I agree with all this.
MS treats their own ips like shit and doesn't really get marketing anymore. And the whole mcc fiasco was the last chance they had to maintain their classic crowd.
I mean they had a running mcc pc port but scrapped it.
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
HALO 3 is now 10 years old
- Thread starter Cranster
- Start date
MS treats their own ips like shit and doesn't really get marketing anymore. And the whole mcc fiasco was the last chance they had to maintain their classic crowd.
I mean they had a running mcc pc port but scrapped it.
Yes, this was awesome. My friends list would just be filled with randoms that either I added or they added me and you would just have this spider web of connections into the craziest custom games maps and modes. It was endless fun and unlike anything ive ever experienced from a community even to this day. Its unmatched.
therealminime
Member
I have friends that Ive talked to every day for almost a decade thanks to this game. There was a magic to it that Ive not felt since.
Brerlappin
Member
For real? whaere did you hear this? God, i would kill for a PC port of MCC just for the campaigns
Playing the BC release of Halo 3 was super interesting. In a lot of ways, it holds up as beautifully as Halo 1 did on its ten year anniversary. I wouldn't have necessarily expected that. There were only maybe 2000 people online when I checked matchmaking, but it was cool seeing people still doing the rounds. The campaign still holds up pretty well, especially for co-op.
The additional story segments to Halo 2 in the Master Chief Collection rekindled a lot of what I love about these games, and reminded be that there was worthwhile writing in the games, not just around them. I'm among those who though 4 was solid (and I appreciated the shift in storytelling), and actively enjoyed 5 (even though I thought the squad mechanic was junk in single-player). I hope for the best when they formally announce H6.
The additional story segments to Halo 2 in the Master Chief Collection rekindled a lot of what I love about these games, and reminded be that there was worthwhile writing in the games, not just around them. I'm among those who though 4 was solid (and I appreciated the shift in storytelling), and actively enjoyed 5 (even though I thought the squad mechanic was junk in single-player). I hope for the best when they formally announce H6.
Mass Effect
Member
I believe Jeff Gerstmann noticed that it was running on PC when he played it at E3 back in 2014. He said there was a mouse on the screen at one point and keyboard prompts as well.
Plus wasn't it in the Steam database at one point? It was either that or the individual games (Halo 1/2/3).
xDUMPWEEDx
Banned
Halo: CE > Halo 3 >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Every other Halo.
biosnake20
Member
Still can't believe they didn't remake it. Missed opportunity.
ebullientprism
Member
This was THE game.
For a year or so after release, no one on my friends list had to even mention the name. "You up for a game" had an implied "of Halo 3" at the end.
Personally, it was also the peak of the Xbox brand, the Halo franchise and Bungie. All three lost me as a fan somewhere along the way afterwards. The Xbox when they started moving focus away from games to Kinect and other uses of the console. Halo when 343 just took it out back and shot it. And Bungie between Halo Reach and Destiny.
For a year or so after release, no one on my friends list had to even mention the name. "You up for a game" had an implied "of Halo 3" at the end.
Personally, it was also the peak of the Xbox brand, the Halo franchise and Bungie. All three lost me as a fan somewhere along the way afterwards. The Xbox when they started moving focus away from games to Kinect and other uses of the console. Halo when 343 just took it out back and shot it. And Bungie between Halo Reach and Destiny.
WadiumArcadium
Member
It's the game that got me into Halo and it's still my favourite now. Hell of a game.
LordBaztion
Member
Such a wonderful game. I remeber that some months after I got my first 360 , my parents wen't to travel and gave me and my brother 150 for the week. We went to the store bought Halo 3 a second controller and finished the game that weekend on saturday at 5 am after a whole night of playing
I loved this game so much, Microsoft's handling of this franchise is an utter disgrace.
Imo this is still the best looking and most technically impressive Halo game when you factor in the art style, variety, and number of actions on screen. What a wonderful soundtrack and presentation too.
Imo this is still the best looking and most technically impressive Halo game when you factor in the art style, variety, and number of actions on screen. What a wonderful soundtrack and presentation too.
Laws00
Member
I bought the game on whim because of hype. I went to midnight release with my friends. Played the game thought it was cool.
The next day I played multiplayer..........WOW that shit was something else
That was my first experience with online mulitplayer. Amazing experience. I remember playing this game for hours. When the game was first hot I remember being online at some odd hour and seeing player population just drop and rise as the hours went on through the day. AMAZING
The next day I played multiplayer..........WOW that shit was something else
That was my first experience with online mulitplayer. Amazing experience. I remember playing this game for hours. When the game was first hot I remember being online at some odd hour and seeing player population just drop and rise as the hours went on through the day. AMAZING
What's equally amazing is how far the community building aspects have regressed since Bungie made halo games.
Fast forward to today- you can't even "party up" with people you meet in a match and you can't talk to people in the lobby. There's a million hoops to jump through to form these connections.
In trends of gameplay and UX/UI, it Baffles me that so much effort was placed into changing halo compared to the effort to preserve the things that made it stand out.
Confused Cheeseburger
Member
Played so much of this game in high school.
So many great custom games.
Honestly, makes me long for another time.
Best in the series.
So many great custom games.
Honestly, makes me long for another time.
Best in the series.
Multiplayer was great, but I ran into the Halo backtrack fatigue in this game more than any. I think I still have mental scarring over playing through Cortana on Legendary. That, to this day, still remains the worst designed level I've ever seen in a AAA game. Truly terrible.
But man, the series has been on a slow slide ever since. 343 just doesn't have the right vision for Halo.
But man, the series has been on a slow slide ever since. 343 just doesn't have the right vision for Halo.
Not my favorite Halo (It's Halo CE btw), but Halo 3 had a different aura, it's the biggest game ever and I don't think of any game that could replicate what Halo 3 did, this game also consolidated Halo as my favorite gaming series.
Shit, time to play all the games again for the 1000000 time.
Shit, time to play all the games again for the 1000000 time.
The game (and the journey to it) were so much fun. Starting with Steve Ballmer claiming Bungie was working on Halo 2 and 3 at the same (which was a shock to Bungie, because they weren't) all the way up to picking up a copy at midnight from Walmart (with a friend who I'd given strict instructions not to let me get the Legendary Edition).
I watched Microsoft's 2006 E3 briefing and lost my mind when they ended it with the Halo 3 trailer. I remember Bungie employees showing up on Xbox Live playing "Pimps at Sea" and taking an alpha build of the game to soldiers in Afganistan. I remember Monday Night Football in December to catch the first commercial, then immediately hopping onto Bungie.net to enter to win a code for the upcoming beta. I was lucky enough to win, which meant I didn't need Crackdown to get into the beta. Which also meant that I bypassed the problems that kept anyone with Crackdown from playing that first day. I had stayed up the night before until I got the code so I could download the game while I slept. I played so much of the beta. I went 25-0 in a VIP match, a reason, I'm guessing, that the final game gave the VIP a single overshield, instead of the double he or she got in the beta. I remember the numerous leaked videos. The guy who Couldn't pronounce Epitaph ("Epitiah"). The one revealing the remake of Zanzibar that was set to techno music. The Epsilon build. Frankie took a build of the game to Gamescom and showed off Tsavo Highway to the press. But they couldn't film the screen, so one outlet filmed him playing it.
I played all day that September 25th, college classes be damned. The aforementioned friend and I beat the campaign that night with the rest of our housemates looking on. I'll never forget the first time my friend picked up a Gravity Hammer and went to town on the Brutes in Crow's Nest with it. Or when two Scarabs dropped from the heavens on The Covenant. Or heading into a Team Slayer match with another buddy and somehow getting a Perfection medal. And that was just the first day!
The coming months and years would be filled with more memories. Getting to know the guys from the awesome Ascendant Justice website (before a couple actually joined 343 to work on the games). Them schlepping me up to 45 in Team Slayer. An opposing team thinking we were Bungie employees because so many of the AJ guys had Recon armor. Then promising to give them Recon if they beat us. Then clowning on them something fierce. The weekly GAF custom games. Being in the GAF custom game when a GAFfer was proposed to. Going into the Community Cartographers playlist with a bunch of GAFers and playing a map one of them had made. Winning that game 50-3. Going through the campaign with 3 friends on Legendary and discovering that Cortana morphs from the worst mission in the game to one of the most fun (especially if you try to sabotage each other on the way out of the level).
Happy birthday, Halo 3! You are a feature packed delight and my favorite game of all time. Tonight, I will play through The Covenant for the umpteenth time in your honor.
I watched Microsoft's 2006 E3 briefing and lost my mind when they ended it with the Halo 3 trailer. I remember Bungie employees showing up on Xbox Live playing "Pimps at Sea" and taking an alpha build of the game to soldiers in Afganistan. I remember Monday Night Football in December to catch the first commercial, then immediately hopping onto Bungie.net to enter to win a code for the upcoming beta. I was lucky enough to win, which meant I didn't need Crackdown to get into the beta. Which also meant that I bypassed the problems that kept anyone with Crackdown from playing that first day. I had stayed up the night before until I got the code so I could download the game while I slept. I played so much of the beta. I went 25-0 in a VIP match, a reason, I'm guessing, that the final game gave the VIP a single overshield, instead of the double he or she got in the beta. I remember the numerous leaked videos. The guy who Couldn't pronounce Epitaph ("Epitiah"). The one revealing the remake of Zanzibar that was set to techno music. The Epsilon build. Frankie took a build of the game to Gamescom and showed off Tsavo Highway to the press. But they couldn't film the screen, so one outlet filmed him playing it.
I played all day that September 25th, college classes be damned. The aforementioned friend and I beat the campaign that night with the rest of our housemates looking on. I'll never forget the first time my friend picked up a Gravity Hammer and went to town on the Brutes in Crow's Nest with it. Or when two Scarabs dropped from the heavens on The Covenant. Or heading into a Team Slayer match with another buddy and somehow getting a Perfection medal. And that was just the first day!
The coming months and years would be filled with more memories. Getting to know the guys from the awesome Ascendant Justice website (before a couple actually joined 343 to work on the games). Them schlepping me up to 45 in Team Slayer. An opposing team thinking we were Bungie employees because so many of the AJ guys had Recon armor. Then promising to give them Recon if they beat us. Then clowning on them something fierce. The weekly GAF custom games. Being in the GAF custom game when a GAFfer was proposed to. Going into the Community Cartographers playlist with a bunch of GAFers and playing a map one of them had made. Winning that game 50-3. Going through the campaign with 3 friends on Legendary and discovering that Cortana morphs from the worst mission in the game to one of the most fun (especially if you try to sabotage each other on the way out of the level).
Happy birthday, Halo 3! You are a feature packed delight and my favorite game of all time. Tonight, I will play through The Covenant for the umpteenth time in your honor.
snowsabre93
Member
Man, I can still feel the hype surrounding the first trailer dropping like it was yesterday.... Holy shit, time flies. I remember the hype for this game being crazier than any I remember, with some news outlets even showing the midnight release coverage. I was always a PlayStation kid growing up, by my best friend who loved across the street always had halo. I cant count the number of hours we sunk into this game and sleepless nights we had because of it. Halo 2 and 3 mp in its prime is something that may be never matched for me again, just pure joy!
ShiftaDeband
Member
This was probably one of the most memorable Halo games for me. I'll never forget playing with friends, custom games, how bad I was at multiplayer... but dang, Grifball was fun.
The campaign and story were something I'd never experienced before. Marty O'Donnell is a genius. The art style in this game was perfect. Thank goodness for cooperative play, which was always a blast with friends.
I think that if it wasn't for Halo (and, admittedly, Phantasy Star Universe) I'm not sure I would have had an Xbox.
The campaign and story were something I'd never experienced before. Marty O'Donnell is a genius. The art style in this game was perfect. Thank goodness for cooperative play, which was always a blast with friends.
I think that if it wasn't for Halo (and, admittedly, Phantasy Star Universe) I'm not sure I would have had an Xbox.
You need a bnet account?
Still my favorite multiplayer experience ever: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDgUU7PiMnI
sotojuan
Member
Wow this takes me back! Good times back then.
Trogdor1123
Gold Member
Holy crap... Do I feel old. It feels like yesterday.
Brerlappin
Member
GoingToDelete
Member
Fuck, thoses 10 years have gone fast.
Blue Ninja
Member
One of my favorite games ever. It's a shame the MCC fiasco killed any chance of it getting a remaster. Would've loved to have replayed it with modern graphics.
After being stuck with a PS3 for the better part of a decade, I picked up a cheap 360 less than a month ago and I'm kind of amazed by these games all over again. I've been plowing through Halo and Gears.
Solid 30fps, 4-player split-screen co-op, gigantic environments, HDR, tons of enemies and the lighting effects from their lasers, and tons of collision/physics interaction. Slap on a map editor and robust replay mode. You never saw this shit on PS3 -- at least not all at once, nor with as much depth. And I remember this game getting shit on for being -- I think -- 540p? It's astounding what we would purport and argue about in terms of "graphics" back in 2007.
Hell, you don't even see this degree of synergy in graphics and features in so many modern shooters.
Oh man, thank you!
Solid 30fps, 4-player split-screen co-op, gigantic environments, HDR, tons of enemies and the lighting effects from their lasers, and tons of collision/physics interaction. Slap on a map editor and robust replay mode. You never saw this shit on PS3 -- at least not all at once, nor with as much depth. And I remember this game getting shit on for being -- I think -- 540p? It's astounding what we would purport and argue about in terms of "graphics" back in 2007.
Hell, you don't even see this degree of synergy in graphics and features in so many modern shooters.
Oh man, thank you!
dancrane212
Member
That was leftover code from Halo 2 Vista (where H2A came from).
With the controller plugged in.
When I pressed a button on the controller.
SlipperyMoose
Member
Does anyone remember how in sandtrap that if you look between certain spaces of the map you would see what the other player was viewing?
Here is a video demoing it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKAVaJ3kXJc
Here is a video demoing it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKAVaJ3kXJc
MCC being a dumpster fire at launch and still having issues to this day is an absolute travesty for the franchise and Xbox in general.
Ah so Bungie was working on a spectator mode for h3.
This thread bums me out so much seeing the current state of the franchise. Halo 5 isn't a bad game, but it's definitely not the phenomenon that Halos 1-3 (and even Reach and ODST) felt like. I remember prior to Halo 4 coming and feeling the hype for this super team coming together to build Halo 4 with what felt like an unlimited budget, and then being let down realizing what the game actually was.
I'm not ruling out that 343 can turn it around, but damn they've got a long way to go.
I'm not ruling out that 343 can turn it around, but damn they've got a long way to go.
343 just put up a post about Halo 3 and included memories from the team. I geeked out a little bit seeing one of the former Ascendant Justice guys elaborate on said "clowning:"
JEREMY PATENAUDE said:
343 just announced their Halo 3 Anniversary playlist, which consists of changes to settings and some really close H3 mpas made in Halo 5's forge.
-Motion Tracker range is increased to 25m
-All Spartan Abilities are disabled (Sprint, Ground Pound, Spartan Charge, Stabilize, and Clamber)
-Player jump height is increased
-Slightly increased the effect of gravity on players
-Player movement speed decreased
-Increased player forward and strafe acceleration
-Adjusted shield and health recharge rate to approximate Halo 3 values
-Classic Team Oddball: Reduced ball carrier movement speed
-Classic Multi-Flag CTF: Reduced flag carrier movement speed
https://www.halowaypoint.com/en-us/news/happy-birthday-halo-3
-Motion Tracker range is increased to 25m
-All Spartan Abilities are disabled (Sprint, Ground Pound, Spartan Charge, Stabilize, and Clamber)
-Player jump height is increased
-Slightly increased the effect of gravity on players
-Player movement speed decreased
-Increased player forward and strafe acceleration
-Adjusted shield and health recharge rate to approximate Halo 3 values
-Classic Team Oddball: Reduced ball carrier movement speed
-Classic Multi-Flag CTF: Reduced flag carrier movement speed
https://www.halowaypoint.com/en-us/news/happy-birthday-halo-3
Looks like the "hall of mirrors" glitch. Untextured areas can show stuff others see, but only local stuff!
Yet relevant enough for you to keep shitposting.
dancrane212
Member
Finally getting a playlist update for Halo 3?
Easily one of my favorite games ever. It got me into Halo and competetive MP shooters in general.
It was a wonderous feature packed game, and community contributions made it better, I spent hours on custom games alone. Halo games always age well I think, but 3 aged the best.
I still enjoy Halo a lot, but I don't think another entry will ever top 3 as an overall package. IMO it is still Bungie's masterpiece.
It was a wonderous feature packed game, and community contributions made it better, I spent hours on custom games alone. Halo games always age well I think, but 3 aged the best.
I still enjoy Halo a lot, but I don't think another entry will ever top 3 as an overall package. IMO it is still Bungie's masterpiece.