Halo 3 Preview
Bungie (Microsoft)
FPS, Release Date: Fall 2007
Posted January 24th, 2007

It's time to finish the fight. Err, well, not right now, but you know, later on this fall when Halo 3 finally gets released. In this third and final rendition of arguably the most popular game series of all time you return as Master Chief in glorious next-gen form to end the war of all wars between the Covenant, the Flood, and the entire human race. This third go-around features everything you'd expect out of a next-gen sequel: delicious graphics, dramatically enhanced gameplay mechanics, and from the looks of the official trailer maybe even a pretty intense storyline, which for the Halo trilogy would be an emphatic first. While Bungie (the people making this bad ass game) has been pretty downlow about H3, here's what we know so far.

One of the few statements Bungie has released about Halo 3 is that the X button will change the way we play first person shooters forever. Wow, now that's quite a statement; what in the world could they be talking about? To be honest, we won't know until we get our final review copies, but what would be the fun of writing game previews here at College Downtime if we didn't speculate? After doing our homework and making a few phone calls to our company moles, we feel that it has to somehow involve the new shield grenade that's causing quite a ruckus in the Halo fan community. If you watch the trailer you'll see when the grenade is used it forms a shield around Master Chief that has the power to stop pretty much any attack, epic or not. Forgive me for going slightly off track here, but having one of those next time I'm at the bar would be so useful for when, you know, those unattractive girls otherwise known in guy circles as "grenades" (get it?) try and pull me onto the dance floor. Getting back on track, mapping the shield grenade to the X button is our best guess; it really would be a very cool new gameplay addition to a series that's already chock full of them.



Shield grenades aside, Bungie has also illuminated some other upcoming gameplay enhancements that we're very excited about. The first comes in the form of a nimble, two passenger ATV called the "Mongoose", and according to the developers it will play a major role throughout the entire game. Bungie stated that the Mongoose was originally slated for Halo 2, but there just wasn't enough room so they pushed it to the third title. They also went on to state that it's very lightweight, which means it's very susceptible to getting knocked over by explosions; furthermore, the Mongoose comes unarmed, meaning it's not a tank so don't drive it like one! On top of the new ride we also are expecting an entirely new ability that reminds us a little of Half-Life 2: sprinting. While the ability of Master Chief sprinting hasn't been confirmed by Bungie, they also never denied it; plus, you see Master Chief do it in the trailer, so you can see where we're deriving this stuff from.

What you've just read is a suave combination of what's been made official, which isn't much, and what our team of spies could come up with. Bungie has been quieter than Helen Keller on this game, and to be honest we're not really surprised; especially if the whole "revolutionary X button" dealie turns out to be as big as they say. All they're really doing is taking a page out of Nintendo's book, and all that is just smart business decisions. Halo 3 is slated for release for this fall, and we cannot wait. Can you taste that, in the air? It tastes like anticipation!


Halo 3 Screenshots:



Halo 3 Videos:
Halo 3 Trailer!


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