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Brand spankin' new shot of (not) Halo 3
Microsoft was in such a hurry to get the word out on the Halo 3 public beta sign up and commercial that they forgot to distribute the image above (download the Supersize version here). The shot does not come from Halo 3. Rather, it comes from the upcoming commercial airing on Monday. The commercial, as announced before, will be entirely CG and will contain no actual gameplay footage. it's worth noting, though, that a number of models in the commercial are actually the same models used in the game. According to Bungie, the idea behind the commercial is to give the viewers and idea of what Halo would be if it were actually real (and perhaps a clue as to what the postponed movie has in store). And there you have it, another screenshot (that isn't even from the game proper) that will be dissected endlessly on forums until the game's release.
Sign up for the Halo 3 beta next week
Halo 3 fanboys rejoice! Sign up for the Halo 3 public beta begins Monday, December 4th. Beginning Monday, American 360 owners will be able to register for the beta at Halo3.com. And of course many of you will recall that December 4th is the day that the new Halo 3 commercial will air during Monday Night Football on ESPN. If football isn't your thing, know that the commercial will air sometime between 5:50 and 6:20pm PST. The commercial is only airing once on television, though it will be made available on Xbox.com and 360 Marketplace afterwards. First the Shadowrun beta opens, and now the Halo 3 beta is following right in its footsteps: it's good to be a 360 gamer. Here's hoping that Microsoft continues this trend with future 1st party online titles. Oh, we have so many questions! Is the needler worth anything now? What about the new assault rifle? How many Brute weapons can we try out? For that matter, will we even be selected for the beta? Anyway, tune your browsers accordingly and get your Tivos ready, Monday is right around the corner. See the full press release after the break.
Secret message: Halo 3 in March of 07?
Our mother grabbing brethren at Joystiq have posted one of our favorite things: wild speculation! In the Cops and Robbers ad (embedded above) Joystiq noticed two interesting tidbits. Sure, the ad is cool in that "Jump In" sort of way, but there may be more to it than that. Close scrutiny of the license plates on the cars reveals two significant things. The first plate reads, "GOW 1106." Of course, we all know that Gears of War (GOW) came out this month, otherwise known as 11/06. The second plate reads, "HA LO307" (slide the video over to the 0:49 mark to see it). Is Microsoft dropping a hint about Halo 3 dropping in March of 2007? Well, no, probably not. More likely, it's referring to Halo 3 in 07. Either that, or the plate is simply leet speak for Halo Bot. These license plates were probably designed merely as Easter eggs for the dutiful observer and nothing more. Still, it's fun to dream, isn't it? Of course, we might see the Halo 3 beta by March (please?).
Halo 3 release month announced? Not likely
var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/gaming_news/Halo_3_Conspiracy_Theory'; See past the commercial young Jedi. Look at the license plates. We don't know if this was planted viral marketing to generate hype, but we'll bite and let the masses take over from there. The license plates of the cars in this Xbox 360 ad are: "GOW 1106" and "HA LO307." GOW 1106 could stand for Gears of War, which was released in November of '06 (11/06). Now look at the other license plate, HA LO307, which can clearly be seen at the :50 marker. Does this mean we'll see Halo 3 in March of '07 (03/07) or does it mean "HALO3 / 07" meaning Halo 3 comes out in '07? The commercial definitely lends itself to some speculation and -- considering there is no confirmed release date -- speculation is all anybody has at this point. However, companies are more than happy to take your pre-order money now if you wish.
Be cool, get Puma brand tires for your Warthog
With the recent release of super high-res screenshots of Halo 3, you can see lots and lots of detail ... including an easter egg. If you look closely at the image above you'll see on the inside of the warthog tire the text "PUMA", an obvious reference to those silly guys over at Red vs Blue. Now you can see why we're going to be rocking Halo 3 in high definition 720p ... to read the text on the tires.[Via Digg]
Halo 3 shots milked for all they're worth
If you're the kind of Halo fanboy that likes to pore over every single pixel of new screenshots, then this is the post for you. Bungie has posted their own breakdown of the handful of shots they have chosen to publicly release -- though a few sites have seen fit to release more. Bungie goes through screenshots of each revealed map, including Valhalla, Snowbound, and High Ground. They go over every inch of these screenshots, exanding on as many details as possible. We're much too exhausted by the glut of Halo 3 news this month to break these shots down ourselves, so we'll simply point you in the right direction. Suffice it to say that we're very excited to get our hands on the game and try it out. Spring (and the Halo 3 public beta) is still very far away.
Get Halo 3 apparel at Hot Topic
Our fatherly figure Joystiq uncovered some gaming related goodies over at Hot Topic. No, not jewel encrusted black leather wrist straps silly, but Halo 3 apparel! Yup, black tshirts sporting that sexy H3 logo we enjoy so much ... yum. And I have a little different opinion than Joystiq about video game apparel for a game that won't be released for months. It's Halo 3, we fanboys friggin' love it! The apparel isn't just about the game or it's future release date, but is about the franchise, our excitment, and support for the game. Dare anyone question Halo 3 swag a year before launch ... if so, I banish you to a different fanboy site for all of 2007![Via Joystiq]
Hot Topic lets you pay to promote Halo 3
Doing a little post-Thanksgiving mall browsing this weekend, I was surprised to find T-shirts with the Halo 3 logo lining the walls in my local Hot Topic (I was looking for a gift for a friend, OK?). It seems the store started selling the shirts a few weeks ago, despite the fact that the game itself doesn't even have an official release date and likely won't see the light of day until months from now at the soonest.This is more than a little confusing to us. While most of Hot Topic's video game shirts at least have some element of nostalgia or interesting design going for them, these Halo 3 shirts are basically just a big logo on your chest. In essence, you're paying Hot Topic $15 (or more for the pictured hoodie) for the privilege of pimping out a game you haven't played.We know there must be some kind of market for these shirts, or Hot Topic wouldn't be selling them. So we're asking you, dear readers, what's the appeal of being a walking billboard for an unreleased game?
1600 MS Points for $4.99 w/Halo 3 purchase
Head over to BestBuy.com and preorder Halo 3 if you're all about getting Microsoft Points for cheap. And I know you are thinking "dude, Halo 3 is not coming out for like ... a whole year. I'm not giving Best Buy my $60. Bah!" Hey, I 100% agree ... unless you're going to be buying it online anyway and have some extra cash laying around. $4.99 for 1600 Microsoft Points is a great deal, except you have to part with $60 a year early. Weigh the pros and cons then check out the offer if it tickles your fancy.[Thanks, Luis L.]
Halo 3 matchmaking, and why GOW's is broken
1UP continues its parade of Halo 3 coverage today with a new interview. The interview centers around the matchmaking system that Bungie is developing for Halo 3. Besides the obvious issue of cheating, Bungie talks about Halo 3's new ranking system. In addition to the traditional skill based ranking system, Bungie is implementing a new experience based ranking system (according to the latest issue of EGM, these will be actual military ranks). The idea is that whether you win or lose, you will gain some experience. This way, when a new playlist pops up and everyone is a level 1, you'll still have an idea of each player's relative skill level -- i.e. the guy with 300 hours of play time will probably beat the guy with 10.
17.25 seconds of Halo 3 campaign analyzed [update 1]
1UP's final week of Halo 3 coverage is upon us, and today they deliver the first public info on Halo 3's campaign. The staff of 1UP was witness to approximately 17.25 seconds of a campaign level. That's it. What's more, the snippet they saw was not specially engineered by Bungie at all. In fact, the tiny video was made using the new film recording feature. Supposedly, the pre-Alpha footage was discarded immediately after being shown to the press, so we probably won't be getting our hands on it. The level witnessed took place inside what appeared to be a human city, possibly the bombed out ruins of New Mombasa. The author of the article suggests this may take place directly after Halo 2 ends, with the Chief landing on Earth in the middle of a war zone. Master Chief begins by jumping onto a Warthog and is quickly pursued by ships and a new Ghost. This special ghost is the new Brute Ghost, a reconfigured version of the standard Ghost. The article describes it as normal Ghost with its wings folded, presenting a more "tube-ish" design. The Chief raises the Warthogs Gauss cannon to fire and ... that's it. According to 1UP, Halo 3 is visually very impressive, so much so that it may give Gears of War a run for it's money (which it should as a 3rd generation 360 game). Hopefully, this will allay graphical concerns leveled at Halo 3's multiplayer screenshots. So there you go, 17.25 seconds of gameplay scrutinized for all they're worth, and then some. God help Bungie if they screw up Halo 3. If people are reading this much into 17.25 seconds, imagine what they'll do with an entire game. It's frightening (and mildly titillating, strangely).Update: Clarified headline to prevent potential riot.
Video: Tactical breakdown of Halo 3 maps
The latest episode of the 1UP show includes an extensive breakdown of all the Halo 3 multiplayer maps we know about so far: High Ground, Snowbound, and Valhalla. The 1UP fellas go ever each map in great detail, noting layout, weapon placement, and overall strategies they employed during their playtest. We are happy to note that Valhalla looks to greatly improve upon the Blood Gulch/Coagulation template, introducing different paths, hills, and plenty of cover. Bad news for sniper whores, great news for everyone else.Please note, if you were hoping for video or screenshots, you will be sorely disappointed: this is basically an academic exercise with the editors scrutinizing hand drawn recreations of the maps. Still, if you loves your Halo strategery, it's a nice chance to start building your Halo 3 repertoire early. Watch the video after the break.
Bungie, they aren't corporate... are they?
This past week's news on Halo 3 and all the upcoming goodies we'll be treated to in the next year makes my inner fanboy squeal with excitement. A new commercial, new Halo 2 maps, and an open beta for Halo 3 multiplayer, that's just nifty. But I can't help but feel a little ... how do I say this ... uneasy about how the Halo franchise is being handled. I'm not referring to Bungie themselves, because they have yet to let us down, but the corporate machine backing Halo. I just don't know, pre-rendered Halo 3 commercial (Bungie doesn't do pre-rendering), new maps for Halo 2 that must be purchased and only on the 360, Halo Wars being licensed off to a different studio ... blah, blah, blah. Maybe I'm just a little paranoid, maybe I'm just a little stressed tonight, but is Microsoft possibly playing the puppet-master card with Bungie just a little too much? I'll revisit this topic some other time I guess ... maybe I can talk to Frankie and he can calm my nerves. Frankie, if you're reading this, please comfort me ... please?
H3: Everybody run! He's got ... a Needler?
If you've been scouring the Halo 3 information around the web, you may have heard a few things about the needler. The needler -- a weapon that shoots slow moving, homing crystals that explode after a certain duration -- is generally regarded as the worst weapon in the Halo series. In fact, most consider it so useless that they will only pick it up as a joke or for some lucky humiliation kills. Bungie now intends to turn that around. In Halo 3, the needler is no longer dual-wieldable. Because it's now a two-handed weapon, Bungie has room to make it more powerful. We don't know exactly what's been changed -- whether the needles move faster or track better, for instance -- but we do know it's now a weapon to be feared. In the words of Bungie's KPaul:"These factor in significantly, as once the needles are flying you're pretty much done unless you've got some cover to get behind before they reach you. Yeah, we've said it before, but this time we mean it. You will hear someone scream "OH SHEETS HE'S GOT A NEEDLER" at some point during your Halo 3 experience and for once, it will not be sarcasm."Needler fans rejoice, come Halo 3, you'll actually have a reason to pick one up. Then again, Bungie said they were going to fix the needler last time, too. Here's hoping they keep their word this time.[Image via Brickshelf]
Tons of Halo 3 screens leaked [update 2]
We swear, we didn't wake up this morning intending to beat Halo to death, but the news just keeps coming. It looks like the always reliable foreign press has leaked lots of Halo 3 screenshots, concept sketches, and renders onto the internet. Most of you will recognize these from the recent EGM cover story, though many of them are brand new. It's nice to have them in hi-res digital form, but unfortunately they come with a nasty watermark from GameCity, the Swiss site that leaked released the images in the first place. Halo Base, a German Halo site, has broken the shots down into the proper categories, screenshots, concept art, and renders. The renders in particular are very nice, showing off lots of Spartan and weapon detail. It seems like Halo Base is getting hammered by internet traffic, because the images are loading very slowly -- in other words, you may want to grab these before Halo Base is completely snowed under. We expect that Bungie will make these public soon, either via Bungie.net, or through 1UP's coverage throughout the month. Still, why wait when you can check them out now?Update: As expected, it looks like Halo Base has been flooded. Lucky for us, News4Gamers (who just happen to be linking this very post) have gone to the trouble of uploading the images themselves. It looks like they have most of them up now. Find them here (or click the image above).Update 2: Halo Base has removed their shots at the request of GameCity, who claims to have released them legally in the first place. The shots are still on News4Gamers, and some of them have been released on 1UP as well.[Via HBO]
Halo madness! New H2 maps, H3 public beta!
Okay folks, the big news is here. It turns out that the "BIG" Halo announcement is neither a Halo 3 release date nor the long awaited Marathon Arcade. Is it actually worthy of the capitalized BIG (we all remember the BIG GOW announcement)? Maybe we're overstepping our bounds here, but we're going to say yes. Big yes. It's BIG. It turns out the BIG announcement is actually three announcements rolled into one megannouncement. The first announcement: new maps are coming for Halo 2! These maps will only be available for Xbox 360 owners sometime in the Spring. Frankly, we're excited. We never would have anticipated something that could make us dust off Halo 2, but there it is. We'd also like to point out that it's a brilliant -- if somewhat dastardly -- move on Microsoft's part to release these maps exclusively on 360. Naturally, there are thousands (millions?) of Halo 2 players that are quite happy playing it on their original Xbox. Sure, they'll probably get a 360 when Halo 3 comes out, and Microsoft knows it. So, if you can't sell those people Halo 3 until next winter, just sell them Halo 2 ... again! We should note that Bungie hopes that Microsoft will eventually make this content available for original Xbox owners, but in the meantime it's a great incentive (for Halo 2 addicts) to upgrade to 360 right now. At any rate, we're excited as hell to play us some new maps. Here's hoping they can squeeze out some new graphical effects offered by the 360. Also worth noting, the new maps mean that MS is taking another look at Halo 2's backwards compatibility glitches, so some of those should be ironed out in the future.
Female Spartan voiced by Ellen DeGeneres?
Bungie is throwing the option out there for Halo 3 multiplayer, as part of custom character design, to allow players the option of having a Spartan warrior with a female voice. They aren't promising this as an option, but are merely opening up the conversation for discussion on their boards. And they want to hear from the ladies, saying, "If you ARE a dude, we don't care what you think, because we're not asking you. Anyone who says anything stupid or sexist in the discussion forum will be megabanned."GayGamer.net has a running joke regarding Ellen DeGeneres playing the Master Chief and defying stereotypes. Bungie did cast Michelle Rodriguez (LOST, Resident Evil) as a soldiers voice in Halo 2. It's certainly interesting to see Bungie take the testosterone soaked genre of first-person shooters, amplified by 1000 when in multiplayer, and give it a twist. It's actually not that far of a stretch, anybody who played Metroid Prime looked at the world through a woman's eyes. Also, considering there is always a 12-year-old with a microphone in deathmatch, listening to those pre-pubescent cries means we listen to women's voices all the time anyway. Hey Bungie, go for it, most gamers prefer listening to the battle cries and death moans of a grown woman than a 12-year-old boy.[via GayGamer]
Gaming shams: Halo 3's weekend launch and Wii pacemaker woes
We've got two major consoles launch this weekend, so naturally the sensationalism far exceeds normal levels. Here are two of the more outrageous items to grace our tip line today: The Nintendo Wii's signal can upset a pacemaker. Aeropause has a great write-up on why this is likely blown out of proportion. Other devices just as likely to disrupt a pacemaker include cell phones, magnets, and stereo speakers. Halo 3 will launch this weekend, and be everywhere by Tuesday. Not only would this render 1UP's month-long feature piece useless, but beta testing would have been very minimal, according to Bungie's weekly updates. As the 5 year anniversary of Halo is approaching, expect a release window or -- extremely unlikely -- a demo for Halo 3. There's no way Microsoft would launch it without it being a perfect shooter and at a risk of sullying Gears of War's massive wave of popularity. We're not going to provide a link to either of these rumors so as to not propagate them further; keep your BS filters on high, dear readers.[Thanks to all who sent these in; it was cathartic]
Halo b-day gift: H3 demo, Marathon arcade?
The internet and wild speculation are like peanut butter and chocolate; they just go together. Today's wild speculation began when I ran across this entry on Phuze (which actually looks like a cool ezine). The speculations goes a little something ... a-like-a this: Bungie reported in their most recent update that there was a special "BIG" Halo announcement coming this week, in celebration of Halo's fifth anniversary on Wednesday, November 15th. 1UP's Halo 3 page lists a "Special Halo Announcement" as part of tomorrow's coverage. Phuze speculates that this announcement is probably something along the lines of an official release date -- and we agree -- but proffers the tantalizing possibility of something more. What if, wonder of wonders, it's an actual playable Halo 3 demo? Is it possible? Very slightly, yes. After all, as Phuze notes, all these game journos were playing a multiplayer build as early as last month, so it's possible (not to mention it's a great way to make 360 owners forget about the PS3). Allow us to add even more fuel to the fire. Tomorrow, as most of you are no doubt aware, is Wednesday. Wednesday typically marks the release of a new Xbox Live Arcade title. Could Bungie have an Xbox Live Arcade title lined up for the anniversary of Halo? If they do, what better way to celebrate Halo's birthday than by releasing its spiritual prequel, Marathon? So there you have it. If Bungie releases Marathon on XBLA tomorrow, you heard it here first. If they don't ... well then why the hell were you listening to us in the first place?
How Halo 3 fixes Halo 2 multiplayer
1UP continues their month long barrage of Halo 3 coverage with a breakdown of what Bungie is doing to address the multiplayer concerns from Halo 2. In short, these concerns are: Weapon whoring Duel Wielding and the "noob combo" (plasma pistol and battle rifle) Player designations A big problem in Halo 2 multiplayer is weapon whoring. In other words, once a power weapon -- like the rocket launcher or sniper rifle -- is obtained, it cannot be obtained by anyone else until it is emptied or dropped by the player holding it. In some cases, a team will grab both sniper rifles on a large map and dominate, while the other team is denied any kind of counter measure. Another way to whore a weapon is to grab it and just not use it. As long as it is in your possession, it will not respawn, thus keeping it from everyone else. For instance, the team that grabs both snipers could also pick up the rocket launcher and sword just to make sure your team never has a chance. So, how does Bungie fix this?
