Included in the set are “Standoff,” a symmetrical valley filled with “entrenched bases and fields of boulders” and, after about 10 minutes, enormous piles of heavily armored corpses. It’s joined by “Rat’s Nest,” which is described as “an indoor vehicle paradise,” and “Foundry,” a Forge-friendly sandbox that’s ideal for shifting stairways, bridges and tunnels to your twisted heart’s delight.

What burns me, and oh it burns, is that these maps had to have been either finished or at least a thought close to Halo 3 becoming gold. I could be wrong, but I don’t mind putting my neck on the cutting block. These maps are here awfully early. Will this help or hurt? I remember very well the money I’ve spent on Halo 3. I still feel it in my bones. Can fans forget this so soon? Technically, Bungie is about to take you for 70+ dollars OR MORE, depending on the Sku. Do you love Halo 3 that much? With other games giving you more? For the cheap, you can wait until Spring 08. Like that’s a real option for the hardcore.

[via Joystiq]

Jayslacks

So, first and foremost, where are they? The terminals can all be found in various places when you reach the Ark and when you get to the final Halo ring. I won’t tell you where. If you haven’t found them yet, there are plenty of sights online that can help. What are they? The terminals tell the story of the first Halo rings firing, killing every sentient being in the galaxy. When the Flood first showed up in our galaxy, the Forerunners made it their mission to fight the Flood and to catalog all the species in the galaxy, or as much as they could. That is what the Ark is for, to hold all that information, and to produce the Halo rings. The portal on Earth isn’t the Ark. Its just a slip to get there. From Terminal two:

All evidence suggests that use of overwhelming force is the very foundation of the enemy’s combat doctrine. And I adamantly refuse to deploy personnel where the enemy has available forces numbering in the billions. With the very real possibility we are becoming the last living specimens of our race, all personnel are henceforth confined to stasis until further notice. Even with everyone equipped with [C_12_CS[Class 12 Combat Suit]] we could have had very little chance of survival, let alone victory.

The Forerunners created two AIs to try and fight the Flood. Mendicant Bias and Offensive Bias. From the third Terminal:

D: We have the answer. We’ve built Mendicant Bias. It’s a contender-class [AI] unlike anything we’ve ever achieved.And we’ve observed a pattern it can exploit.The parasite has formed a Compound Mind. When it reaches a certain mass, the Mind is able to recoil its disparate parts to create a [tactical shield]. This is a simple matter of mass preservation. The thing has no compunction about sacrificing parts of the whole. But when the core of the Mind is threatened, it reacts violently and quickly.This is the only time we see it retract or slow its growth.If we are to defeat it, the trick will be coordinating our forays against the [sprawling infection] with Mendicant Bias assaults the Mind’s core. So far, we’ve been hesitant to use certain weapons because of the damage they cause surviving populations and environments.That protocol has been abandoned.

The problem with this plan is that Mendicant Bias betrays the Forerunners, just like Cortana almost does, and sides with the Gravemind, attacking all the Forerunners ships, heading to the Ark.
From Terminal Five:

Of my ships that had been captured, 11.3 percent of them are close enough to Mendicant’s core fleet that they can be used offensively – either by initiating their self-destruct sequences, or by opening unrestricted ruptures into [slipstream space].It is best that our crews perished now; because the battle that is about to ensue would have driven them mad.

Here is the cool part. If you find the last terminal on the last level, Cortana will ask you a question.

“Where are you going? Wait. What’s that?”

When you read the last terminal, only on Legendary, Mendicant Bias will address the Master Chief personally.

You don’t know the contortions I had to go through to follow you here, Reclaimer. I know what you’re here for. What position do I take? Will I follow the betrayal with another? You’re going to say I’m making a habit of turning on my masters. But the one that destroyed me long ago, in the upper atmosphere of a world far distant from here, was an implement far cruder then I. My weakness was capacity – unintentional though it was! – to choose the Flood. A mistake my makers would not soon forgive. But I want something far different from you, Reclaimer. Atonement.

Then she’ll ask, “How many of these have you found?”

Mendicant Bias is the reason the Halo ring was able to stay together long enough to blow up and kill the Gravemind once and for all. You probably missed that your first or second time through because, typically, gamers hate reading. And these terminals are packed with text. But, everyone complains that Halo doesn’t have a cool story, and that it isn’t in the game. Well, I call bullshit, because all the terminals are in the game. You just need to take time and read them. I was playing with a guy that told me that the terminals retell the story of Marathon. I don’t remember that, but I wouldn’t put it past Bungie. I love how the terminals aid this extra level to the story. I wish Halo 1 and 2 had this level of interaction. Maybe this new Peter Jackson thing could be it. While we wait on that, go back and check out those terminals. You’ll be glad you did.

Jayslacks

Total industry film ticket sales were only $80 million for the Oct. 5 weekend, down a massive 27 percent year-over-year. According to research firm Media by Numbers that’s the industry’s worst performance for an October weekend since 1999. Fall domestic receipts are also down 6 percent compared to last year.The highly anticipated movie The Heartbreak Kid, which reunited Ben Stiller and the Farrelly brothers nine years after the wildly successful release of There’s Something About Mary, was expected to gross up to $25 million in its opening weekend but fell flat, taking just $14 million in the US and Canada

I didn’t know that Ben Stiller and the Farrelly brothers even made a damn movie. This news hits me on different levels. You have a game that makes an absurd amount of money and you have fans that are willing to spend over $100 bucks on a game. One game! And yet, Hollywood still won’t accept the Master Chief with open arms and make a Halo movie? I have a prediction. Halo movie announced at the next E3? Cross them fingers.

Also: Don’t forget that Transformers is coming out on HD-DVD today. Come on, HD Junkies. This is a mandatory purchase if you are in the club. Say goodbye to thirty dollars.

Both stories make absolutely no sense. Gears of War starts off with Dom breaking Marcus out of jail to help with the Locust war. Apparently on Emergence day, all these creepy crawlies busted up from under ground and started some major shit. In Gears, your squad is given orders to find a device that has mapped all the tunnels of the Locust so that guided missiles can destroy them. Halo 3 is, well, more complicated. But, basically, Master Chief returns to Earth to help stop a Covenant invasion of Earth and to find a way to kill the all consuming Flood. Both stories are hard to follow and have holes the size of a Dropship. But, Gears of War has a much more single-minded focus than Halo 3. All these dudes want is to get the goods and go home. Master Chief has a whole war to finish. In Gears, you always feel like the task at hand is secondary to coming out the battle alive. Halo 3 has a much larger scale, with the fate of the galaxy hanging in the balance.

One of the biggest problems for some players is that we never have a connection to the two #3 and #4 players in the co-op mode of Halo 3. We know the squad from Gears of War up and down by the end of the game. But the random Elites stay silent. This is a small thing, but there is never a real emotional connection to these characters, even after 8+ hours of game play.

Youngteam pointed out to me that every part of Gears of War was designed with two player co-op in mind. I agree completely. From the battles to the missions to even the amount of ammo you carry, the game is made to be played with a buddy. It can be argued, easily, that it is impossible to play Gears of War on Insane mode by yourself. The AI is too good and too quick. The Locust on Insane wants you dead, and will do whatever it takes to do it. Halo 3 has the same basic idea, but ultimately, Halo 3 is meant to be played by yourself. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve played Halo 3 with friends and have been killed by the random grenade or the bad rocket shot. There are some wide-open maps with some amazing battles, but there are also tiny corridors with chaos everywhere. There are few moments in Halo 3 co-op where I am behind cover with my crew, waiting for the right moment. We are just dying all over the place, yelling. In Gears of war, there are tense moments where you have to hide and think. And if you’re partner is down, you have to run and get him. You wanna make a guy mad in Co-op Gears? Keep making him get you up.

Still, Gears of War rarely has those moments where you say, “I can’t believe we’re alive.” In Gears of War, the battle is a math problem. You do it right, and it can be flawless and simple. You do it wrong, you’re dead. I’m not sure what it is, but Halo games have the magic of randomness. You can survive a battle barely, just barely. And surviving those battles by the skin of your teeth is what makes you play the game even more. Gears of War is a fun game. Don’t get me wrong. But it isn’t as fun as Halo 3. I do think that Gears of War delivers a much tighter, more thought out Co-op game than Halo 3. But I don’t think it is nearly as fun. Telling a crew to get in a warthog, waiting for them to go, then Lasering them? Yeah, that is just good times. What do you guys think? Which one do you prefer?

Jayslacks

Microsoft recently announced that the game brought in $170 million in day-one sales in its opening day in the US. Analyst Colin Sebastian with Lazard Capital Markets forecast unit shipments of 4.5 million through October.Microsoft also said in a press release that Xbox 360 hardware sales have nearly doubled on a worldwide basis since the release of Halo 3 on September 25

Man, that is a lot of money. What do you guys think? Does Halo 3 deserve all that love? Or will the hype fade once other games come out? Time will tell, like it usually does.

[via Nextgen]

Jayslacks.

So what do I think about Halo 3 so far? I like it. A lot. The game is beautiful, and yes, it looks better than the beta. It has wider scope and scale of battles than pretty much any game on any console of its type that I’ve seen previously. There are threats and skirmishes happening everywhere. Grunts, for example, are actually fucking dangerous this time around. They’re good shots, they take more damage, they’re as accurate with grenades as they ever were, and now they’ll go suicide bomber on your ass. They’ll pull out two plasma grenades, activate them, and run toward the Master Chief screaming. Which is awesome, but really annoying as well when you get pasted by a grunt. The game requires a rapid realignment of some of your Halo preconceptions.

The game, so far, is also fairly challenging, although I’ll admit I’m only most of the way through the first level. Complaints about no backstory are warranted, as it starts with you crashing into earth in the craft you were in at the very end of Halo 2. So far though, pacing is good, presentation is great, and really, all I want to do is play more. So I’m going to go do that. And you should be doing the same, come midnight in your respective time zone.

100 from GamePro: It’s solid gameplay, immense replayability, online functionality and incredible production values will ensure its place in video game history, and it is, without a doubt, a satisfying and fulfilling close to the beloved trilogy[?].

100 from GameSpy: The Forge is a gargantuan achievement that puts game design in the hands of players, daring you to be creative and invent a Halo 3 multiplayer experience all your own. Of course, the multiplayer is every bit as astonishing as it has been in past iterations and even eclipses its predecessors in many respects.

100 EuroGamer: The best game yet in one of the best FPS franchises of the era. Better than either of its predecessors, Halo 3 still can’t quite escape the category of flawed masterpiece – but this time around, the flaws are so minor that even the most churlish of reviewers would be hard pressed to mark the game down.

100 from Games Radar:The single player is bigger and brawnier than anything that’s been attempted on a console before. The multiplayer, which already shadowed the competition, has improved to the point of ridiculousness. The new features – Forge, Saved Films, Coop – are frighteningly addictive. And if you don’t like any of that, you’re always welcome to edit it until you do.

100 from 1UP: It’s hard to imagine a feature of this game that someone won’t love… Sure, no one aspect of the game is life-changing on its own, but perhaps the package as a whole is. After all, Halo 3 has enough content to keep you stuck to your controller for weeks, if not months or even years.

There you have it. People played it and the people who played it liked it. But don’t take their words for it. Rent it if you have doubts. Wait until your buddy plays it. This might be the greatest hyped game in the history of the world. But, hey, its still just a game.

Jayslacks.

Note: I am really just a normal fucker like the rest of you.

I was just minding my own business when a co-worker came up to me and told me that I could buy Halo 3 today. Shocked, I asked him how such mystical things could occur, to which he whispered, “newegg.”

I immediately jumped onto the computer, but hesitant as to whether or not my overnight order would actually be shipped, I decided to put it off for a while. Then, I decided I definitely wasn’t going to order it when I heard that playing the game early will have your Live account banned forever. However, once I learned that the ban hammer was only going to apply to MS employees, I quickly changed my tune. So after I decided to order the damn thing, the regular version had sold out. Distraught, I consoled myself by purchasing the Special Edition and overnight shipping. I’ll refrain from telling you how much this costs.

According to my co-worker, only those who ordered by noon PST will receive their orders on thursday. You still might be able to get in on the Special or Legendary Editions of the game; that is, unless newegg has finally taken it down.

We’ll keep you posted on whether or not we actually receive the game.

Chufmoney

Naturalizing something only smoke and mirrors managed to achieve in its forebears has subtly changed Halo 3’s battlefield. “In Halo 1 and 2 you’d have to spawn a load of guys at the front, and once the player has killed those guys, you’d spawn some guys behind a rock and so the entire battle would sort of play out the same way,” says Jaime Greisemer, Halo 3’s sandbox design lead, the man behind the new weapons and equipment, damage systems and AI behaviors. “But now we spawn a whole battlefield full of guys and have fun. If you want to engage these guys right up front, you can. If you want to stand up on a ridge, they’ll start shooting back.”

Man, tastes like biscuits. I know Halo 3 is coming out in two weeks, but do we really need this much info? I say we should all cover our eyes and ears, hide in a corner, and hope we don’t get any more surprises.

[via Next-Gen]

Jayslacks

“7-Eleven will be doing in-store promotions, such as offering three Halo 3-branded Slurpee cups, the aforementioned Game Fuel drink, a Halo 3 Doritos promotion and prizes based on the game. Gamers will also have a chance to become a voice actor in the upcoming Halo Wars real-time strategy game from Ensemble.”

Yes, so when you get the midnight munchies, you can also pick up some Master Chief goodness. Is this amazing form of branding an attempt to remind Halo fans out there that Halo 3 is finally arriving? Or does Microsoft want to take as much money from as many people as possible? And can us gamers not become disgusted by seeing our mom or Uncle Bobby quenching their thirsts with the greatest cyborg character of all time laminated on the side of a can? Just like Star Wars and Spiderman and The Matrix, the more we love something, the more we’ll see it. Over and over and over. Brace yourselves for the media explosion.

Jayslacks

Update! Here are some more juicy details straight from Bungie’s mouth. You will be able to use the Save Film options for the 4 player co-op online. People won’t be able to join games once they start. One player, the host most likely, will be the Master Chief while the other players will be the Arbiter or two other Elites. You can play co-op split screen style but only for two players, but you and a guest can join another two players online or through system link. And, finally, there will be a reason to play the campaign over and over again and there will be ways to make the gameplay different besides changing the difficulty, but Bungie won’t say how just yet. Pretty amazing news for Halo fans. Are you excited? Huh? Are you?

[via Joystiq and 1up]

Jayslacks.

Jayslacks

In other news, the WETA guys went and built themselves a full-fledge Warthog, the sword in Halo 3 has been tweaked, and we have some live action Halo shorts to look forward to. Can we call the internet something besides the internet? I like Suzy.

“We’re not dumb,” says Bungie’s Frank O’Conner. “We know that people want it and we’re trying to make it happen. I think the biggest problem for us for online co-op is that we have a situation where you can be in a Warthog with five troops, almost a mile away from the other player. That’s a significant challenge. And there’s lots of design things you could do to prevent that from happening, but they would make it not feel like Halo anymore. If we can make it happen in a way that works well, we will – and if it works badly, we won’t.”

I’m a pretty huge Halo fanboy (just ask Chuf), but that sounds like a pretty specious excuse for not including what is perhaps the most wanted feature for Halo 3. Gears of War set a precedent, and an incredibly high standard, for well-integrated online co-operative play, and it seemed like all the right things were in place for Halo 3 to carry the torch: the game has been designed so that a second avatar is always present and available as a plausible surrogate for the second player (as opposed to the mysterious second “Master Chief” that player 2 always used before). The network code for the game is excellent as well. So what’s the deal here?

Online co-op can feasibly be added post-release as well, but when there’s a literal wave of shooters that offer co-operative play online coming (including Ubisoft’s hype-snowball Haze and EA’s Army of Two), will that be enough?

-Aegies

Update: apparently, the main reasons for Bungie’s current difficulties are mainly attributable to the wide open, epic scale of the game. For now, I’m going to quietly accept that excuse, with a caveat: if Halo 3 feels like a funneled corridor shooter, there will be hell to pay. And I still want co-op.

-JaySlacks

For pics of more expensive Halo 3 360 accessories click here. 

Seriously?  Who the fuck wants to spend more money than what a regular 360 controller costs.  I mean if they were the same price and you still needed controllers or a headset I could understand that you go out and get one themed around a particular game.  But this my friends, this must not be done.  Please don’t whore yourself out like that.  Your momma raised you better!

Chufmoney

I would say it didn’t take long for the honeymoon to be over, but in point of fact, it hasn’t happened yet.

Folks are reporting problems downloading the Halo 3 Beta via Crackdown this morning. We have alerted the appropriate Live authorities and they are taking care of the problem as we speak. More news as it comes in.

In a way, I suppose I’m not surprised. While ship dates for major titles have generally been alright this gen, release targets downloadable content and patches have been notoriously unreliable, especially on the 360. Consider this our second biggest pet peeve with the system, shy of console reliability. There are several theories springing up as to the cause of the delay, which you can find if you’re willing to stomach message boards across the internets. The one that seems the most likely to me is that something about the most recent Crackdown updates broke the Beta unlock feature, and people are working with sneering gunmen behind them to solve the problem as quickly as possible. I would also guess that the term “firing” in this case will be appended by the word “squad”, as this hurts the recent streak of good vibes toward Microsoft in the last week or so.

There are, of course, other suppositions about the delay. My favorite, most outrageous ones are all conspiracy theories, the most prevalent of which seems to be that this was some kind of intentional delay on Microsoft’s part to make the VIP and Friends and Family beta testers feel more, I guess special? The rumor goes on to suppose that VIPs and Friends and Family beta participants will be shunning the Crackdown hordes en masse, as they view them as a lower form of sentience.

Somehow, I think the lack of sleep from staying up all night waiting for the beta has broken something important in some people’s deeper psyches. I suppose though that this idea is at least theoretically plausible, as reading the message boards this morning was enough to make me both slightly physically ill and worried about the pool of people I’m going to have the joy of playing with.

I consider this one of the strongest warnings and pieces of advice I’ve ever given on this site: if you’re playing the Halo 3 beta in the coming weeks, it would behoove you to find friends and play with them consistently. The pool of competition has gotten more, shall we say, colorful as more and more members of the general public, i.e., those who didn’t get in because of press credentials or connections to Bungie/Microsoft, have gained access. According to Tycho at Penny Arcade, within his first night of play, his sexuality was questioned. Much like a particularly aggressive strain of virus, I’m not so much surprised that it’s happened, it’s that it happened so quickly. Or, as Tycho said:

Perhaps the insults are also in beta; I expect insults of greater power and ornamentation in the retail release.

There are a lot of surprising places to find people to add to your friends list for Halo, and I would suggest you begin inquiring, or looking for inquiries for friends. Think outside of traditional gaming hubs, such as gaming message boards, to find them. I’ll put it this way: I have more than one Suicide Girl on my Xbox Live friends list. The more mature and intelligent the location you find players at (or in the case of the previous example, the more age restricted and community-self-policing), the more fun I think you’re likely to have in the beta, and in the final product when it ships. I don’t play ranked Gears matches for many reasons, and most of those reasons can’t type very well, or were born prior to 1989 (and I’m not saying that you young’ns are always a problem; there are always exceptions, and I know several, but please admit at least that your age group has become known for this kind of behavior on the internet). Just like sports, the measure of enjoyment you get from Halo online will largely depend on the quality of players you interact with. And I’m not referring to how hard and how well they whore the sniper rifle. Besides, that’s what I’m there for. Oh, and if you’re looking for a good start for friends to play with, our gamertags are at the bottom of the page. Hit us up with a friend request and get ready to be lasered, albeit in a sportsmanlike fashion.

-Aegie

As for the title of this post, it may sound like exaggeration, but you might be surprised. I remember when Halo 2 released in 2004. On my campus specifically, while it wasn’t a ghost town, there was a noticeably lower number of students, and even some faculty called in sick in honor of the release. Personally, I was up until 5 in the morning after getting my collector’s edition copy at midnight. Fitting, since I’ll probably be up at 5 am tomorrow (the official start time of the beta).

-Aegies