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Halo 3 Beta Closes Up Shop

Posted by Zonk on from the until-september-mister-c dept.

"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."

1 of 56 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Thank god... by displaced80 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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?