Halo 3 Teaser Aired, Beta Signups Start

Gamespot reports on the airing of the Halo 3 Teaser trailer on Monday Night Football, and the beginning of signups for the Halo 3 beta at Halo3.com. From the article: "[Yesterday] registration for the beta program began at the Halo 3 Web site. The beta will initially be open to North American gamers, and not everyone who applies is guaranteed a spot. To participate, gamers must have: a) An Xbox 360 with a hard-drive; b) A valid Xbox Live Gold subscription; c) A valid Microsoft. NET Passport account with a Xbox Live GamerTag linked to it." The teaser featured a mix of live-action and very impressive CG. It just didn't grab me in the same way that the trailer from E3 did, though. If you're interested in some more substantive information on the game, the folks at Ziff have been offering up information via the 1up Show.

Comments

Fanboys

[Broken scope]

Make the worst beta testers. I hope to go bungie looks at the people who signed up near the middle first. They are more likely to give honest feed back about what is wrong with the game.

Re:Fanboys

[HappySqurriel]

Make the worst beta testers. I hope to go bungie looks at the people who signed up near the middle first. They are more likely to give honest feed back about what is wrong with the game.

Well, the problem is the people you would want to be part of the Beta test are probably the least likely to sign up for a beta test.

Re:Fanboys

[JFMulder]

I didn't read Bungie wanted to do exactly with this, but maybe their are only looking for stability issues and to stress test the servers? In that case, you want fanboys who have nothing else to do with their lives because they are going to just play and play and play and hammer your servers and stress the code. Besides, BETA is normally a phase when all the features are done, you are simply fixing bugs.

And judging from how much Halo 2's multiplayer is loved by almost everyone, I'm pretty sure Bungie has a good clue on what to do for H3.

Re:Fanboys

[Sibko]

I think it's rather clever, actually.

You see, Halo and Halo 2 have both been plagued by little glitches, which give huge advantages to the players that can best exploit them.

The biggest offenders in Halo 2 being:

Superbouncing - You crouch and walk into a small space, then jump on a crack in the geometry, at which point you'll go flying up in the air. Allowing you to gain access to otherwise unattainable locations.

Button Glitches - Which are endorsed by the MLG [Major League Gaming] community. [Endorsed in that they don't care if you use them. In my eyes, the equivalent of letting baseball players use steroids.] Button glitches work by hitting buttons in a particular order to get a desired result. There are numerous glitches in Halo 2 - ranging from B-X-R which lets you instantly kill an opponent in close combat, to R-R-X which allows you to shoot twice in quick succession.

http://www.halo-2-glitches.com/weapon-glitches.htm l For information on some others.

I think it is unfortunate that to be a pro at this game, you essentially have to exploit it. I often hear arguments of how "Bungie wouldn't have put it in the game if they didn't want it." or "It takes skill to pull off." among many others, but it doesn't change the fact that these players are essentially cheating, and it's divided the Halo community: The MLG "hardcore" gamers and pro's, and the rest of us. As a result both sides tend to argue a lot, in addition to wanting differing things in Halo 3.

Which is essentially what I think this open beta is about. Bungie didn't need an open beta for Halo 1 and 2. However, even though they tried very hard to get rid of these kinds of glitches, the community still managed to find some. So why not put the community to use? Get them to find the glitches for you, then squash them before the game goes gold. I certainly hope their plan works.

Re:Yawn

[ShibaInu]

Hate to break this to you, but I believe Marathon 2 or Marathon Infinity had the bad guys fighting it out with each other. If you have played Bungie's earlier FPS games, Halo is kind of just a shiny version, with simpler levels. Still enjoyed it though.

Re:Live action?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, it's all prerendered. I know the company that did it all.

Bad mod - Re:Live action?

[jdgeorge]

When it cut to the Master Chief it was real-time in engine. Look carefully at the modeling in places like the hood of the hog (vehicle on its side) or the close-up of the helmet once the MC is wearing it and you'll see texture maps being used to create grooves. If this sequence were all CG then these elements would have been modeled. The XBOX 360 is really that good. Gears of War and Just Cause had some truly amazing graphics and these two games are just the beginning.

Hmmm.... One of the Anonymous responses to this post indicates that the whole thing is prerendered, citing personal knowledge of the company doing the work. But this post was modded as "Flamebait"??? This post is conceivably overrated, but this is certainly not flamebait.