XBox 360 Features

Halo 3: Beyond the Beta

By Casey Lynch Jun 5, 2007, 20:51 GMT

Gamepro has a ha-uge Halo 3 spread coming - and we played some Halo 3 custom games!

So the Halo 3 beta is almost over. Just five more days. Poop.

That's OK, we'll suck it up, go back to playing Rockets on Gemini or some such thing on Halo 2 until September 25 rolls around and just be grateful for the 3 weeks we've ahd with the beta.

In the meatime, there's all kinds of news. First Luke Smith from 1up.com, now a lacky community schlump at Bungie (read: lucky guy who gets to play Halo 3 all the time), posted this news today on Bungie.net:

Over at Gamepro, they are teasing their 16-page cover story on Halo 3. Their coverage is multiplayer-focused and reveals some new weapons, new vehicles and some maps that weren't in the Halo 3 Public beta. Additionally, Gamepro reveals something brand new to the Halo universe: Armor permutations and customization. Armor permutations and customization are a series of cosmetic changes to your Spartan that gives players another way to distinguish themselves from the pack in Halo 3's multiplayer.

Armor permutations and customization. So will we be seeing spartans running around looking like clowns, pac-man or worse, with pictures of themselves grafted over their helmets? Guess we'll have to wait and see.

What we won't have to wait for is impressions on the Custom Games. Boo-yah!

While we were playing in matchmaking on the beta, we were accidentally booted from a party after the party leader switched game types. Much to our surprise, those of us that got the boot scored and found ourselves in a Custom Games menu.

All we can say is wow. The Cutom Games menu itself is kind of funny for starters - There are two spartans standing staticly, except one that's holding a removable turret chain gun looks like he's perpetually doing a shoulder excerise. But who are we kidding - we were in heaven.

So we tried everything. We played with the new pistol, which makes its first appearance since Halo: Combat Evolved. The upside - it's sweet, it's chrome and fires not too unlike the Magnum from Halo 2, except it seems to have longer range and has a tad more kick. The downside - there's no scope, which is prolly good, because everyone knows that darned scope on the old pistol was pretty unbalanced.

We also played with the sword, which looked rad. It glowed and ran with a current of electricity - wait, sorry, plasma - and looked and acted much like the sword from Halo 2. The auto-kill-lunge action that occurs when you get the reticule over

We played a variety of gametypes, including Escort and VIP, but we also saw a type of Slayer that had lighting fast 2:30 minute rounds. There was a huge amount of customization available - you could reduce gravity and fly all over the map, speed up spartans, increase over-shields, or turn them off to play SWAT, which we did!

There weren't any new maps, which got us bummed out, but it was a treat to play with the other weapons that were missing in the public beta. Of note, there's still no flamethrower spotted.

Anyways, hit up the new issue of GamePro for more deets on Halo 3