Halo 3 - now coming to Xbox One. MC Collection.

[outspaced]

Surely the best thing about The Silent Cartographer was the fact that it had it all. It was this beautiful self contained island. It felt whole. Beautiful beaches and open areas with a fascinating interior of tight corridors and small spaces. I'm not really much of a Halo fan, but The Silent Cartographer will remain one of my favourite 'levels' from any game ever - I'm sure.

When I first did that level I almost crapped myself on two occasions. When I first met those two hunters going underground, and next when I was on the way up and met those invisible elites!

Good times

[A Hen]

To me, those videos feel a lot more like Halo 2 than Halo . It may just be the rushed way the guy is playing it though (just driving into situations at breakneck speed, rather than exploring, being more tactical, etc.). I wonder if there'll be a demo up on Marketplace?

Who am I kidding? I'll be down the shops at 9am on launch day.

[Digimortal]

To me, those videos feel a lot more like Halo 2 than Halo . It may just be the rushed way the guy is playing it though (just driving into situations at breakneck speed, rather than exploring, being more tactical, etc.)

Didn't someone say it was on normal mode? Rushing through without a care in the world is how to play normal mode on either Halo.

[A Hen]

Didn't someone say it was on normal mode? Rushing through without a care in the world is how to play normal mode on either Halo.

Well, you can do it like that, but it's still more fun to explore, experiment with the enemy AI, etc. The guy demoing it wasn't doing too it many favours really - he was basically driving past everything and occasionally running a few enemies over. Halo's a game to be savoured, rather than rushed, on any difficulty.

But my point was that he didn't give us much of a chance to see any improvements over Halo 2, upgraded visuals aside. It felt very much like Halo 2 - totally linear and very vehicle-based. Let's hope the levels are more open than it seemed, and that they're fun to play through on foot as well as in a 'Hog. I did notice one or two parts where there was possibly a more open area, but he just rushed past them.

Part of the appeal of the first game was that the vehicles were perfectly integrated - you could get in and out whenever you wanted, and there was only one point in the game where you had to use them (the jump just after you get in a Warthog for the first time). This integration one of the features that made the first game so refreshing, and in fact was emulated by seemingly every other game after Halo came out. Before it, shooters generally had separate "driving" levels that typically didn't blend very well with the rest of the game. But in Halo 2, there were vast tracts of the game that were beyond tedious without vehicles (the long road bridge and subsequent tunnels). Effectively, these were an old-fashioned "vehicle levels", as there was no realistic option to forgo the vehicle. The sections where it was equally fun to proceed on foot or in a vehicle were few and far between.

[dan_tm]

When I first did that level I almost crapped myself on two occasions. When I first met those two hunters going underground, and next when I was on the way up and met those invisible elites!

Good times

That room scared me to death the first time, especially the nasty shock on the way out after activating the map.

In fact, maybe it was just because I was much younger then, but Halo was a really fucking scary game when I played it through for the first time. The Library and that jungle level were almost unbearable at 3am when I was trying to complete it in one sitting...

[Snowman]

Part of the appeal of the first game was that the vehicles were perfectly integrated - you could get in and out whenever you wanted, and there was only one point in the game where you had to use them (the jump just after you get in a Warthog for the first time). This integration one of the features that made the first game so refreshing, and in fact was emulated by seemingly every other game after Halo came out. Before it, shooters generally had separate "driving" levels that typically didn't blend very well with the rest of the game. But in Halo 2, there were vast tracts of the game that were beyond tedious without vehicles (the long road bridge and subsequent tunnels). Effectively, these were an old-fashioned "vehicle levels", as there was no realistic option to forgo the vehicle. The sections where it was equally fun to proceed on foot or in a vehicle were few and far between.

I agree with everything you say there, and I'd add two more criticisms to Halo 2's vehicle sections. Firstly, they rarely gave you enough room for manoeuvre. The beaches on Earth were good, but the drawbridge area on Delta Halo was too cluttered for my liking, and the sentinel wall sections were far too narrow. Secondly, wave upon wave of ghosts were often sent charging at you, which usually forced me to choose the scorpion's firepower over the warthog's agility. That got old really quickly as I've always prefered making hit and run strikes in a 'hog as opposed to lumbering along in a tank.

But my point was that he didn't give us much of a chance to see any improvements over Halo 2, upgraded visuals aside. It felt very much like Halo 2 - totally linear and very vehicle-based. Let's hope the levels are more open than it seemed, and that they're fun to play through on foot as well as in a 'Hog. I did notice one or two parts where there was possibly a more open area, but he just rushed past them.

Sure, he didn't hang around much, but I was really encouraged by what I saw in those videos, and I'd say it looked a lot more like Assault on the Control Room than anything in Halo 2. There were lots of wide open spaces, but with just enough cover to get by if you were on foot, and there seemed to be a number of structures that warranted exploration. I was very glad to see that apart from the handful of Brute choppers, the majority of the resistance was on foot. Added to that, the wraiths were mostly out in the open, giving the player a chance to mix it up with a warthog, rather than having to take them out at range.

[Ketchup]

The AI driving you off the cliffs in Halo 2 was always fun...

[Pob]

Secondly, wave upon wave of ghosts were often sent charging at you, which usually forced me to choose the scorpion's firepower over the warthog's agility. That got old really quickly as I've always prefered making hit and run strikes in a 'hog as opposed to lumbering along in a tank.

Not with rocket man in the passenger seat! After the first time I played Halo 2, I never touched the Scorpion tank again. Bombing around in a hog, with rockets whizzing out at all angles, smacking up Ghosts is brilliant.

Imagine having five rocket guys in those new personnel carrier hogs

[Space Renegade Ulala]

For all the problems with the second game, one great thing about it was the weapon swapping with the marines. I just loved setting things up so I had two snipers and a guy with infinite rockets backing me up while I took point. Of course, it wasn't always sweetness and light - marines in High Charity + Fuel Rod cannons = mucho friendly fire shenanigans.

[Ferine]

Of course, it wasn't always sweetness and light - marines in High Charity + Fuel Rod cannons = mucho friendly fire shenanigans.

Eh? You don't get any Marines in High Charity.

I agree with the sentiment, anyway. If I only had one or two shots left in a sniper or a single rocket remaining it was handy being able to lay the weapons off onto my mysteriously well prepared cohorts.

I just noticed there's some footage up on GameVideos showing someone messing about with the new Hornet on Sandtrap. It also has a cutscene from Tsavo Highway, so be warned. Oh, there's a snippet of Forge, too.

[Space Renegade Ulala]

High Charity, the city, not High Charity, the level.

Actually, that's one of my main bugbears, the way the marines would switch/vanish between levels. Going from Delta Halo to Regret, I lost one marine and all the snazzy weapons I'd armed them all with. I had Panicky Guy, Michelle Rodriguez and Aussie Dude as one ended and Latino Guy and Texas Man as the next began, both armed with way crappier weapons. Amazing what a difference 30 seconds makes.

[Ferine]

High Charity, the city, not High Charity, the level.

Sorry, you're totally right, there are Marines. I completely forgot about the ones you rescue from the cells as I last played it on Legendary where they survive for all of 2 seconds.

[Space Renegade Ulala]

Yeah, that's pretty much why I rarely bother playing it on Legendary. Well, that and the damn Jackals and their beam rifles. For me, a huge part of the fun comes from the squad aspect of the games, charging into battle with the wisecracking marines backing you up but it's just too difficult to be fun in the sequel. The original was fine, Silent Cartographer or AotCR Legendary, I can take the beach with no casualties or leave 10 members of Fire Team Zulu in the canyon under the twin bridges no problem but Halo 2, they're lucky to last 2 seconds even. It's like every moment of every level with them is the Truth & Reconciliation's gravity lift on steroids.

[Ferine]

Yeah, that's pretty much why I rarely bother playing it on Legendary. Well, that and the damn Jackals and their beam rifles. For me, a huge part of the fun comes from the squad aspect of the games, charging into battle with the wisecracking marines backing you up but it's just too difficult to be fun in the sequel. The original was fine, Silent Cartographer or AotCR Legendary, I can take the beach with no casualties or leave 10 members of Fire Team Zulu in the canyon under the twin bridges no problem but Halo 2, they're lucky to last 2 seconds even. It's like every level with them is the Truth & Reconciliation's gravity lift on steroids.

Yeah, I find Legendary in Halo 2 to be an exercise in stubbornness and rote memory. That might just be because I'm not very good, but there's a lot of things that seem unfair about it: psychic Jackal Snipers are the main sore point, but the frailty of your troops and frontal mêlée attacks being near useless aren't far behind — to kill some of the Elites it takes about 10 successive hits, yet they can have you down in one given the chance.

Incidentally I've been playing the PC version recently and I discovered that you can kill Flood with headshots. I never noticed this on the Xbox for some reason, but it certainly makes them a lot easier to dispatch with a Carbine.

Anyway, Halo 3, eh?

[FUTURE NEWS]

This 360 owning populace wants the best of Halo 1 with the best of Halo 2, but insecurities that the worst of Halo 2 will rear it's ugly head is like a thorn in the side of this thread, until it's in your hands of course.

so Why Don't You....

1. Write the best and worst of H1 and H2 on small pieces of paper that you got free in this week's Look In

2. Put them in the oven on gas mark 5

3. Pick half them out at random when they're toasted golden brown

Halo 3: Combat Perfected

Until it's out, it's as accurate as anything Bungie say.

While you're all waiting for September, why not try Resistance: Fall of Man© on the Sony Playstation 3 and try adding your own achievements like finishing it with one life.

[Chooch]

[Chaz]

While you're all waiting for September, why not try Resistance: Fall of Man© on the Sony Playstation 3 and try adding your own achievements like finishing it with one life.

I'd rather not.

[Pob]

Yeah, that's pretty much why I rarely bother playing it on Legendary. Well, that and the damn Jackals and their beam rifles. For me, a huge part of the fun comes from the squad aspect of the games, charging into battle with the wisecracking marines backing you up but it's just too difficult to be fun in the sequel. The original was fine, Silent Cartographer or AotCR Legendary, I can take the beach with no casualties or leave 10 members of Fire Team Zulu in the canyon under the twin bridges no problem but Halo 2, they're lucky to last 2 seconds even. It's like every moment of every level with them is the Truth & Reconciliation's gravity lift on steroids.

I know what you mean. If I lose all my marines, I stick a plasma grenade to me foot and try again. I don't find it too hard to keep them alive, though. Tool them up, make you get stuck into the Covenant so their fire is split between you and your marines, and you can get them pretty far.

And the Jackal snipers have given me some of the most memorable encounters in either Halo game, despite how frustrating they are. I had a great session the other day in the bowl-like arena of Metropolis (just after you exit the tunnel). My marines would run up behind the first jackal and SMG him off the edge, which was funny in itself. Then they'd break left and make a run for cover, beams and rockets whizzing across the arena, while I headed right to load up on sniper ammo. Cue an intense sniper battle, with the me and my team catching the dastardly jackals in a crossfire. I lost my marines, but it made the checkpoint great fun (and extremely tense).

[simms]

I wonder if one of the achievements will be to try and keep as many marines alive as possible at certain points in the game ? I think I'll be upset if its not.

[Ben]

There's an interesting interview over at 1up about matchmaking and how the Beta has changed some of the multiplayer:

Link

One quote re:matchmaking that I know will please some people here:

EGM: What do you mean by "initial player experience"?

TG: When you take a player new to Halo 3 and just say, here's some hoppers, have fun, well, they jump into a hopper and then they get plowed for a couple games, or a couple of dozen games, and then they stop playing and never pick the game up again -- or they only play custom games with their friends. We spent a lot of time during and after the beta rethinking how we introduce players to the matchmaking experience.

When we ship this time around, we are going to have a basic training hopper, which is a cleaned-up initial hopper for players to go into. It's gonna be restricted on things like experience and skill level and number of games played, so it's not going to be a bashing ground. You can't just jump in there and bash newbs all day long.

Lars Bakken, multiplayer designer: It'll only be available for people below a certain level, and once you get above that you can't access it ever again.

[Eighthours]

What on earth is a "hopper"?

[Ben]

A playlist, christ knows why they call them hoppers internally.

[srgbilco]

It's probably more like the pool of players they draw from to populate a Matchmaking game. Like, a hopper full of people for each playlist. And everyone starts out in the shit hopper and when they rank up enough they move on to the main hopper, where they stay. And if you're very shit and don't rank up enough you stay in the shit hopper, playing other shit people like Jon1 for the rest of your life.

[Ben]

I don't know, another quote makes it sound like the different playlists:

The biggest thing that I can think of off the top of my head: how we set up our [matchmaking setup] hoppers. We changed that quite a bit based on feedback. We'll eventually have cleaner, more pure hoppers, by and large. There will still be one or two that are more mixed. But the feedback on the hoppers in the beta was really quite clear -- it was, "Why am I still playing Team Slayer in an objective-game hopper?" Hey, good point -- why are you playing Team Slayer so much in an objective-game hopper? So we fixed that, and we're paying close attention to that.

And actually, I've heard that this is a topic dear to you [the interviewer]; the initial player experience in the hoppers was really quite poor, which was something that we recognized before the beta went out, but wasn't something that we could fix in time for the beta.

[Stroker Ace]

At last no Team Slayer in Objective-based Playlists? Thank FUCKING CHRIST.

[srgbilco]

Fucking hoppers.

[Chaz]

"GET TO DA HOPPA" etc

[Guest]

playing other shit people like Jon1 for the rest of your life.

dick.

[dan_tm]

At last no Team Slayer in Objective-based Playlists? Thank FUCKING CHRIST.

He didn't say that.

[Snowman]

The next batch of 1UP's coverage is up. There's a preview of co-op and the meta-game and a short description of Sandtrap and Epitaph.

The second live action short is up on GameVideos, seemingly in it's finished form.

Finally, Luke Smith and Brian Jarrard are on this week's EGM Live talking about Halo 3.