Holiday next year is gonna be between Halo 3,MGS4 and the new super bros melee.Halo 3 is gonna triumph.

Hmm Mjolnir MK.I anyone?




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According to info release on Bungie.net, the MA5C 7.62mm rifle is an air-cooled, gas-operated, magazine fed weapon designed for automatic fire. The weapon has an attached electronics suite that provides information on rounds remaining in magazine, compass heading, as well as several other 'housekeeping' functions.

If the latest issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly is to be believed, then Bungie is preparing yet another Halo title. Before anyone can raise a disapproving finger, EGM clarifies that the game in question is neither the episodic project directed by Peter Jackson nor Halo Wars (though EGM notes Halo Wars might see release this year). Nope, this would be a completely separate title apart from Halo 3 and the aforementioned spin-offs.

This week's regularly scheduled Bungie update features some interesting info about the upcoming public beta of Halo 3. In addition to detailing some of the maps for the third Master Chief blast-a-thon-that may or may not make it in time for the beta-Bungie's Frankie teases the beta set with fancy-shmancy split-screen play and a feature he refers to as "Saved Films."

Simply describing the Saved Films feature as "very, very, very limited" in the beta, the name would imply a game recording feature that would (we hope) allow players to record, save, and upload multiplayer matches for posterity. Recording is already a fairly common feature in a number of first-person shooters and will surely be a welcome addition to the world of Halo deathmatches.

There's a lot more to read and some intense Spartan eye-candy to take in in the form of the above pic, suitable for wallpapering at 4008x2258 resolution. Michael McWhertor

Sergeant Frickin Avery Johnson! Woohoo!

In the Halo Graphic Novel, on pg 122, reveals that he was involved in Project: ORION, the Spartan-I program.[1] This would make him over 60 years old, possibly even 70. This would mean that either Spartans can live longer without aging, or people generally live longer in the future. Another possibility is that Johnson has accumulated a total of several years spent frozen in cryo-chambers during missions requiring long periods of time traveling through slipspace, thus keeping him physically younger than he actually is. Any or all of these conditions may be have contributed to Sgt. Johnson physically appearing younger than he actually is.

Also, his supposed "Boren's Syndrome" may be part of an ONI Section III black op to cover up the fact that he is possibly a SPARTAN-I. This is made possible on pg 122 in the Graphic Novel, most notably with the hard copy of the query from Dr. Catherine Halsey to the ONI sever from the Gettysburg.

Johnson also whistled "Oly Oly Oxen Free" to a group of SPARTANs, which also contributes as a lead of him being a SPARTAN. However, only SPARTAN IIs know the all clear signal, which they made up as children.

At the New York City edition of the Halo 3 press preview, the Bungie tame found time for a quick Q&A before hands-on time. Some known, some new info within, so keep reading.

Gears of War has been getting a lot of criticism because of the net code. Has there been any updates to that in Halo?

Yeah, everything is kind of redone from the ground up. We had really good net code in Halo. It's a peer to peer system, so you have some of the disadvantages that come with that. But the advantages, is as it scales, the more people you have, the better conditions get, the better the experience is. Even with the population we're gonna see today, it should be pretty good. We're having a pretty smooth experience so far. And there's a couple of thousand people out there.

What's the maximum number of players?

16, same as Halo.

Are all weapons going to be available in the beta?

We're certainly saving some for the final game in the fall. And there's gonna be a couple weapons that won't even be shown in multiplayer, they're going to be campaign only, but you haven't seen all the multiplayer weapons today, no.

What is the weapon count for the beta?

You know, I actually don't know. It's something like ten or eleven or twelve or thirteen... There's a lot. Everything that is dual wielded can be reloaded independently unlike Halo 2. You're gonna use the RB and the LB buttons to reload. And RB replaces X from Halo 2, from boarding for activating door switches, all that kind of stuff. So play around with the controls, you can change them any time in here with the controls menu. All the ones you're used to are in here, so if you like Green Thumb and South Paw you can play around in there any time in the game.

We also have one more feature which is saved films. After a game's finished and you're in the lobby, you can save a film of the entire game. You can send that, recommend it to a friend and watch it back at your leisure later.

In the beta, it's first person viewpoint only, I believe you can switch to another camera for another player and see it from their viewpoint. In the final game, we're going to have a whole suite of controls, rewind, slow motion, freeze frame, pan around Matrix-style, whatever you want to do.

Where are those video saved?

They are saved on your machine initially, but they also go to Fileshare, which is a set amount of file storage. You can have either set number of films or a megabyte limit. Now a saved film is pretty small compared to a Windows Media file. An entire game of, like, 15 or 20 minutes can be 6 megs and that includes every single possible angle, replays with full sound effects in the engine. We have a cool feature that when you pause, it continues to play some ambient sounds, for example, the sound of a rocket, we've got some cool things with looping and sampling where it sounds like a rocket is going past your head in freeze frame. It's weird but you should try it.

The third person perspective, does that automatically engage when you pick up a selected weapon?

As soon as you pick up one of those specialty weapons, yeah, it engages.

Can you tell us what those power ups are we saw?

We have a new element in the game called equipment. It's activated using the X button, you'll see these items laying around on the floor. They come in all sorts shapes and sizes and they all do different things. There's a Bubble Shield you might have seen in the TV commercial. There's a grav lift which will propel people or vehicles into the sky about 20 feet and you can use it to jump over walls. There's a power drain, which is really, really dangerous. It depletes shields in a large globular radius and toss in a couple grenades at people standing near that and its pretty much a sure kill. There's a couple of other ones that aren't in the beta, and you'll see those in the fall.

Can you tell us about the ranking system?

There is a ranking system, you'll see it after a game. You'll see two numbers. One is RP, which is your ratings points. What they do is signify to everyone exactly how much you've played. You also have a skill level, which is matchmaking playlist dependent. So if you go to a matchmaking playlist and you see someone with a really low skill level in Team Slayer, but you see that they have a lot of rating points and a high rank-your rank is associated sergeant, major, whatever-with the number of rating points, you know that they're not a scrub. It keeps things fair and we can sort of matrix those numbers to keep players more evenly matched. So, you're not gonna get beat on by experts that are pretending to be noobs.

Are you using the same TrueSkill system as everything else or is it modified?

It is modified, but we do work with the TrueSkill guys in Cambridge, yeah.

I've been downloading Halo 3 gameplays all freaking day. Go take a look at Betalicious. That was made completely using the Save Films functions and I thought it was record-as-you-play with a capture card. A 20 minute game is 6 MB?! Full sound, full angle, slow-mo, first person view. I can't even imagine the montaging capabilities. A 20 minute game on my HD would be around 9 GB. With Save Films I can fast forward to the good bits, use the fancy angle stuff, etc. Would save a lot of time and HD space and would make montaging a whole lot easier.    

The HUD is cooler. Even respawning is cool now (watch the vidz). The new 8 clip (I think) Brute Shot, new Spartan Laser one hit kill (Gives you "You Lasered [Gamertag]" message and medal), portable grav lifts with the ability to jump the High Ground gate with a Mongoose. Bubble shield.

Now John can you go to Cambridge headquarters and burn it down? Make sure the A Level exam papers are gone and completely obliterated

I just got back from an exclusive Halo 3 Beta Preview event. I wanted to throw up some pics of it along with some quick impressions. To summarize things, Halo 3 will fit nicely as the next iteration of the Halo franchise. For anyone looking for something completely revolutionary, this isn't for you. Of course, there's no reason for Bungie to completely reinvent an already proven formula, and the 3rd edition of their Halo franchise adds just enough flavor to keep thing fresh...and fun as fuck.


The graphics aren't groundbreaking right now, but they are a step up from Halo 2 with higher resolution models, top quality textures, fancy lighting, and pretty shader effects.

There will be a saved film feature. Every match gets recorded and you can save this film locally OR upload it to your shared film section. As of now there are 6 slots available in the shared film section. The best thing is, replays of matches are small in size. A full 10 minute match came in around 5.2 MB. Pretty impressive.

Bungie has done quite a bit to address some complaints with the previous Halo matchmaking system. The first thing is separating rankings into two categories, overall and per play list. This allows for tighter and more competitive matches when someone that is level 50 jumps to a different playlist and starts at level 1. The other change added is the ability to create a party on the fly from a team of folks you just played a match with.

Overall there are lots of welcome changes, and lots of new weapons and gadgets to play with. Look for a more in depth review of the beta before it goes public next week.

Hi all, need an advise n some clarification. I never play any Halo b4 since 360 is my first xbox.   

Is this game likes a Counter Strike ? Shoot anybody ? Got any specific team and mission ? And wat make this game so speciall ????    Im just cannot helping myself to fall in love with it.....

Heck if it wasn't for Halo 2, there wouldn't be a Gamer's Hideout yo~! The fabled story of how the 3 maestros of GH met has been passed down from Legendary playa to noobs all over LowYat.

» "Get a kill with the Spartan Laser. It is the most satisfying thing you'll ever do.

» "Make sure to grab the rocket launcher on high ground. For some reason no one ever gets it. And it's absolutely lethal on that stage. No one's figured that out.

» "Make sure you ride in a Mongoose [ATV] with someone, so you can bond in your weaponless bullet-sponge of a vehicle."