Halo 3

Jul 11, 2007

Halo 3 was a constant talking point at the Microsoft Press Conference held during E3 2007. A lot is riding on the success of Bungie's final chapter in the trilogy, both in the eyes of the series' millions of fans and in terms of Microsoft's bottom line. The multiplayer beta that helped send copies of Crackdown flying off of store shelves was just a teaser for what's in store. We were able to go behind closed doors and check out Sierra 117, the mission that will kick off Halo 3's single player campaign. Not only were we finally reassured that the visuals in Halo 3 will meet next-generation standards, but the gameplay, intensity, and style that have made the series so successful may have been improved upon across the board.

Covenant Don't Surf

In the hopes of not revealing too many spoilers, our demo skipped past the game's opening cinematic sequence and cut straight to the action. Master Chief, the Arbiter, and a group of UNSC soldiers are apparently marooned in a lush, fertile environment somewhere on Earth. Here was where we got to see Halo 3's uncompromised visuals for the first time outside of the multiplayer experience. The forest was a sea of vibrant greens, mottled tree trunks in varying shades of brown, all illuminated by multiple light sources shining in through the canopy above. The lighting in particular forced us to take notice, the effects drawing attention to the surrounding foliage.

We could only keep our eyes glued to the backdrop for the briefest of moments before the action began to rev up. Sleeping Grunts were the first victims, splattered into their component gooey bits by well-placed blows at close range. Deciding to do away with subtlety, the rep giving the demo decided to wake up the sleeping enemies and opened fire, at which point all hell broke loose.

What commenced was a mile-a-minute battle of epic proportions, with dozens of enemies, ranging from plasma-flinging Grunts to the far more formidable Brutes and their deliciously destructive Brute Shots. It was a non-stop firefight with friend and foe engaging in every nook and around every tree. Our Spartan hero was constantly ducking behind cover for a moment's breath (and a quick shield recharge) due to the sheer intensity of the combat -- we were, after all, being shown gameplay on the Heroic difficulty. If you thought that bubble shields were cool when you got to use them in the multiplayer beta, be prepared to have to fight against them when the Covenant deploys them against you to great effect.

Master Chief's steadily moving group, fighting for every inch of ground, eventually made its way through the Covenant forces to a base of sorts located at the base of a river in the middle of what otherwise seemed to be a completely natural environment. There were crude buildings being used as battlements by the Covenant as they rained fire upon a hovering USNC vehicle whose gunner was in dire need of assistance. At this point, Master Chief and the crew took it upon themselves to engage the heavily defended position grenades-first, taking out tightly packed groups when the situation demanded.

I Love the Smell of Plasma in the Morning

The toughest challenge here was dealing with a Covenant attack vehicle which fired searing bolts at the beleaguered Master Chief's position. The key here was reaching the machine gun turret and dismounting it, to unload lead rain on the ship while ducking around a corner to avoid return fire. The first attempt at this sadly ended in death, and a quick reload of the scene. While we didn't get to see what would happen after this larger battle was over, we got a great taste for what the single-player campaign has in store.

An integral part of what makes the Halo experience complete, as we were reminded during the demo, is the audio aspect of the game, and sadly our peek at the single-player didn't include a musical score. We did, however, get an earful of the banter parlayed back and forth by the chipmunk-voiced Covenant Grunts and the enthusiastic marines fighting by your side. Some lines had great potential, like "I'm going to send you back to Planet Jackass, Jackass!" or something to that effect. Even in the midst of deadly combat against an alien menace, it's good to know that the human spirit is still capable of some serious trash-talking.

The second half of our demo presentation focused on the player-recorded videos that were partially unveiled during the multiplayer beta. During the beta, you could record game information and watch a saved game file from one player's perspective. That was pretty much it. The final version of the game, however, will include a far more robust complement of playback options.

Smile! You're on Pwned Camera!

First off, you'll be able to record massive amounts of footage, because in fact no video is being recorded, it's just game data. This allows you to easily trade these recordings with others, an activity that Bungie is encouraging. While six hours of campaign gameplay generally wouldn't make for a very good movie, the only real limit on how much footage you can capture is the size of your (hopefully 120GB) hard drive.

Once you have a multiplayer or campaign game session saved, you can play with the wide array of options available for playback. We were shown slow-motion replay, fast forwarding, varying levels of zoom, and the ability to free roam with your camera anywhere on the battlefield. While you can easily pause the action at any time, it was reinforced that this was actual in-engine gameplay being displayed, as evidenced by the continuous audio feedback generated by crackling fire and vehicles.

The action was paused quite often for us so that we could take in the sights of an intense multiplayer battle fought in a previously unseen multiplayer map that takes place in a sand canyon. It's all about the vehicles in this map, and both sides have quickly respawning arrays of vehicles to choose from. While it's always fun to hop into the back of a Warthog, we also got to see the tantalizing option available in the new Brute Chopper. Imagine a custom-built motorcycle, except instead of an oversized front tire, you have two vicious looking spinning grinders. These instruments of destruction make the Brute Chopper an ideal tool for dishing out some vehicular manslaughter. Catch some closely packed enemies unawares, and you can easily plow right through them for a juicy killing spree. The mongoose may start suffering from insecurity issues.

While there are plenty of ways that people will be able to make use of the aforementioned recording options, we were easily impressed by just being able to take high-resolution screenshots. Pausing a replay during a heated contest, with black puffs of smoke hanging in mid-air and a red-hot Spartan laser trail beaming across the battlefield, makes for some great trash-talking opportunities. Any screens you decide to take are uploaded to Bungie.net as well, making it easy to share with the community.

The other function that was touted is using the recording function as a learning tool. Players can now follow any player in a match, and see what it is they do to get those top kill scores or how they go about the objective-based matches. Being able to see where the dirty snipers and campers hang out will also make hunting them down far easier.

If our look at Halo 3's single-player campaign and the new video options taught us one thing, is that September 25th can't come soon enough. We'll be getting another look at Halo 3 very soon, so be sure to stay tuned for more.