Well as soon as they fix the Beta I'll be willing to get my butt kicked by anyone.

BETA UPDATE
Bungie have finally stepped up and said that the H3 Beta via Crackdown should be fixed between 10PM and 12AM EST

Its up, available for d/l! :D

Finally after a day's wait the Beta is up. The following are my first impressions however so everyone knows this is after 2 VIP, 1 KotH, 1 Slayer matches between 12 - 2AM

Graphics: While they're not what I expect from the 360, they are still quite good and in 1080P still managed to give be some "Awe" to my experiance.

Weapons: Almost too many different ones now. While some are interesting in looks or in operation, some are just not needed. The new spike grenades for example could have just been a new feature for the current sticky grenades that now allows them to stick to surfaces also. And why does anyone need to lug around a gatling turret? There's just too much stuff.

Weapon balance: This is whacked right out the door. Halo 3 is way more forgiving then 1 or 2 ever were. Small vehicles don't kill you in 1 hit. No single explosive in the game kills you in one hit. And few headshots kill in one hit. If the shot is from the right side or behind the worst it will do is drop their shields.

I know this all sounds negative, however that's because the rest is what you expect H3 to be based on 1, 2 and there's no sense in me going over what hasn't changed. If you loved the game before, there's no reason to stop now. Thoes who have found that the Halo series is a bit too whacky and unpredictible to enjoy, not much has changed here.

The only reason I checked out the H3 beta today was because I heard alot of comparisons from friends about it having the same feel as H1. I gotta admit, after a few games I was hooked again. It does feel like they took the best from both of the old games and put them into 1 great game.

I will probably start back playing Halo again.

I hated Halo 2 multiplayer, and I'm really enjoying the Halo 3 beta. It's like they fixed everything that made Halo 2 multiplayer suck eggs. Anyone else feel the same?

Here's a video where they pretty much admit just that. http://www.gamevideos.com/video/id/11783

i pre orderd mine in advance i gots me the limited addittion:p

lol I preordered the limited edition and I don't even own a 360. ='D

Best part about Halo 3 is obviously Proximity Voice. It makes it so awesomely funny that you can jack a warthog and have conversations with people on the opposing team in it.

Also, it presents opportunities to do dumb shit. Someone on the other team drove by our party on a Mongoose in BTB on High Ground, and out of nowhere the guy blasts the Dukes of Hazzard horn through his mic. Laughed forever.

I was playing a match the other day and the team I was on sucked, even heard the other team talking about it. I was in the back practicing snipe skills when I hear some jerk in the base go "Oh that's what I'm looking for! Need that sniper" as I turn around and deliver unto him insane amounts of ELBOW JUSTICE I yell "COME AND GET IT BUDDY."

"Oh." as he dies. Nerdy, yet awesome.

Thank you, proximity voice.

Halo 3 achievements rear their head
Edit: aha, check these out.

Covenant Carbine Replica
Battle Rifle Replica

20 bucks isn't a terrible asking price for this sort of thing, and the BR does look kinda nifty.

http://www.gamelifestyle.co.uk/images/HALSRCC.jpg
http://www.gamelifestyle.co.uk/images/HALSRBR.jpg

I'm really not sure how much this will excite anyone, but there's an ARG up, ala ilovebees from last time. While I really dig this sort of thing, their appeal seems limited and I'm not sure if anyone else here enjoys them.

I just read about this from Penny-Arcade, so I just started. Here's your requisite URLs to start.

http://206.16.223.65/
http://societyoftheancients.com/

All I've got so far is the Array Recorder Log from the first URL. If anyone wants to discuss/work on this, feel free to PM to avoid potentially cluttering up the thread.

That list of achievements looks a lot like why so many Battlefield 2 games were shit. You just know there's going to be a load of kids trying to earn achievements with their friends by jacking each other in and out of vehicles and stuff like that, rather than actually playing the game. The continued emphasis on achievement points and rankings pisses me off a bit really. What ever happened to playing games for the fun of it?

On a similar note, I hope they make the ranking points penalties for dropping out of games a lot more severe than for losing them so people won't all quit if they're on the losing team in round four of an assault match.

Yea that would be great cause anytime you start winning or your team starts losing ppl quit cause it might mess up there rank and the whole world will end when it happens.

Over 900 of the 1000 potential points can be earned in the campaign. While the other online only achievements are somewhat trivial, what hurts them is the "Only available on ranked" requirements. That can mess up some ranked games, but with Halo being the kind of game it is, I don't think we'll see it further ruin what is already a really stupid general community.

There's two types of rank points this time around. On ranked matches, there's skill points, which works like Trueskill in any other 360 game. This goes up or down depending on how well you do or how badly you lose and if you quit, and so forth and so on.

There's also Rank Points, which only go up a point if you win, or stay the same if you lose. (I think in the beta if you came in second on a free for all you got like, half a point's credit or so. Can't confirm this though). The only way these go down is if you quit a game early, and then you'll be docked one point. These points are what contributes to your military rank. Private/Sarge/etc. Luckily, this is what the achievement is based on, not your trueskill number. So it's obtainable by anyone, pretty much.

This is, of course, based off of the beta so it could change.

http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/800/800896p1.html

Oh, shit.

So let's see. This confirms a fair bit.

- Instead of just video clips, you can pull a Forza 2 and upload screenshots. Fucking awesome. <3
- There's more X button placeables. Includes a jammer, which screws with the radar.
- Brute chopper pics. Apparently great for smashing people.
- There's info on a variety of new maps, like Shrine, Epitaph, and the remake of Zanzibar, called Last Resort. There's also plenty of "unannounced maps".
- And my favorite, customizable armor/helmets. Look at some of the screens. Different MJOLNIR armour variants like the Mark IV are seen. Hopefully even further customization is possible, but we'll see, this is a great start and I like it.

We all know you just want to shape one like a dick.

HOW DID YOU KNOW THAT WAS MY PLAN? >__________>

Honestly, though, I can't imagine them giving you total control over decal placement ala Armored Core or Chromehounds, or painting like Forza, it seems more like it's just gonna be some mixing and matching of suit parts, like...uhhh...Bomberman or something.

Unless they have a suit with giant round shoes, a straight body, and a purple helmet, my MASTER DICK Spartan might not be possible.

by the way if you are making reservations at game stop of EB games better hurry up deadline is at the end of this week

Where'd you hear that? I have a hard time believing EB's gonna stop taking pre-orders on what's gonna be one of their largest sellers this Christmas.

Unless you mean on the Legendary and CE sets? That's a bit more plausible but still not something I've heard. They tend to let each store take a certain allotment of units and they take orders until that's tapped out.

Probably all very much aware, but I thought i'd post it anyway

http://img220.imageshack.us/img220/8217/79800011id4.jpg

Cant wait to see some gameplay at E3 fingers crossed!

You might wanna elaborate that that's an in game screenshot, supposedly. Just in case some people don't know.

Are you serious?!?! Holy fucking wow this game looks BLOODY GORGEOUS!

I've gathered that Bungie is shooting for a 10km viewable distance in-game, eschewing a traditional 'skybox' for real atmospheric layers and particle effects. It makes one wonder....are the mountains and clouds in the background static images, or produced by the game engine?

The mountains are supposedly real geometry. Both Bungie themselves have said this, as well as the far away mountains in the Beta stage Valhalla could be reached after bugging past the invisible wall, and they were solid, so I don't think they'd be lying.

Also, just because that's in-engine, Paco, doesn't mean that's what the final game will look like in SP mode. Could be a cut scene snapshot or something similar. The final will pretty much not look like that. It's just a bullshot, but that's not entirely a bad thing.

Remember how the Gears of War commercials were entirely produced in-engine? I'm willing to bet it's the same deal here.