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Halo 3 Beta Closes Up Shop
"Don't get attached to anything" is the message conveyed by Bungie, concerning the end of the public Halo 3 Beta. The event, which concluded yesterday, was the proving ground for multiplayer portion of the highly anticipated title. Halo 3 is due out this September. "The Beta has been a great success for us in terms of the sheer amount of data it allowed us to gather, for matchmaking, networking, general bug-bashing and of course some gameplay elements. As the Beta heads to the great software graveyard in the sky, it's vital to remember that things you got used to during these short few weeks, are almost certain to change. Some of those changes will be subtle, nuanced, perhaps even invisible. Others will be less subtle - with shifts in game types, weapon functionality, spawn points and map details."
The Halo series is a pretty solid game for a console shooter. I dislike PC shooters for their uber-competitive nature, yet most console shooters are annoyingly awkward in multiplayer, which is where most of the fun comes from. Yet as someone who isn't head over heads for FPS games, and also doesn't hold Goldeneye in high regard, I probably had the most fun online in Halo 2 than any other multiplayer game I've played. There's enough consistency and interesting balance in the game that most games end up very entertaining. I think the game rates poorly for people who are very competitive, since it's not as open to clanning and grouping compared to a PC game. I also think the fact that it's based on a gamepad discourages people, especially those who are very focused on using a mouse and getting constant headshots. But for people who like FPS games but don't want to deal with uberweapons, there's enough variety and subtle balance in the game that I really, really enjoyed it. Most FPS games for a broad audience just shoot for cheese or wacky, like TimeSplitters. Or there's too much emphasis on giving everyone crazy weapons or weird customization that does nothing to really make the core game better (just a different avatar). Halo, I think, succeeded very well at being a broad-audience FPS, as I think its sales numbers show. I don't think it's "the best," but "best" is very subjective anyway. I appreciate that the game was serious about strategy and maps and weapon balance, without focusing on the elite gamers who only play for rank or achievements. I hope Halo 3 follows in those footsteps.
I'm not really a Halo fan. Completed the first one on the PC, never played 2 and only played 3 because I wanted Crackdown.
Having said that, I'd expect the final release to have much better graphics than the demo -- and not because they've still got a few months to work on it. Basically, the H3 beta had to be delivered via Xbox Live. So, they had to keep the download size reasonable. Now, if you're looking to strip stuff out of a game, your choices are limited. Simplify the map layouts or alter the game engine and you're (a) making way too much work for yourself and, (b) not really giving an accurate representation of how the game behaves.
The only real way to reduce a game's size without upsetting the aims of the demo/beta is to seriously drop the size and quantity of the world's textures. Possibly drop the complexity of some non-critical models too.
I've seen this happen before. Compare the Xbox Live demos of Crackdown and Forza 2 -- both demos are significantly crappier-looking than their full retail counterparts.
So, whilst I'm not expecting anything jaw-dropping from Halo 3 once it's out, I'd certainly expect it to look significantly crisper and slicker than the beta.
What's the frequency, Kenneth?