Hands-on with the Halo 3 Beta

via cvg

Bungie and Microsoft has given out codes to select members of the press to get a first-hand look at the open beta of Halo 3 before it goes live on May 16. CVG has been hammering the game since last night and we can now proudly present our first-hand impressions.

Weighing in at just over 900MB, it took us around half-an-hour to get up and running late last. By now everyone should have seen the leaked YouTube movies and had a quick look at the maps, weapons and game modes of the open beta. What you'll see in the beta is nothing revolutionary and your first impressions will be that you've been here before.

It's essentially the same formula as Halo 2 online only with a few new spices to liven things up. But did we really expect it to be a totally different game? No, in fact it was just good to be playing new Halo again. Halo 2 has been pretty much exhausted since it came out and even releasing remade maps from Halo 1 will do little to give the game a fresh feel.

Snowblind, Valhalla and High Ground all serve as a good indicator that Halo 3's multiplayer is going to be just as much fun as previous instalments of the franchise. All three maps are small and open allowing you to spend most of your time engaging in combat rather than wandering through corridors and mountain passes trying to find someone to shoot. These have clearly been selected for the immediate fun factor.

You can play team or solo games and Bungie's new matchmaking options are being put to the test. Finding a game is no problem and the beta hasn't even gone public yet. But once you've joined a game and then finished, you can stick around the lobby and 'party-up' with other players just by hanging around. The game will then take whoever's left off to find more players for a new game. This saves the need to quit out and fire out friends requests, accept them, and join their games if there's someone you've got on well with on the battlefield.

There's a massive community feel to Halo 3 and you'll get to try out the much-talked about Saved Film function. Once you game's finished you can hit a button to save a replay of it and watch it later. The idea being that you can analyse you or your team's performance and improve it.

Clans are going to love this and you can swap and share clips via Xbox Live. There's limited function in the open beta of Saved Films but it's enough to give you a idea of the potential for fans sharing their greatest moments long after the glory has gone. Remember all those homemade videos of players blasting Warthogs around maps in Halo 1? Bungie has now basically given the community a set of tools to do it properly. It's just another sign that user generated content is beginning to take over the world.

Visually the game is looking good, nothing draw-dropping like in a Gears Of War kind of OMG, but that's more down to the art direction of Halo than developer skills or tools. There are some nice little touches in there though and they're so subtle you may or may not even notice them. For example Snowbound features soft surfaces and if you look closely, you'll be able to see character models sinking into the snow as they move on the map's surface.

The matchmaking process decides the game mode you're about to play and the playlist's favourites so far seem to be standard deathmatch, rockets and Shotty Snipers. Main team modes feature Team Slayer, Territories and CTF. Whether you're a fan of solo or team games, there's plenty to chew on in the beta.

Performance-wise we haven't run into any problems yet. Maybe that'll change when it goes live to the masses but everything seems to be running as planned, which isn't bad considering the size of the demo and that fact hat it hasn't been optimised yet.

The Halo 3 beta won't surprise you but it does serve as a reminder of how strong the console shooter is online. As we said before, it's just good to be playing new Halo and we'll be playing as much as possible for the three weeks it's live.

Expect more impressions and reports as the weeks unfold. If you're lucky enough to have got a place on the closed beta, let us know your initial thoughts below.