Halo 3

[MJ]

When playing multiplayer, what do the different icons mean in the bottom right hand corner just above the kill count? I assume they're related to voice comms but can't work it out.

I read that proximity chat doesn't feature in all game types any more and while playing a team game yesterday up on the D-pad wouldn't activate voice comms so I'm wondering if one of the icons means team comms is always open depending on the game type.

[Jebus]

How is it any different in your opinion then? When I experienced the online beta I picked it up straight away - not because of my familiarity with Halo/Halo 2, but because I was so used to online fps in general. Took me a couple of minutes to work out what button did what, but that was the only problem I encountered.

It's different in as much as I don't like every FPS ever made, therefore there are differences to the game mechanics, weapons etc.

It really shouldn't need saying to be honest!

I found Halo 2 and the beta of Halo 3 to be extremely steep with the learning curve, you get absolutely hammered all over the place unless you put some serious time into it. It was very unfriendly to the new guy I felt.

I really don't agree that all FPS' are the same, that's about it really.

[anephric]

Of course they're not - play CoD2 with its instakills and enormous hit boxes and then see how well you do in R6:V. At the very least you have to learn weapon strengths and where to aim for.

[Malc]

Quick question about the multiplayer leveling system:

Does it work Halo 2 leveling sytem like you can go up and down in ranks? Or is it like COD4's in terms of you get XP to level up, and you can never go down ranks, only up? (I would prefer the latter.)

Oh, and i'm loving the Singleplayer right now, on level 5 and i'm not going to start multiplayer properly untill i'm done with single.

[jimtendo]

There's 2 variables to the levelling up process:

One which is skill level (the big number beside your rank) which you can definitely drop down a level, as i have done a few times.

And the other is XP which you gain to rank up, and i think you cannot lose? As all the games i seem to lose, my XP doesn't seem to gain, yet i do drop down a skill level.

Unless i'm majorly mistaken.

[Malc]

There's 2 variables to the levelling up process:

One which is skill level (the big number beside your rank) which you can definitely drop down a level, as i have done a few times.

And the other is XP which you gain to rank up, and i think you cannot lose? As all the games i seem to lose, my XP doesn't seem to gain, yet i do drop down a skill level.

Unless i'm majorly mistaken.

Cheers for that!

I saw there was some achievements to do with this leveling system, and I thought it would have been hard to get some of the high rank achievements if you could drop down a level.

O, and can you gain XP from custom games? (that's XP not your big rank number for each playlist.)

[jimtendo]

Only seems to gain XP from ranked unfortunately :/

[EvilBoris]

Awesome!
I just heard a Marine shout "SHAKE AND BAKE" as he got into a Warthog
Mint.

[Rossco]

Awesome!
I just heard a Marine shout "SHAKE AND BAKE" as he got into a Warthog
Mint.

Thats pretty cool!

In other news, I seen a Shake n bake t-shirt the other day!

[MJ]

I have a duplicate image in my Service Record from this morning and a screenshot I took tonight that's not appearing.

[EvilBoris]

Put the image in your file share then you can go on bungie.net and save it to your gallery

[Kotatsu Neko]

I've spent the evening playing this and so far I'm enjoying the heck out of it, but then, I enjoyed Halo 1 & 2 and this is more of the same (and nothing more).

Graphically it's a bit of a train wreck though. Scruffy non-anti-aliased rendering, a spluttering frame rate, muddy uninspiring textures, dreadful art direction, awful character modeling and animation, and lighting which is best described as mixed. (some really nice lighting in the jungle, but level 2's uniformly super bright and flat interior lighting looks abysmal)

I know the previous Halos didn't look that great either, but standards were lower back then and you just can't get away with such shoddy work now. Not post Gears, not post Bioshock. It's just not acceptable, especially for such a massive budget project.

At least the sound is fantastic though, with Marty's score as sublime as ever, and I love the goofy outbursts from the alien grunts.

Fun game though, really fun, and I think Halo still has the best battle set pieces of any FPS. No other game manages to pin you down for long periods under intense fire and have you love every minute of it. Awesome stuff.

I'm not sure it's worth the crazy high scoring reviews yet, but I haven't touched the multi player at all so far. I did have a play with the movie mode though, and it's a nice little toy. Screenshots are a bit of a pain to upload though? Took me a while to get a shot onto bungie.net, which is a problem I didn't have with Forza 2's forza.net screenshots.

[EvilBoris]

I *think* you have to access your fileshare menu first before the screenshot feature works properly.
All you have to do to make a screenshot appear on bungie.net is take it and save it, then it automatically uploads straight away.

[Freddo]

the marines say some hilarius things, like to a corpse

"i'd 'bag ya but theres people watching"

or how about a grunt

"no inappropriate touching!"

or on the death of his fellow grunt

"daaaaddddiiieeee"

[EvilBoris]

I think they've used all the clips from Halo 2 and recorded a million more.