New Features in Halo 3

The highly anticipated title Halo 3 will be debuting on the Xbox 360 on Tuesday, September 25th. And So far it seems as though gamers who are anxious to get there hands on this 3^rd Halo title will not be disappointed. Halo 3 offers several new elements of game play to keep fans of the series entirely satisfied.

More Balance

First thing is that the balance of weapons and objects have been adjusted to better fit the "Golden Three things of Halo" as multiplayer designer Lars Baken describes it. These three golden things are "weapons, grenades, and melee" All of these will be available to the player at one time with the exception of when holding duel weapons or one of the new class of "support weapons" (more on those later). There is also a new default control layout. The right bumper is the action button, X - deploys equipment. And duel weapons can be loaded simultaneously using the left and right bumpers. Also the Melee attack button (B) will also be used to take a stationary gun turret of its stand and walk around with it, becoming a "support weapon".

User created Frags

One of the more interesting new elements in Halo 3 is the user created frags. Players will not only be able to capture, edit, and save your most impressive kills but you'll also be able to send them to your friends. Also you will be able to create your own maps in multiplayer and invite your friends to come and fight on your custom map. But be sure to take the new vehicles in Halo 3 into consideration, as the terrain you create will surely affect your vehicles performance.

Vehicles

Speaking of the vehicles, Halo 3 has a few new modes of transportation to choose from. Which is great because as fun as the Warthog is to drive, it can really only keep you content for so long. One new vehicle is the mongoose ATV, which was originally supposed to make its appearance in Halo 2 but was then later cut. Other vehicles that will be featured in the new Halo will be a light aircraft called the Hornet, which is similar to the banshee in previous halo games. Also there will be new Brute vehicles, which include the Brute Chopper and the Brute prowler.

Weapons

Something more to be exited about will be new weapons like the bubble grenade, which creates a bubble like shield around you. Also the new class of "Support Weapons", which are incredibly huge weapons, practically bigger than master chief himself. These include machine gun turret, flamethrower, and a new covenant plasma turret. These weapons, when carried change the view to a third person view and need two hands to carry. Most of the old weapons will return with minor cosmetic and power alterations. The assault rifle (MA5B) will return in Halo 3 as MA5C and is altered in an attempt to make it a more balanced "ultimate spawn weapon". Some changes in this weapon are slower rate of fire and a smaller magazine, but it has longer-range greater accuracy, and greater firepower.

Multiplayer

The multiplayer games, which are probably the most popular aspect of the game, will have new maps and objectives. And the co-op part of it allows four players online or system link, or 2 players split screen. And each player is no longer an identical "Spartan" each player has there own identity and background story but possess the same skills. Just about the only difference is that they have different starting weapons. Basically if your 1^st player then your Master Chief, 2^nd player is Arbiter, and 3^rd and 4^th players are newly created elites N'tho 'Sraom and Usze 'Taham.

Halo 3 is a very promising game and I am looking forward to owning the game for myself. Incidentally if you are a real time strategy game fan and a Halo fan. Then you should check out the new title Halo Wars, which is a RTS Halo game on Xbox 360 and also promises to be an outstanding installment in the series