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GC'07: Halo 3 Preview
Jon Wilcox
03/09/2007
TVG lands in a Covenant-held Earth just weeks ahead of Master Chief's arrival on Xbox 360, and Forges a preview...
Finish the Fight. Three words that fans of Bungie Studios' quintessentially Xbox franchise are now just weeks away from accomplishing. Due for release across Europe from September 26th, the final part of the Halo trilogy has spent the last three years in development, with the hype machine beginning to churn as far back as 2005 when Bill Gates described it as a major obstacle to a successful PlayStation 3 launch...a statement later re-construed by Microsoft.
Besides comments from Gates (the self-styled PS3 harbinger of doom), the game's development progress has never wandered far, with Bungie's weekly updates providing fans of the series titbits of information and reams of superlatives. Gamers were first able to sample what September's release has in store earlier in the year, with the launch of a three-week Beta test of Halo 3's Multiplayer mode. Whilst the Beta undoubtedly proved that Bungie's knack for crafting an intensely fun multiplayer experience remains, visually at least it failed to live up to expectations - the franchise is after all the flagship franchise for Microsoft's console.
In a surprisingly self-contained room at the Leipzig Game Convention, TVG sat in on a very brief demonstration of one mission of the game, together with a more significant walkthrough of Halo 3's user-driven 'Forge' functionality...
Showing off a brief look at Tsavo Highway, the third mission of the Halo 3 Campaign, it's at least reassuring to see that the rather downtrodden visuals of the Beta are much improved. There's a certain slickness to the presentation of Halo 3, and it's good to finally see that Bungie has added some 'next-gen finesse' to the game; HDR lighting, Bloom effects...anti-aliasing even (and we'd thought they'd forgotten about that one!) Rolling out of a bombed out UNSC Marine bunker in a Warthog provided much more of a chance to get a feel for the gameworld this time around, driving up an incline to face a small contingent of Covenant forces.
Dispatching them with relative ease, and explaining how players score according to their performance in the game, the demo all too quickly shifted pace with a brief explanation of how the game videos can be recorded even during the Campaign. Unlike the Beta test, players of the full game will get to use a Free Camera, allowing them to view any action of a game video at any angle. Flying over the head of the Master Chief as he races toward his next targets, the camera flew over to take in the action from the perspective of the Covenant as the barrage of bullets rained in. Stopping the action in mid-explosion also allowed us to get a glimpse at some of the visual detail that has been added to Halo 3; lightning blue explosions and highly detailed particle effects (coupled with a liberal use of motion blur) all working together rather nicely.
The argument remains over whether the introduction of record, save, and upload game videos will turn out to be a worthwhile feature beyond the fanboys and the 'Red vs. Blue'-loving machinima followers...we'll just have to keep an eye out to see how many extra servers Microsoft and Bungie order in the coming months. One thing is for sure however, Halo 3 is resembling something much more like Microsoft's leading franchise, something that was arguably under threat following Marcus Fenix's debut in Gears of War.
Even though it was a very brief introduction to what we can expect in the final Campaign, which has recently gone gold and is now being manufactured relentlessly ahead of Halo 3's end of the month release, the main crux of the demo rested with 'Forge'. A gametype in its own right, Forge is something of an unusual beast for Bungie to package into Halo 3. Another example (like the game videos option) of gamer-generated content (there's that whole Game 3.0 strategy) the feature is essentially a map editor that allows players to drop elements, objects, weapons, and vehicles throughout any of Halo 3's multiplayer maps. Customisation has been at the heart of the Halo multiplayer experience since the beginning, expanding with the release of Halo 2 and developed significantly further this time around.
The Forge demo also acted as a sandbox to show-off some of the newer elements heading to the game, including the Brute Chopper and Brute Prowler (two of the new Covenant vehicles), the better-late-than-never flamethrower, firebomb grenades, and the radar jammer. Already sounding like a recipe for total Live-based chaos, Forge throws in one extra surprise that could work, or become a real disaster: players will be able to 'forge' the map on the fly, whilst a full multiplayer battle is in full swing offline or on Live.
Describing one scenario during a Forge-created Team Slayer match where each side has its own 'Forger' (for want of a better description), players are able to remove objects that the other has placed there, and vice versa. Each object and weapon in the game will have a 'price', with a set pool of credits for the player to purchase and place the chosen items. Not only ensuring a more thought-through 'design' process from players, the limit will also mean that players will be able to change strategy and tactics as the tide of battle changes and specific requests are made by other team members.
With the ability to essentially kit out any of the maps in the midst of battle, you can only imagine the sort frantic gameplay set to begin at the end of the month. Players responsible for changing the objects in the map (there can be a number of them per side) change into Forerunner Monitors as they pepper the land with Scorpions, SMGs, and various bits of Equipment, though they'll still be vulnerable to attack from the opposition. Seems like one of the strategies will be to take a few pot shots at the Master Chief/Elite standing still in the map. Like the game videos, it remains to be seen whether Forge will be another more in the long-term than a novelty option...at least it looks nice now.
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