Joystiq's video analysis of the Halo 3 Beta leak

by Jared Rea { Apr 24th 2007 at 7:05AM }

If Halo fans took even half the amount effort they put into dissecting video of Master Chief and turned it on famous historical footage, that whole landing on the Moon nonsense would be so debunked by now. Naturally, yesterdays leak of Halo 3 Beta footage was filled with surprises, so we watched it about ten times over, frame-by-frame to make sure we got all the juicy stuff so that you wouldn't have to.

To save the strong from spoilers, this post won't contain said juicy stuff but what was left on the cutting room floor. We left the hardcore map analysis of Last Resort (the new name of Zanzibar) out as the most significant changes are obvious to anyone who has run through Zanzibar a few times. The Mongoose ATV scenes also got axed for as exciting as it is to see it sliding along the beach, it didn't do anything unexpected. We're still wondering what's up with the lack of Elite's in multiplayer, but we've still got a few months to go.

If text is more your style, our snuggle-time pals at 360 Fanboy put together their own analysis, even if they did pass over the Brute Shot sighting. Burn!

Tags: halo, halo3

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Fierce360 @ Apr 24th 2007 7:34AM

good stuff. the bubble shield doesnt get destroyed though, its the same one on the ground. it justs gets knocked off the ledge.

Morgo @ Apr 24th 2007 8:02AM

i reckon it looks pretty good so far and also that blue sphere thing could also be a cloaking thingamajig like in halo 2

Jake @ Apr 24th 2007 8:36AM

The Spartan laser looks cool. I've always liked weapons that take a couple of seconds to charge, then unleash a single super powerful blast. Would have like to see the Brute Spiker in action.

All in all, it looks like Halo2 with better graphics, a few new weapons, and the X functions, which will actually change gameplay significantly I think. To fans of the franchise, this is exactly what they wanted. To the haters, well, keep on hatin because this is basically Halo2 on steroids.

CheapyD @ Apr 24th 2007 8:38AM

Really nice job on the analysis!

Jack of No Trades @ Apr 24th 2007 8:48AM

Halo 3 looks ok....

Bring Unreal Tournament!

jayman16 @ Apr 24th 2007 9:07AM

Can't wait! What the hell is the "power drain"... I've got the full video on my site: www.adidat.blogspot.com

denney @ Apr 24th 2007 10:12AM

LOOKS ACE. Any ideas how many players you will be able to have online. With the lvs that big could we say 50?

jBiber @ Apr 24th 2007 10:21AM

blue orb thingy... ever seen the invis upgrade? i would put my money on NOT a new weapon but rather just invis.

J8675309 @ Apr 24th 2007 10:26AM

I think the new rankings would be two fold, visible, experience based rank with military insignia, and then the halo 2 style rankings hidden for matchmaking purposes.

Heliophage @ Apr 24th 2007 10:34AM

I'm happy with the redesign of the bubble shield from the alpha build -- this version looks much better than the soccer ball version.

What's confusing, though, is how much larger one base is in comparision to the beach, which looks exactly the same. Either the generator in the center no longer marks a neutral center point, or CTF is going to favor one side over another.

Definitely looks fun though. Bring on more leaks!

fffunfarm06---xbl @ Apr 24th 2007 10:47AM

awesome. but bungie if your listening....
dont make it so damn complicated! all these shields and crap idk man. and another thing bungie dont do that stupid private, corporal, captain crap. i might as well play EVERY OTHER GAME ever made. and yeah ur makeing it to much like everyone else. the life bar looks alittle bit too much like metroid prime to me. i mean i cant wait and i ordered the legendary game, but make it original please, less complicated, and fun!

my 5 cents

atsui @ Apr 24th 2007 11:08AM

I've seen a lot worse players J. And yes, it does look like halo 2, with similarities, and just better textures. And ummm.. oh.. a lot of people are basing the graphics on the non hd shots.. but you wouldn't know that would you.. and your right this is a HUGE improvement.. or wait.. is it just a little.. hard to tell so far because we aren't pausing it and it sure does feel the same in motion. What odd thoughts of mine, better go get a cat scan.. heh.. maybe someone will pay for me for free, that makes sense.. send me money to my paypal account. Thnx k bye! :)

Now I Know what all those 111!!!!!!!11!1!!1! people sound like. Pretty dorky.. hiding behind a camera and text.. it makes so much more sense now.

It didn't look like this guy was showing much of his playing ability, looks more like he was messing around, probably a recreational gamer. Awesome

Michael @ Apr 24th 2007 11:43AM

I've just noticed that the Sniper Rifle now only has a two bullets before reload.

This should help balance gameplay.

cody @ Apr 24th 2007 11:45AM

man this looks awesome cant wait to buy it .

smakdown @ Apr 24th 2007 12:10PM

Even though the bubble shield is stationary, I wonder if you could drop it in the back of a warthog to protect the gunner....or anywhere on a vehicle for that matter.

monmin @ Apr 24th 2007 12:50PM

It is definitely Halo. They obviously didn't muck with the core gameplay too much. Although I suspect the X items will add plenty of new strategies to the mix.

About the graphics... Why is everyone saying it's no improvement over Halo2? I don't understand. Even from looking at this crappy youtube video the graphics appear to be leaps and bounds better than Halo2. Much more detail. Halo2 looks like legos compared to this. I would love to see a high rez video with Last Resort and Zanzibar side by side.

Shmil @ Apr 24th 2007 1:01PM

@14 i saw 4 small bullets for the sniper rifle though the fuzz on the video kinda blends them together to make them look like 2

tophie22 @ Apr 24th 2007 1:13PM

Did anyone else notice that hit direction is back from halo 1? So now you can finally tell which direction you are gettin hit from

Jared @ Apr 24th 2007 1:24PM

#4, #8 - That crossed my mind but I checked and the active camo doesn't look that big in Halo 2. Does look a lot alike though. HRMM..

Mike @ Apr 24th 2007 2:40PM

S>I>G>H>.. when oh when is Bungle going to figure out the FOV (field of view) is TOO FREKIN CLOSE !!!! Check out PREY for the CORRECT way to set it up. Around 90-100 fov is MUCH better then 60 fov. I wish they would allow us to adjust the fov and customize it to our own liking. 50-60 fov is just too cramped to get a good view of your surroundings. Having a bit of fish eye effect allows you to see more of sides and around you IMHO. Looks like I'm going to hate this just as much as Halo 2 then.. sigh.

Mike @ Apr 24th 2007 2:43PM

haha.. Bungle... I didn't mean to make a pun.. but it works..

Striker Dude @ Apr 24th 2007 6:33PM

What is wrong with you people. Saying this game looks like Halo 2 on steroid. IF you guys want to see a Halo 2 on Steroid go check out vista. That is the real HIgh Res Halo 2!

Jinno @ Apr 24th 2007 6:40PM

@20: Dude, I don't know what you're talking about. I play games like Prey and can't stand that I'm seeing too much. It's harder to keep track of things, and frankly just gives me a little dizziness in the basic orientation of things. Halo has always been a game about focus, and turning your head. You get peripheral vision like a normal human has, and you get everything essential to your gameplay. If you absolutely have to see more, it's not that hard to twidle your right thumb left and right.

@ the Blue Orb: I agree, much too large to be active camo. I personally am hoping that it's a bit more of a deployable radial cloak. That'd help immensely for sniping and, as others have pondered, the ability to deploy things on vehicles would also render it well for use.

Mike @ Apr 24th 2007 7:34PM

Seems to be a 30 second timer on the bubble shield. From about 3:30 to 4 minutes into the video, he picks up a bubble shield, and right as he scopes (30 seconds after picking it up) it disappears.

Michael @ Apr 24th 2007 7:46PM

@23:

Halo CE's FOV was 90. Halo 2 merely reverted it downward to 60.

nerdinerdiness @ Apr 24th 2007 8:44PM

Fantastic job!! You guys should do more stuff like this. Absolutely hilarious too. One thing I wish you would have pointed out is this:

As most have been able to tell this level seems very empty (little to no decorators present), and the shadow effects practically missing. Apparently this is a very recent map and not very far in production. The water in it now is most likely placeholder and definitly not the final water, they have this water in to keep the frames per second up.

poop @ Apr 25th 2007 6:28PM

The glowin orb looks like the side of a sword, look, its not a full circle you can see that it looks like its gonna make a piont on the sword they might hav made the sword more rounded off

The Decoy @ Apr 25th 2007 8:57PM

I noticed 2 things. The first is that the ts game at last resort went to 25. Whereas in Halo 2 matchmaking ts games go to 50. The second is the ranking system. As almost all halo players know John-117 is commonly refered to by his rank of master chief. This is from the NAVY system of rank. However in the player profile they are listed as private which is apart of the army/marine ranking systems not the navy ranking system. Since in the halo universe the spartans are apart of the navy hence under the navy ranking system I thought this was an odd aspect of the ranking system.

MaxPower @ Apr 26th 2007 5:31AM

2 major things......

1. The "energy drain thing" looks suspiciously like a grav lift! IF i were a betting man I would say that its the deplyable grav lift like we saw in the gameplay video in front of Camp Froman.

2. No one has said anyhthing about the controls. From the video it looks like you have to hit "RB" (top right button) to switch guns!!!! A disheartening discovery in my opinion. I REALLY hope that the controls aren't all messed up in h3 :(

The Decoy @ Apr 26th 2007 2:58PM

In response to Max Power:
The controls aren't messed up. Since the X button now deploys equipment the right and left bumper buttons control what the X button did in halo 1&2 as in reloading, swapping weapons, and dual wielding. No need to worry bungie knows what they're doing. :)

R2 @ Apr 27th 2007 8:26PM

to 28. yeah i understand where your coming from but its the future, maybe they have just an entirely new set of ranks based upon all 3 defense types.

@blue orb comments, just remember that objects in the game, i.e weapons, grenades and so forth are acually bigger when just on the ground, when u pick them up the are normal.although yes i do see that it could also be a sword, im pretty sure there was also a comment in the bungie.net forums that active camo and oversheilds will be taken out of halo 3.

if people arent interested in the the new stuff, then stick to halo 2, remember its Bungies game not yours, im sure some of you would rather it be halo 3: The BR&Sniper Edition for some people, im just happy to be able to finish the story and have more customisation for custom games.

its good to see more of a variety of places to go also the navigation compas thingy right underneath your healthbar, though it would be nice if the health bar was a lil higher or maybe put in the top left,i think it might intrude on the FOV, in that area, maybe it wont we'll find out in a few weeks.

Mark Routt @ Apr 28th 2007 9:10AM

freekin sweet!

Froz3n @ Apr 28th 2007 1:00PM

The lack of Elite's may not truely be a lack of Elite's so much as most players strongly prefer Spartan charater models.

corey @ Apr 28th 2007 8:57PM

i think the blue thing could be some kinda shield wepon. kinda like those rechargeable shields in campaine...

Fubarrdd @ Apr 29th 2007 5:04PM

Hey guys i was just wondering if any1 noticed that the bubble shield rolls, i noticed it in the bungie video doc, and here when the grenade bounces it off the cat walk.

Zach @ Apr 29th 2007 7:37PM

I cant wait for h3 to come out! spartan laser looks cool. I have a hunch that the blue orb thing could just be a camo thing thats just in a circe;, not a triangle shape. = )

msgbonehead @ May 2nd 2007 7:56AM

I'd like to say first of all, great job on the analysis. But I have a possible idea for the glowing blue sphere where the sword should be. If you read the Nylund novels you notice on the battle for Reach that they recieved an ammo dump and one of the things included was the tactical nuke. About the size of a basketball if I remember correctly. The size would fit and the location of it being a power weapon would also fit.