|OFFICIAL| Halo 3 Beta Blowout


Recommended Posts

Bungie Halo 3 Beta Page: http://www.bungie.net/News/content.aspx?ty...elcometotheBeta

Videos:

Xboxyde (720p + SD): http://xboxyde.com/news_4325_en.html

Trailer (by Bungie): http://xboxyde.com/news_4317_en.html and http://www.bungie.net/News/content.aspx?ty...s&cid=12432

Footage of the new Missile Pod: http://www.gamevideos.com/video/id/11439

Kill Frenzy (Ownage basically): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8llFV3MFawI

Awesome Trip mine! http://useruploads.mythica.org/view/TripMineMoment.wmv

Several 1UP Vids: http://www.1up.com/do/previewPage?cId=3159450

Film Sharing:

http://download.gametrailers.com/gt_vault/...filmsharing.mov

http://download.gametrailers.com/gt_vault/...filmsharing.wmv

Bungie Gameplay Reel:

http://download.gametrailers.com/gt_vault/...3_bungie_gp.mov

http://download.gametrailers.com/gt_vault/...3_bungie_gp.wmv

Halo 3 - Multiplayer Developer Walkthrough Pt. 1 HD

http://download.gametrailers.com/gt_vault/...pt1_gt_h264.mov

http://download.gametrailers.com/gt_vault/...pt1_gt_h264.wmv

Halo 3 - Multiplayer Developer Walkthrough Pt. 2 HD

http://download.gametrailers.com/gt_vault/...pt2_gt_h264.mov

http://download.gametrailers.com/gt_vault/...pt2_gt_h264.wmv

Many IGN Videos: http://media.xbox360.ign.com/media/734/734817/vids_1.html

Bungie Interviews:

IGN Video Interview: http://media.xbox360.ign.com/media/734/734817/vids_1.html

Joystiq Frankie Interview: http://www.joystiq.com/2007/05/12/joystiq-...-frank-oconnor/

Images/Screens:

Images (Menu, Gameplay, Different maps): http://xboxyde.com/news_4324_en.html

TXB Spartan Models/Beta Images: http://screenshots.teamxbox.com/gallery/1353/Halo-3/p1/

High Res Press Kit of Images : http://download.microsoft.com/download/f/1...etaPressKit.zip

Other:

EGM getting killed: http://www.bungie.net/Stats/GameStatsHalo3...;player=Blaze97

Impressions:

IGN MP Beta Impressions: http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/787/787935p1.html

IGN Map Overview: http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/787/787945p1.html

IGN Weapon Overview: http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/787/787943p1.html

IGN Vehicle Overview: http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/787/787944p1.html

IGN Matchmaking Overview: http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/787/787946p1.html

Enjoy!

1178912519.jpg

1178912471.jpg

1178912778.jpg

1178912776.jpg

1178912777.jpg

1178912473.jpg

Edited by Giga
Link to comment
https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/559903-official-halo-3-beta-blowout/
Share on other sites

Whose ready for war?! :devil:

Judging from the pics, I'm guessing you can pick up the guns from dead warthogs or maybe they are just placed on the map as weapons. Ode to Lost Planet if you ask me, but exciting. Spartans have the strength to do anything :p

You can mount the turrets and then pick them up :yes:

The Gamespot video is sweet :woot:

Another thing to notice: a new medal when you kill someone (desperation grenade) after you die.

You killed blahblah from the grave.

:D

Impressions from someone at neogaf:

ok, after a few hours, i need a break and to pot impressions (and hopefully a small vid or two of cool things)

i'm not really going to talk about the obvious or likely covered stuff, but bare in mind, i havent read this thread in quite some time (dont know whats already been posted). this is stuff that i found absolutely awesome, and maybe some gameplay scenarios i've been apart of that really capture that halo feel.

first, the sound. oh my god the sound. bungie has always been good in this regard, but this is so far above and beyond other games. stinkles has mentioned the echo effects of gunshots off in the distance. he likened them to watching your favorite war movie ala saving private ryan. he is absolutely telling the truth. holy crap is it awesome hearing fierce battles in the distance. each gun has its own distinct sound as well, the chain gun (more on that in a bit) especially sounds fearsome. all the gun shots sound meatier, the ambient sounds continue to impress, but really, you have no idea how great the distant sounds are, vehicle engine noises included. oh, and a really nice touch (bungie is known for their attention to details) is when you die in water, and the camera shifts under the surface to watch your dead body, all sounds are muffled realistically as the water distorts all the effects. <hinting at an attention to deeper water or underwater fighting? dunno>

quick word about the graphics, they are amazing. the hdr is completely realistic, grass is beautiful and plentiful, and once again, bungie doesnt hesitate to have loads of intricate detail strewn about, including leaves falling from trees on high ground.

other stuff. fully charged plasma shots now stop vehicles dead in their tracks! the stationary chaingun is removable, you're slow as hell with it, unable to change weapons or toss nades till you drop it, but you're also a walking tank and wave of destruction with it. it and the hand held missle launcher (not the rocket launcher mind you) are way cool and both do have limited ammo. the noob combo is still present, however, the charged plasma barely seems to track at all, but does have a more rapid trajectory. the mongoose is an absolute blast to drive, and with a gunner on the back, extremely usefull.

now, onto the fun stuff, gameplay recaps. first, i'm crazy pleased (and halo 1 fans will be too) that vehicle physics in regards are much closer to the first game then halo 2. no longer will it be nigh impossible to lift a warthog off the ground with a well timed grenade. i found this out when one was chasing me and drove right where i anticipated and tossed a grenade, sending the warthog literally doing barrel rolls over my head. the driver and his passengers were ejected and the combined might of the three of them still finished me off sadly :(

another warthog related story for you. by the way, the best stories involve warthogs, and maybe even more so, mongeese (plural?). i was gunner and my buddy and i were chasing a fully loaded mongoose on valhala. they had just taken cover behind on of the bases when i instructed the driver to hold position up front so we could nail them head on as they came around again. then i saw them driving ontop of the base... and onto the man canon. the obvious "pull" moment occured, but this time i was directly underneath them as they flew over my head blasting them with the hogs gun for an easy double kill.

and one more (and again, hopefully a quick yotube vid of this, i saved this match). i was alone on foot when out of nowhere a mongoose ripped by me and nearly flattened me like roadkill. i spun on him, fired some shots, but i was in trouble. he came again and just missed me, but as he passed i got off a melee attack and puched the sob dead right off his vehicle

any questions?

Noob combo is still in place, but greatly more balanced. Charged pistol tracking seems to be gone. Big/regular rocket launcher tracking seems to be gone but the missile pod (new big weapon) homes but it's also slower and takes multiple shots to take down a vehicle.

Speaking of Halo 3, Pepsi is going to be doing a Halo 3 promotion with a new flavor of Mountain Dew. All I can say is it is amazingly good. My dad works for Pepsi, so while we don't get free soda, we do get a lot of promotional items and testers for new drinks :)

Some of you probably already know about the new flavor, but I just wanted to let everybody know how good it is. I mean seriously, it's one of my favorite sodas ever, but unfortunately it won't be out for too long :(

This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
  • Posts

    • GitHub removes manual model selection from Copilot free and student plans by Karthik Mudaliar GitHub is removing the ability to manually select an AI model from its Copilot Free and Student plans, making its automatic routing system the default and only way to choose a model. This means users on these tiers will no longer be able to deliberately select a particular OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, or Microsoft model for a task. In its announcement, GitHub said Copilot Auto will dynamically choose what it considers the best model for each request. Free and Student accounts will retain access to models from multiple families, although the available selection will continue to depend on the restrictions attached to each plan. GitHub did not identify a fixed pool of models that Auto will always use, and its documentation warns that model availability can change over time. GitHub describes Auto as more than a random fallback system. On supported surfaces, its task-optimization technology evaluates the complexity of a request alongside real-time information about model health and availability. Straightforward prompts can be routed to faster and less expensive models, while more demanding coding tasks may be sent to higher-cost reasoning models. The company says this approach should reduce rate limiting, latency, and failed requests. Auto generally selects one model along natural prompt-caching boundaries rather than repeatedly switching models during a session, as GitHub found that mid-session changes increased costs without producing sufficient improvements in output quality. Users can still check which model generated a response. In Copilot Chat, the information appears when hovering over an answer, while Copilot CLI and the Copilot cloud agent display the selected model alongside their output. Auto is available in Copilot Chat, Copilot CLI, and the cloud agent, with the exact implementation and release status varying between supported development environments. The latest restriction follows several months of adjustments to Copilot’s individual plans. GitHub temporarily halted new Pro, Pro+, and Student subscriptions in April as it sought to manage demand and service reliability. It later introduced token-based billing and began gradually reopening individual-plan registrations on June 17. Alongside the picker change, GitHub is retiring the “Preview” label from Microsoft-developed models. It argues that the label is no longer necessary because Auto handles model routing and models are continuously updated behind the scenes.
    • Look up 'inflation' kid. Ask an AI for the numbers between both games.
    • Google reportedly set to lose two key Gemini and DeepMind researchers to Anthropic by Karthik Mudaliar Google is reportedly preparing to lose two more prominent artificial intelligence researchers, with Gemini contributors Jonas Adler and Alexander Pritzel planning to join rival AI developer Anthropic. According to a report from Bloomberg, both researchers are viewed internally as important contributors to Google’s flagship Gemini model family. Adler worked on Google’s AI coding efforts, while Pritzel was involved in the process used to train AI systems. Neither company has publicly confirmed the moves. The report also does not say when the researchers will formally leave Google or what positions they will hold at Anthropic. Training a large AI model requires decisions covering its architecture, data preparation, distributed computing infrastructure, and post-training methods that shape how the finished system behaves. Researchers with experience operating at the scale of Gemini are consequently difficult to replace quickly. Both Adler and Pritzel have previously contributed to Google DeepMind’s scientific research as well. They are listed among the authors of the company’s work on expanding AlphaFold protein-structure predictions across entire proteomes, alongside AlphaFold researchers including John Jumper. The reported departures arrive shortly after another important change within Google’s Gemini organization. Gemini co-lead Noam Shazeer is leaving Google for OpenAI, after returning to the search company in 2024 through its deal with Character.AI. Shazeer is particularly well known as one of the authors of the Transformer paper, whose architecture became the foundation for most modern large language models. Anthropic, meanwhile, has been recruiting recognizable figures from other leading laboratories. OpenAI co-founder and former Tesla AI director Andrej Karpathy joined Anthropic’s pre-training team in May. His move, followed by the reported recruitment of several Google researchers, suggests Anthropic is strengthening the research teams responsible for the core capabilities of future Claude models rather than concentrating solely on product and enterprise sales. The competition is complicated by the companies’ extensive commercial relationships. Anthropic competes directly with Google’s Gemini models, but it also relies on Google as an infrastructure partner. In April, Anthropic announced an expanded agreement with Google and Broadcom covering multiple gigawatts of next-generation Tensor Processing Unit capacity. TPUs are Google-designed accelerators used to train and run large AI models. via Bloomberg
    • This article makes my head hurt. Lots of confusing words
    • Google adds built-in computer control to Gemini 3.5 flash by Karthik Mudaliar Google has added Computer Use as a built-in tool in Gemini 3.5 Flash, giving developers a single model that can reason about a task and operate graphical interfaces across browsers, mobile devices, and desktop environments. The feature is available through the Gemini API and Google’s Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform, although it remains a preview feature for now. Computer Use enables an AI agent to examine screenshots and return actions such as mouse clicks, scrolling, and keyboard input. A developer’s application must execute those actions, capture the resulting screen, and send it back to Gemini, creating a continuous loop until the task is completed. Google says the integration can be used for activities including repetitive form filling, application testing, research across multiple websites, and longer enterprise workflows. Gemini 3.5 Flash can work with browser, mobile, and desktop environments, whereas Google’s earlier standalone Computer Use model was primarily positioned around browser interaction. The main change is consolidation. Computer control was previously offered through the separate Gemini 2.5 Computer Use preview model. As Neowin reported when that model was introduced, it was designed to interpret a visual interface and generate actions without requiring a website-specific API. Google later brought Computer Use to preview versions of Gemini 3 Pro and Gemini 3 Flash in January 2026. The latest release now incorporates the tool into the stable Gemini 3.5 Flash model rather than requiring developers to select a specialized model solely for interface automation. Gemini 3.5 Flash itself was announced in May as Google’s latest fast model for coding and multi-step agent workflows. It supports a one-million-token input context window and up to 65,000 output tokens, along with adjustable thinking levels that let developers trade additional reasoning for lower latency and cost. Google also added that Gemini 3.5 Flash received targeted adversarial training for computer-use scenarios. The company is also offering safeguards that can require user confirmation before sensitive or irreversible actions and automatically stop a workflow when suspected prompt injection is detected. Its developer documentation describes configurable protections for areas such as financial transactions and changes to sensitive records. Google isn't the first to bring Computer Use to its platform. Anthropic has made computer control available through Claude, while OpenAI has continued improving computer-use performance in its recent models. Microsoft has also applied the concept to business workflows, including a Computer Use capability for the Researcher agent in Microsoft 365 Copilot.
  • Recent Achievements

    • Dedicated
      Scoobystu earned a badge
      Dedicated
    • First Post
      Tom Schmidt earned a badge
      First Post
    • One Month Later
      D0nn13 earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • Rookie
      +ChiefOfNeo went up a rank
      Rookie
    • One Year In
      Tom Schmidt earned a badge
      One Year In
  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      463
    2. 2
      +Edouard
      177
    3. 3
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      124
    4. 4
      Michael Scrip
      79
    5. 5
      Xenon
      76
  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!