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Halo 3 Multiplayer Demo Coming In Spring
Today is the fifth anniversary of the original Halo: Combat Evolved. To celebrate Bungie has announced new maps for Halo 2, a commercial for the upcoming game to be shown on December Fourth, and (most entertainingly) intentions to offer a multiplayer demo of Halo 3 this coming spring. From the lengthy post: "What exactly does this mean? Well, again we can't really get into the details quite yet (notice a theme here?) but we can confirm that our fans will have an opportunity to play Halo 3 multiplayer over Xbox Live BEFORE the final game is available. You'll be playing a little multiplayer and simultaneously providing us with some valuable data to help our development team. We're still working out the details on timing and scope and there will be a lot more info coming in the weeks ahead."
Where did you see Halo 1 alpha? And what about it was better then Halo CE?
I thought I was the only one that remembers "old" Halo, I remember seeing it at the MacWorld convention in like 1998. I remember thinking "oh cool, the mac will finally get a sweet game"
In a world of acronyms, the words are the real victims.
Right around the time PS3's might actually be available in quantity. Huh. Funny that...
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
"Where did you see Halo 1 alpha? And what about it was better then Halo CE?"
At Bungi back before they got purchased by Microsoft. (shrug) Seems I'm a troll however, so dont mind me.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Anyone wanna place any bets on whether you'll need to spend some "points" on the demo?
This guy's the limit!
What about the 2nd question? WHat about it was better then Halo CE?
Granted, I didn't RTFA, as I don't really care, but that line struck me. This isn't going to be a demo, it's a beta test!
The odd part is that it is a beta on a console. Something that is usually considered a black box solution. If they are running a beta in an environment where lockups and crashes are not acceptable, they have to be pretty confident in the condition of the engine.
The only thing I can figure is that they will be looking more for playability issues (run speed, reload timers, choke points, etc...) and balancing just prior to launch.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
I don't think you'll have to pay for the Halo 3 commercial, but I'm guessing it'll be release first on Live Gold, a la the Gears of War trailer. You will probably have to pay for the Halo 2 maps, if reports are to be believed. But all the Halo maps released so far eventually became free, so I think I'll just hang around till they're non-premium. If indeed I'm still playing Halo 2 at that date.
.... Because if they don't, the terrorists win.
This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
Parent modded -1 Non-Groupthink Compliant
How is This better than this?
"How is This [wikimedia.org] better than this [wikimedia.org]?"
So the only way to tell if a game is good or fun is by the quality of the graphics? Halo was dummed down to work on the xbox and has never recovered.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Cuz I was expecting BIG news.
God spoke to me.
The general reaction to the media from Halo 3 has been pretty bad. Back when it came out there weren't that many 'shiny metal' games out - and certainly not green metal ones.
But now days every damn Unreal engine game is full of shiny metal guys and Halo is looking more and more of just another one of the crowd. By the time Halo ships next year there are easily going to be 20 to 30 other 'guys in bulky metal armor' games.
Bungie never was known for their graphics engines - although the Marathon games were state of the art back in their days - most people never looked past the green metal MC and noticed how mediocre the actual Halo engine was in the first two games compared to what else was out at the time.
I get the feeling that most Halo fans are getting themselves prepared for dealing with moving beyond Halo and on to greener pastures(heh).
seconded.
anyone know if the fps games in these next-gen consoles support keyboard + mouse by default? i know you can hook them to the console, but can you use them instead of the controller?
I think the idea is that, for a game that hasn't been released we can imagine all these nifty features the game could have but when the game actually comes out it can never live up to the imagined greatness that a few minutes of alpha footage can bring. I was excited about the Mac version when I heard about it, they were calling for some form of human vs covenant epic online battle for the ringworlds. Being a game from back in the day, what like 1998 it sounded legendary. When I heard that Microsoft bought them I thought "well that's a bummer." When it came out I still thought it was a good game, even though it wasn't the hundreds of people playing online in the same match, military power versus military power, MMO action shooter that many of us imagined it was going to be.
bottom line: Curse Microsoft for not magically making Bungie exceed the impossibly high expectations of the common internet fuckwad.
disclaimer: I've been known to store numbers in my ass for which to dig out when quantities are required.
You still haven't answered my other question. What was better about Halo 1 alpha then Halo CE?
So the only way to tell if a game is good or fun is by the quality of the graphics? Halo was dummed down to work on the xbox and has never recovered.
... stand there, oblivious to the player's presence. Going further back to the third-person versions - aiming was a mess of reticules and lucky guesses. 'Gameplay' might have involved driving over someone with a warthog, or shooting him/her/it with one of the vast and peculiar array of weapons available. While wandering round an unfinished map with almost no cover whatsoever.
Have you seen non-cinematic videos of the early versions?
There. Was. No. AI.
Aliens just
The beginnings weren't much of an improvement - the game was an RTS where you could place units, order some around, and that was about it. Wahey.
There's a video out there somewhere which has Bungie employees pointing and laughing at the incredible smoke-and-mirrors act they pulled from a game which, to be honest, wasn't really going anywhere. They had ideas, they had talent, but if someone hadn't bought them out or paid them, and then given them a giant deadline to meet, then Halo would probably have been forgotten...
The amazing, nebulous vision of a perfect, detailed Mac-only Halo steeped in aeons of complex gameplay - then being crushed under the boot of a monolithic Microsoft - is just a creation of people's imaginations. Sorry.
(Aha! Found it: The Evolution of Halo. Worth seeing.)
Tedious Bloggy Stuff - hooray?
As long as multiplayer is segregated.. blacks on one server, whi... i mean console users on one server and pc users on the other..
im HORRIBLE at games (i was good as a child though hmm), i dont play any on my PC and i rarely play any on consoles but I do play halo 2 and ill be buying a 360+halo 3 when it comes out..
At least with all console multiplayer I have a chance (up until about level 13, then i always die and give up for a year then buy another 12 month xbox live subscription to play for another month and then get mad and quit again for another year) but if pc users start playing i'll get my ass kicked by level 1's.
So if they ever do have it for pc i hope they keep everyone separate or add an option for console users to play with only other console users.
k thanks
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It seemed to be more expansive and I believe it was supposed to have a fairly good multiplayer component (I seem to recall hearing massively-multiplayer somewhere... but don't remember where), which Halo 1 lacked. The Halo games that were made were amazingly linear as well, something the early concept game wasn't supposed to be.
Halo might have been one of the best implementations of an FPS on a console, but that's not saying much (Halo PC anyone? C'mon... *anyone*?). 1 and 2 were true successes in terms of marketing (especially Halo 2), but neither match terribly well against their computer-based counterparts.
LegendMUD
Ok, I like the sound of a massive multiplayer experience, that would have made the game better. But was that in existance at all, or was it just an idea. Did Halo 1 alpha have that capability? or was it just a cool idea. If it was only an idea, I would say that you can't take it into consideration when making the statement "Halo 1 alpha is better then Halo CE". Thanks for your input admdrew, your insight is helpful. But Kenja started this thread by making the claim "Still not as good as Halo 1 alpha". I was curious if he/she was making this statement off of first hand experience with Halo 1 alpha, seeing a video clip, or reading some of the preposed ideas out of early bungie.
I had heard ideas that it was going to be sorta massively multiplayer, kinda along the lines of what Planetside turned out to be (which is a lot of fun).
Unfortunately, I believe it was just talk; the only early gameplay videos I saw involved nothing larger than squad-based combat (~20, or less, players).
LegendMUD
I don't think any console FPS does this yet.
On a related note, there was an adapter for the orignal XBox that let you hook up a PS/2 ([insert witty comment on the port's name wrt consoles) KB+M with mouse movement bound to the what is usually the "look" stick and other bindings programable. In general, though, it gave the people with it a fairly good sized advantage and I doubt they would integrate the controls into the game.
No, parent modded -1 Copy+Paste Troll. Has nothing to do with groupthink(which is what Slashdot trolls concentrate on to avoid the fact that they're jackasses)
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
Bugnie never ever said it was going to be Mac-only.
!asleep
Notice how you completely dodge the issue of consoles still having a horrible interface(console controllers) for FPS and RTS games. (And no, the Wii doesn't make this any better.)
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
Opening up the floodgates here, but I can't think of any game that didn't become a shadow of it's former self, when you consider the former self to be the initial planning stage.
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.
He also dodged the fact that the original XBOX DID have compatibility issues. my 3 friends had 3 xbox's (one an early, two a bit later i think) and one of the games they bought wouldnt load on all of them.. i forget if it was the newer or older ones it sh!t itself on, but the fact remains, it wasnt just "plug it in and it will work". As for the controller. Console Games ALWAYS have increased "hit zones" (ie the area you have to be aiming at to actually hit the target) because they KNOW you cant aim for sh!t with a console controller.
What is...?
Register. Then we'll talk. ;)
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
I don't know if this is the same video, but it's definitely an interesting watch. It goes through the early Halo builds. Part 1 and Part 2.
If you read the article you will notice that the new maps will only be available for Xbox 360 when released. Very nice marketing ploy to try and force your customers to upgrade away from a console which still has plenty of life. No this is not surprising coming from Microsoft but still annoying nonetheless. Bungie pretty much apologizes saying they want all of their fans to enjoy the new content but that their hands are tied by the publisher, Microsoft Game Studios. Here's to not seeing other great game companies like Bungie being bought by large corporations who have other motives than simply delivering the best games possible to their fans.
I had more fun playing Goldeneye on N64 than I did playing any PC FPS. But then I'm more interested in actually having enjoying a game than spending all day configuring keybindings and optimising framerates.
I had to do more searching for buttons when trying to play Halo then I did with every PC FPS I've ever played, combined.
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
Wow, that was interesting to see how far Halo came. The PC version still was a load of fun IMO, if not quite living up to the hype that surrounded the game (before it suffered that horrid Xbox transition and 1-2year delay to get back to PC - I still remember that devastating blow as a 15-year-old-ish reading PC Gamer :'( )
It's funny that I was modded flamebait. Maybe some mods have a personal interest rather than objective take on what I said? Nah...
So why did I say that? Because I believe it's true, of course. My first online fps I played was Unreal Tournament; you just can't beat the accuracy that a keyboard and mouse offer compared to a controller. I've been played online fps for years, yet when I sat down at an anime con (Anime Weekend Atlanta) and tried playing Halo, I failed miserably. Using the left analog stick to move around felt fine (although I still prefer a keyboard), but using the right analog stick to look around/aim was difficult.
Think about it terms of different types pointing devices: most laptops have a touchpad, but some have a 'nub' (not sure what they're called). It's a pointing stick of sorts, just like the analog stick on Xbox controllers. Now, let's say you have a choice between a nub and the touchpad. Which would you choose? I used to think I would choose the nub, but after using that Xbox controller I realized I would rather have the touchpad (or better yet, a real mouse).
This is why I say "wake me up when it works on my PC". Not because I have a bias towards PC gaming, but because the input devices are superior for certain types of games. I say certain games because a controller is better for quite a few. Platformers, RPGs, puzzle games, etc.; but for games like first person shooters and real-time strategies, I'll stick a keyboard and mouse, thanks.
-Eric
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
-Eric
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.