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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."
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?
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
Considering there wasn't a charge for the "Phantasy Star Universe" Public Beta or the "Final Fantasy XI" Public Beta, nor any charge for any of the dozens of demo's released for Xbox Live (many of which feature online play), i'm thinking there will NOT be a charge...call it a hunch ;)
- "Scientia non habet inimicum nisp ignorantem"
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.
How is This better than this?
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).
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.
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?
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.