More impressionsSubject: Halo 3: My day at Bungie
"These graphics aren't that impressive for an Xbox 360 game...."
It was officially the fastest a thought has ever entered then left my mind.
It was Saturday morning in Bungie's Kirkland, WA-based offices. I'm sitting in a big room filled wall-to-wall with buzzing Xbox 360s and HDTV monitors that are sporting tantalizing Halo 3 title screens. Each station has one wired controller sitting out, just waiting to be man-handled by the visitors today: me, Crispin (EGM's senior editor), Mark (GameVideos.com's director), Luke (1UP.com's news editor), Rob (GameVideos' camera guy, who also happens to be very good at Halo 2), someone from a Mexican game mag, and two guys from Japanese magazine Famitsu (one of whom earned the nickname "Sleepy Famitsu" from all of us because he kept dozing off during the day having just got there straight after a 14-hour flight).
But before Bungie would let us play their game, they first want to show us a few things on a big projection screen...like how the new weapons work and how the new maps are laid out (see EGM's Halo 3 cover story for the full scoop on all that stuff). That's when I see the game running for the first time since the early teaser trailer.
You've already read up top what my immediate first impression was. We've seen what the Xbox 360 is capable of with beauts like Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter and Gears of War...and Halo 3 didn't reach those standards in the good-looks department. Of course, Bungie warned us earlier that this very, very early (pre-alpha) version doesn't have all the visual wows built in yet, but still....I'm looking at Halo 3! On the Xbox 360! Of course I have high expectations. The original game's still one of the best looking Xbox 1 titles around. I wanted to be stunned when I saw Halo 3's graphics. I wasn't. It just looked like a slightly sharper, slightly more detailed Halo 2 to me.
We'll see in a few months whether the next-gen eye candy comes, but it was now time to play. We all ready up, the level loads, and we're now officially playing Halo 3. All of a sudden, I didn't give one damn about how the game looked -- or will look. That familiar, awesome, Halo gameplay is alive in our hands, and I am having fun...and the last time I checked, FUN > GRAPHICS.
I am having a great time experimenting with the new weapons, as well as the old, revamped ones. The new maps are fantastic to play for very different reasons (I love the man cannons and Spartan laser on Valhalla, the base layout on High Ground, and most of all, the shield doors in Snowbound -- again, read the new EGM to find out what the hell I'm talking about).
As the day goes on, Bungie takes us on a virtual tour through everything....every little feature, all new weapons, maps, and vehicles...everything. Then, out of nowhere, they mention having a re-rematch against us at the end of the day....
("Re-rematch," you ask? Yes...please see this and this for a brief, important history lesson...especially if your business cards say "Bungie Studios" on them.)
Ah, now this is starting to make sense. Perhaps it wasn't our magazine's reputation or circulation that landed us this scoop of scoops. It might be something a bit more personal. I wonder if Bungie invited us down to see Halo 3 just to get revenge? Were their poor, injured egos still smarting after all these months?
We wrap up the formal demo, and in an unusually efficient manner (it's obvious they built this into the schedule), the PR people escort the non-EGM/1UP journalists out while the already-designated Bungie team sits down opposite the room from us. They are ready. In hindsight, it looks like they've been preparing us all day for this with all the tutorials, guidance, and playtime. They wanted to make sure that they could take away all potential excuses we'd have if we lost ("Oh, we didn't know the map that well" or "We're still getting used to these new weapons."). Well, we still have one good one, just in case: "You guys have been playing this game for months. Today's the first time we've touched it!" But that's for after the match. Right now, it's time to focus and get psyched. It's time to defend our honor! (Actually, it's more like the Bungie guys needing to defend their honor....)
We'll let you know how we fared against them in Halo 3 in a future update on 1UP.com.
I very rarely dual-wielded in the few hours we got to play Halo 3, and after some early experimentation, I mostly stuck with the Assault Rifle. I'd pick up a Battle Rifle or Shotgun if I had the chance, but unless I was super close or far from a target, the AR suited me just fine. More than fine. OK I fucking love the assault rifle. It might as well be an entirely new weapon. (I hope they don't mess with it too much between now and the final game.) I should also note, with all humility, that I think I consistently posted the best numbers of anyone on the EGM/1UP side of the room.
The spike grenades are potentially a great idea (especially using them to tag someone chasing you), but I didn't find them that useful in the pre-alpha we played. Since they blast in one direction they seemed less effective than the other 'nades. Maybe more of a finesse weapon for advanced players? The Bungie guys seemed to use them more often than us noobs, but without much more success. As it was, I only used them when I had no other grenades, or I wanted to hear (or wanted someone else to hear, like that dude about to grab my flag) the sweet "whoop-whoop-whoop" sound they make hurling through the air.
The Mongoose ATV is just stupid fun. Hilarious, zippy, stupid fun.
Before running through each of the three multiplayer maps, the Bungie guys would load the level on a 360 they had hooked up to a giant projector beaming on to the back wall. Each time they'd move the view straight down while they explained the level, presumably so we would actually pay attention to what they were saying, rather than gaping at the first glimpse ever of new Halo 3 maps. It didn't quite work on me, since I honestly found even the little sticks and hi-res dirt and shit impressive compared to what I'm used to in Halo 2. When I said something about it to Bungie Community Maestro Brian Jarrard, he immediately deadpanned "Glad you like it, cause it's one of the four screenshots you're getting."
The three maps we played are so good...so good. I won't get into it here since we have a bunch of detailed stuff planned as part of our online and video coverage, but suffice to say High Ground looks to be the new Zanzibar (though more Slayer-friendly).
As a video guy, I got to say that the Saved Films feature in Halo 3 is going to be h-u-g-e, a much bigger deal long-term than it might first appear. Not just for watching your games over again, but for tournaments, speed runs, cheat and exploit films, and machinima in general. Props to Bungie for once again pushing the console envelope in terms of the tools they give their fans to play with. Very, very smart move.
It's probably no surprise that the Spartan Laser is another "tabs" weapon; like the Sword, Rocket Launcher, or Sniper Rifles in Halo 2 (sometimes the Shotty), teams were keeping tabs on where it was at all times. "I got the laser", "laser-guy coming up on the left side of the base", "I dropped the laser near the turret on the right"--you hear that sort of thing a lot. I also suck with the laser. Take out a Warthog, sure, no problem, but nailing individuals with the warm-up delay the laser has before it fires is a skill. Luke and Producer Joseph Tung, however, did not seem to have this problem, as they continually melted my ass like a campfire smore from across the fucking map.
As game developers, the Bungie guys' attitude impressed me. I got the same vibe I felt interviewing them after Halo 2: they aren't pretending to know all the answers. They wanted to know how it felt. And when they asked what we thought, it wasn't fishing for praise; they seemed honestly hungry for input, to question their assumptions, for more evidence to support a theory. They didn't have a pat answer for every question or issue we had, but it was obvious they'd heard almost every single one before internally. Game development has a lot of "lesser of two evils" and "best solution we could think of"s in it, and Bungie wasn't pretending otherwise, which is pretty rare in my experience. Especially for the people behind arguably the biggest franchise in console gaming.
