The gameplay of Halo 3 largely builds off of the previous successful renditions of the franchise. It is a first-person shooter that, once again, follows the character Master Chief and his struggle against the Covenant and the Flood. The game's action takes place largely on foot, but there are vehicles available for the player to use at certain points in the game. As with the other Halo titles, the multiplayer portion of the game is one of the game's most celebrated features, and is the primary reason for the series' enormous success.
The balance of weapons and objects in the game has been adjusted to better adhere to what Multiplayer Designer Lars Bakken describes as the "Golden Three Things of Halo". These are weapons, grenades, and melee attacks; all three of which are simultaneously available to a player at all times while on foot (unless they are dual wielding).
The idea of "balance" (at least in multiplayer) is that each specific weapon or piece of equipment has specific areas where it is most useful, and others where it falls far short. No matter what combination of weapons a player chooses (players are famously limited only two choices of weapons in Halo), there will be situations in which they have an advantage, and others in which they have a disadvantage. The result is that there is no one weapon/vehicle that is overwhelmingly the best overall choice for whatever type of situation they may encounter (unlike the M6D pistol in the original Halo).
The new default controller layout will see the Right Bumper become the "action" button (pick up, reload, board vehicles, activate switches, etc), with the X button being used for deployment of equipment: the portable grav lift, the Bubble Shield, the trip mine, the radar jammer and the power drainer. When dual-wielding, weapons can be individually reloaded using either the left or right bumper.
Other buttons are unchanged, but B (melee attack) also will be used to take a stationary gun turret off its tripod for mobile use, becoming one of the game's "support weapons", as well as other context sensitive functions.
As with previous games however, players can still choose to change the default control layout in their game profile to a number of pre-sets
Campaign
Only a very limited portion of the Campaign mode has been shown thus far. At E3 2006, in "Et Tu, Brute?" and again at E3 2007. There are several distinct types of environments that players will have to traverse in Halo 3; lush jungles, built up towns and sparse desert environments have all been seen.
AI behavior of both enemies and allies in the campaign will be greatly enhanced in Halo 3. Marines' driving and gunning skills on the Warthog, Grunt flanking maneuvers in battle, and Brute "pack mentality" have all been mentioned by Bungie as examples of using the power of the Xbox 360 for more than making the game look better. Enemy AI will also have new non-combat behaviors, rather than just sitting around waiting for players to kill them, to make them feel more "alive" and realistic
Meta-game
Halo 3 features a "campaign meta-game" in which a player is awarded a score for completing a level in the single-player campaign. No other information is available save for a reference to the Achievements associated with them.[9] It implies, as with the previous Halo games, that campaign levels can be replayed freely, and that single-player Xbox Live Leaderboards will be associated with the "meta-game". It has also been said that not only can players attain awards such as medals in campaign, but even more armor permutations.“ The latest batch of images also lift the veil on a pair of Armor Permutations in Halo 3. These multiplayer-only, cosmetic changes to your armor are a way to add diversity, spice and flavor to Halo 3's multiplayer shenanigans. The C.Q.B. (Close Quarters Battle) and E.V.A. (Extra Vehicular Activity) variants of Spartans are two of the numerous permutations players will be able to unlock in Halo 3.
Co-operative play
Halo 3 will feature four player online cooperative gameplay over Xbox Live, a first for the series. Split-screen co-op is still limited to two players per console, though they can join another two players via System Link or Xbox Live.
For plot reasons, instead of having each player be a Spartan like in previous Halo games, player one will play as Master Chief, the second player will be the Arbiter and the other two players take the role of newly created Elites (N’tho ‘Sraom and Usze ‘Taham) each with their own backstories. Each player has identical abilities although the weapon starts will be different depending on whether the player is Master Chief or an Elite.
Multiplayer
Like most multiplayer Xbox 360 titles, Halo 3 will use a customized version of TrueSkill ranking system for its online matchmaking facilities. Halo 3's matchmaking system will be based on two different ranks, skill and experience (Rating Points or RP). Skill will simply be the TrueSkill rank of the player in a given playlist, and experience (RP) is a linear measure of experience (1 point for each win in the online playlists). Overlaid by a Military rank; so, a player with a designation of a "General" will have played for a longer time than someone who is a "recruit". This is in order to make the system more fair and to reflect the effect of experience on players' profiles. The RP system also has a mechanism built in to dissuade players from excessive quitting from matches, which became a problem for some players in Halo 2. When players quit from a match before it has finished, they will lose 2 RP. So players that regularly quit games, leaving their teammates stranded, may eventually end up having negative RP.
UNSC Service Tags (consisting of one letter followed by two numbers) will be used instead of small HUD emblems to identify allies in games. In addition to the customization of Service Tags, players can now choose three different colors (as opposed to two in Halo 2) for their armor in multiplayer (primary, secondary and detail), as well as three for their multiplayer emblem.
Spartan armor in multiplayer is now customizable in physical appearance as well as color. In addition to the standard Mjolnir-armor look, players can choose to swap out helmet, arm and body sections indipendently to the new armour variants; CQB (Close Quarters Battle), EVA (Extra Vehicular Activity) and other, unannounced variants. Bungie has not confirmed whether or not the player can be an Elite, but in the June 08, 2007 Bungie Weekly Update it was said,
"Well, it would be kind of weird for us to add so much customization for appearance and forget about one of the major MP characters, wouldn’t it? We’ll have more news about the existence or otherwise of an Elite model fairly soon."
In late 2006, due to a "significant chunk" of Halo 2 players being female, Bungie was considering to have a female voice for the Spartan character in multiplayer as an additional option.
The UI (user interface) has been redesigned the from Halo 2, making it easier to generate a custom game in Halo 3 multiplayer. Which can now be saved and shared online with the File Sharing Features.
Players will now be able to "advertise" their custom games via Xbox Live Public; making it easier to find a multiplayer match to a player's taste without having to link up with friends. During an E3 2007 demo of Halo3 the people from 1UP noticed a forge option in the main menu. Forge was the name of the Map editor in Marathon and many people believe it to be the secret feature mentioned in the 07/23/07 bungie podcast.
A new feature dubbed the "A-hole button" can be used to mute annoying players in the game quickly and easily from the in-game scoreboard view.
People sifting through the code, as well as those who glitched their way into the Custom Game UI, of the Halo 3 Beta have found that the strength of gravity is indeed a customizable option in multiplayer games, confirming statements made by Bungie employees.
Weapons
Halo 3 introduces a new-to-the-series class called "support weapons". These are a group of exceptionally large, powerful and cumbersome two-handed weapons that, when carried, change the view to a third-person perspective and cause the player to move more slowly. The only two weapons in this class that have been revealed thus far are the Machine Gun Turret and the Missile Pod, both of which were available in the public beta.
The now-iconic Assault Rifle which appeared in the original Halo as the MA5B but was absent from Halo 2 is returning for Halo 3 retooled into the MA5C. Developer Bungie hopes it will fill the role as the "ultimate spawn weapon", allowing players to hold their own in a fight straight away (unlike the SMG in Halo 2) but not be so powerful as to overshadow all of the other weapons (like the M6D in Halo). In hopes of fulfilling this, it has a smaller magazine and slower rate of fire than its previous iteration but a longer range and greater accuracy.
There are more new weapons, most in order to expand the "Brute Sandbox." The Brute Spiker, a sub machine-gun like weapon with a vicious double blade on the front, and the Spike Grenade, able to stick to any surface and release a controlled explosion of deadly spikes.There is also the Spartan Laser that can be used to instantly destroy players and vehicles with one hit, but has a low battery and requires a three second charge.
When a player is carrying a second weapon in Halo 3, the secondary weapon will be stored on the character's back (for larger, two-handed weapons) or on a leg holster (for smaller, one-handed weapons). This makes it impossible to "hide" a powerful secondary weapon and surprise unsuspecting foes.
Vehicles
Halo 3, like its predecessors, will also feature a strong vehicular component. Vehicles, and their countermeasures (rockets, mines, etc.), are tightly integrated with Halo gameplay. Many of the series' vehicles are returning in the third installment. Vehicles cover a wide range of types, including light reconnaissance vehicles, large, heavily armoured tanks, troop and vehicle transport craft, plus various atmospheric and spacecraft, though not all are usable by the player.
The Mongoose ATV that had been originally designed for Halo 2 but was cut out, finally makes an appearance in Halo 3. Within the games' story, it is a human vehicle in addition to the Scorpion tank and Warthog offroad vehicle. It is a small quad-bike vehicle and, like the Warthog, the driver is unable to fire any on-board weapons, and as such is nearly defenseless. A second player can ride on the back of the vehicle, however, to provide some offensive capability. There will also be a new variant of Warthog, with a rear compartment that can carry more troops instead of a gun. It can be seen briefly in the E3 2007 video.
There is also an entirely new Brute vehicle, dubbed the "Brute Chopper". Unlike other vehicles attributed to The Covenant in the game, that entirely hover or fly above the ground, it has a single large and heavy wheel on the front with a hovering driver seat behind. It has been referred to as a "vehicle smasher," able to destroy other vehicles with a single hit. Insofar it has only been seen in the E3 2007 Trailer.
The Banshee and Wraith have been altered in terms of gameplay. The Banshee now has the ability to fire its Fuel Rod Gun in multiplayer matches, an ability which was formerly restricted to Campaign and the multiplayer component of the PC version of Halo: Combat Evolved, but can no longer point directly down. The Wraith is now a two-man vehicle. One player drives the vehicles and fires the main cannon, while the other player fires the smaller plasma turret. The plasma turret was formerly exclusive to AI in the Halo 2 campaign.
The game will not begin right where Halo 2 left off. The new comic mini-series, Halo: Uprising, will bridge the story gap between the ending of Halo 2, and the beginning of Halo 3.[21]
When the game begins, Master Chief is back on a thoroughly conquered, Covenant-controlled Earth, and Cortana is still a prisoner of Gravemind. Covenant ships are hovering over an excavation site a few miles from the ruins of New Mombasa and have uncovered a large artifact in this site. The Arbiter, along with the remaining Elites and some portion of the Grunts, have allied themselves with the human forces after splitting from the rest of the Covenant in Halo 2.
The achievements show the story mode will be divided into nine main levels, which gives some information about the game's length and an indistinct view of the story arc. It also shows skulls, which can be found it levels after completing the game on normal difficulty or higher.
There will be three different versions of Halo 3 for retail sale: the Standard Edition, which contains the game disc and a manual; the Collector's Edition, which contains the game disc, manual, interactive Xbox 360 bonus disc with several featurettes, and Beastarum, which is a "hard cover, bound collection of information and art covering the species, cultures and civilizations of Halo 3." according to Bungie; the Legendary Edition, which contains the game disc, manual, interactive bonus disc, Beastarum, Legendary DVD containing special content exclusive to the Legendary Edition, and a scale replica of the Master Chief's Helmet as a case for the three discs.Version Standard Collector's Legendary
Price (USD) $59.99 $69.99 $129.99
Game Disc &Manual YES YES YES
INTERACTIVE XBOX360 DISC NO YES YES
Beastarum NO YES YES
Legendary DVD NO NO YES
MasterChiefHelmetReplica NO NO YES
