first thing you'll notice is that the graphics are nowhere near the holy-crap level of Microsoft's last shooter epic, Gears of War. In fact, Halo 3 looks pretty much like a slightly more polished, high-def version of Halo 2. But that's OK: When you're dealing with a maximum of 16 players on screen at once, all zooming around in giant vehicles and blasting rapid-fire, you can't also be pushing knock-your-socks-off graphics.

A few new features change up the gameplay. The biggest is the inclusion of items that can be picked up and used. There's a bubble shield that you can throw up around yourself to stop bullets temporarily. And an anti-grav jumping device lets you get extra height -- perfect, we found out, for infiltrating an enemy's base in Capture the Flag.

If you get sick of CTF (and there's got to be some people who are by now), there's the new VIP mode. In this team-based affair, one player on each team is the VIP, and the only way to score is by killing him. My team really appreciates it when the VIP charges our base alone.

But ultimately, it's the interface changes that will have the biggest impact on the Halo experience. It's easy to join up and stay together with the friends on your Xbox Live master list. The game will automatically match you up with the group of people closest to your skill level that it can find, although it often takes a few more minutes than should really be necessary in the beta.

If you play a round with some good people, you can choose to "party up" afterward, and you'll stick with that group for the next play session.

Each time you begin a game, the beta version auto-selects the map and game type, but players can veto the first suggestion the game makes. If a majority of players veto, the game will automatically pick another map.

Many players have been exercising their veto power whenever the Snowbound level comes up. The map features a lone building set in a snowdrift surrounded by mountains and turrets. There's nowhere to run, which means that matches are less strategic and more of a bloodbath. And nobody seems to like it. Snowbound "sucks balls" and is also "gay," according to two of the cultured, erudite gentlemen with whom I last enjoyed a round of Team Slayer.

This might be an excellent time to mention that muting a player's audio is as easy as selecting them on the menu and clicking the right joystick.

Another interesting new feature is the ability to film your matches -- after a match, you can save a record of the whole experience, then upload it for all to see. Whether you want to save an impressive victory for posterity, analyze a loss or be the new Red vs. Blue, this is sure to be a fan favorite.
Source : http://www.wired.com