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

Mirror?

[dch24]

Gamespot requires registration. Can anyone post the HD version (I know...46 Mb is kinda big) for me to look at? Please?

Re:Mirror?

[refitman]

Streaming version found at Break.com.

Re:Mirror?

[Ford Prefect]

Can anyone post the HD version (I know...46 Mb is kinda big) for me to look at? Please?

I downloaded a fairly high-quality .MOV from GameTrailers.com earlier.

I like the visuals (the white sands contrasting with the deep-blue-to-black sky) and the sound and animation look great, but the presence of pre-rendered footage in advertising a computer game still annoys me. But I do hope Bungie steals the specular map for the pre-rendered Whatsit Chief's armour - it looks far better than the slightly naff, moulded-plastic effort being flaunted in in-game screenshots...

Re:Mirror?

[Osty]

the presence of pre-rendered footage in advertising a computer game still annoys me.

Unlock other companies (*cough*Sony*cough*), Bungie has been up-front with the fact that this ad uses rendered images rather than in-game footage. Ever since they announced that the ad was going to air, they've made it clear that it's not in-game.

But I do hope Bungie steals the specular map for the pre-rendered Whatsit Chief's armour - it looks far better than the slightly naff, moulded-plastic effort being flaunted in in-game screenshots...

While the footage is rendered CGI, all of the assets used in the video are from the game itself (or more likely, the high-resolution models and textures that the lower-poly in-game models and lower-res in-game textures will be generated from). That's not to say that there aren't more effects in the rendered video that can't or won't be done in-game, but I'd expect it to be relatively close by the time the game is done.

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.

Live action?

[Adam Zweimiller]

A mix of live action and CG? It looked like it was entirely CG to me. Not to say that the CG didn't look great, it did. I just don't recall any live action. Did I miss something?

Re:Live action?

[Sibko]

The live action portion was in the beginning, with the two children. There was a quick Q&A in IRC about the trailer after it went live, I made a post containing almost all the pertinent information here: http://carnage.bungie.org/haloforum/halo.forum.pl? read=765397 Though I think I missed a question somewhere.

To quote Frankie: "Actually the stuff with the kids was filmed on a set they filled with grass."

Re:Yawn

[HeavenlyBankAcct]

Topping the list of statements you will never hear:

"Whee! I'm having so much fun with this ALL-ENCOMPASSING STORYLINE!"

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.

Not Live Action! Not In Engine!

[Anubis333]

Guys, this was pulled off by the whiz kids at one of the best film-effects studios there is. It is not in engine, and it was done in a very short timeframe. Please don't perpetuate another Killzone incident.

CE

Re:Yawn

[cortana]

Nah, I'm a sword, not an AI.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtana

Sadly Bungie and I picked the same mythos, and now everyone mistakes me for that purple bimbo! :)

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.