Philotic Web

Just got my confirmation. Anyone else gonna be in it? Or have Xbox Live?

I'm in it, got a copy of Crackdown to ensure it

Crackdown copy. My buddy from Halo 2 got a Friends and Family invite and has been playing since Friday evening... bastard.

I don't have it (nor do I have a 360), but you can add zenbeast as one of your buddies. He's one of my friends that I know got in. I guess I'll just have to live at his house for the next 3 weeks....

It's gonna be a blast.... 1 day 6 hours and 9 minutes till Halo 3 Beta.

For those interested (and too lazy to dig up the old XBox Live threads :-p) my gamertag is daPyr0x, you'll see me living in H3 for a while after it's out.

I'll add ya. My gamertag is Fish Tank.

Haha Fish Tank, I saw you online at 5am right along with me and two other people. I stuck around for two hours (watching a movie) before finally hitting the hay. Silly Microsoft and Bungie...

Torture lol but it'll be worth the wait.

Halo 3 / Crackdown : UPDATE!
Posted by SketchFactor at 5/16/2007 5:22 AM PDT
Frankie writes:
We're happy to finally announce that the issues being faced with the Halo 3 beta and Crackdown will be resolved shortly. The Microsoft team has found a solution and it's undergoing final testing now. Assuming the test pass goes according to plan, the fix will come in the form of a Crackdown title update within the next two to four hours.

We understand many of you were eagerly awaiting your chance to jump into the Halo 3 Beta and this technical issue has put a damper on your plans. Thankfully the fix is incoming and we're sincerely sorry for any inconvenience this has caused. Ultimately we hope this will all soon be a distant memory once you pick up the Spartan Laser, launch yourself from a Mancannon and enjoy online shenanigans with your friends.

As a reminder, people who already have the Halo 3 Beta are unaffected by this issue.

We'll keep you posted as soon as we have more information.


Posted about 10 minutes ago. Silly Crackdown problem, it seems. Have to release a title update. They apparently needed a beta test for the beta roll out.

It's up. Insert Crackdown, get Title Update. Download.

76%... going soooooo slow.

BOOYAH it's downloading for me, and quickly.

I'll be up all night playing now, damnit....

You guys liking it? To me it's pretty fricken sweet. Love the new territories and V.I.P. modes. The old territories was bleh.

I'm not blown away.

Some of the new weapons are fun (though the spike grenade has been all but useless to me thus far), and some of the new gametypes are fun....

But it doesn't really feel like anything greater than H2. Graphics are about the same except for the bubble shield (which looks incredibly cool). Everything else just feels like H2. I guess that's a good thing - don't mess with success. But I was expecting more.

And those f****** disabled custom soundtracks. THAT Pisses me off. The reason I don't play H2 anymore is because I got tired of having to set up a second set of speakers to play music while I was playing (I use a surround sound system for the 360 and the PC, so it's one or the other). So now I sit here playing with my DS beside me blaring whatever music I have on it.

It is still fun though. And that's whaet's really important - the game is as fun as it was before. I'll be playing a lot.

honestly, i don't understand why is halo driving everybody nuts.
My brother played it (the original one), and i watched him playing it till he beated it. I really didn't look like anything special... just another FPS. What makes it different?

The biggest thing for me is the multiplayer. Halo 1 multiplayer was fun; especially if you got the whole setup/hack to play online working.

The second one had (until now) the best multiplayer setup yet for FPS games with their matchmaking system. No more joining rooms and getting kicked out because you're not one of the guys or playing with the same douchebags oveer and over again because you don't want to go searching for another available room with the settings you want.

All you do is say "I want to play _______" (currently rumble pit - free for all killfest - team slayer - team killfest - and team skirmish - team objectives are the options available) and the game does the rest; sets you up with other people looking for that, gets you in a game with people of a similar skill level, balances the teams as best it can, and you play. And when you're done, you never have to play with any of them again, or (with 3) you can say "hey we made a good team, wanna play again?" and go ahead and play more.

That's what it is for me. I can't get into much online gaming because I'm not the type to make friends over videogames, nor do I have many "gamer" friends to play with and it makes the whole "room" experience really blow for me.

Caution: Long post. I wrote this out last night because someone asked me what I thought

At first, as with most games, I was kind of dazed. I had no idea what was going on. I was having trouble getting used to everything -- no customs for me to mess around in. However, I got off for about an hour and a half after playing on every map at least once, then got on and started with the ranked games.

First of all... the game is insanely balanced in it's normal state. Most times when I thought about it even possibly being unbalanced, it was just stupidity on my part, or the parts of others. I was on a 19 kill killing spree as me and a team mate were driving around in the warthog, myself as gunner. Unbalanced? No way. First of all, the other team kept jumping out into the open, fault one. Also, nobody really knew where the spartan laser on Valhala was, so that was fault two. Once they finally figured out that if they were to stay in close quarters, they took me down quite easily. Not only this, but it's fairly easy to come back from a -20 loss and tie, and even win. Power weapons aren't as powerful and important as they were, but not so much so that they're useless.

The Spartan laser. While a lot of people have said it looks horribly unbalanced, it's really not. It's not the easiest thing to aim, it's all timing, and that timing is very sensitive. The plasma pistol. My last game tonight, I got plasma pistoled twice. I got into my normal "plasma pistol whore" mindset when I realized... I was standing virtually still in a close quarters when I got hit. Out in the open it was almost completely useless. Spike grenades. Said before, I'll say it again. Nothing is more satisfying that sticking a person with it. They're SO much more fun than plasmas.

Assault riffle. Since I really didn't play that much Halo 1 multiplayer (I only got Halo 1 about a month and a half before Halo 2 came out, got it with my Xbox), I never got to feel how amazing this weapon was. I remember it vaguely from the campaign, but it was soon over-shadowed by the SMG's. SMG's were alright.. I was much more of a "Go to a dual wield instead of the BR" kind of player in Halo 2. But.. the AR is a perfect starting weapon. It makes you question if you want to get rid of it, and it's good for just being there. Honestly, I think the clip is a little shallow. A few more shots is usually all I need to finish someone off, but I believe that's just my misuse of my ammo (firing at walls when I should stop).

Graphics. They look great. Not "wow, it's so lifelike, you sure this isn't a live action movie" great, but Halo 3 great. Bungie, in my opinion, has so far nailed the perfect mix of next gen graphical additions (everything is so glowy!) while still keeping that familure Halo feel (how much can you incrase the character model of a Spartan, really?). Water is very nice to look at and to shoot at. Walking backwards produces wake and splashes. Walking in snow creates footprints. But, again, I must be honest... the water feels a bit "springy". It could do with more splash when driving through it, also. Otherwise, though, it's stunning.

One last thing for graphics -- atmospheric effects. I remember reading somewhere how Bungie really didn't want to place them in, but I think they would change the game for the better. High Ground, for example. Imagine if there were various densities of sand that blew through the map, reducing visibility. Snowbound, also, could do with snow drifting through the map reducing visibility sometimes. Maybe not all the time, maybe even a custom option. But, I think it would really make it pop.

Audio. I don't have a 5.1 setup (though, admittedly, I am going to try and set it up before the Halo 3 release), but the audio is amazing. Far off fights have that "far off" sound. Not just reduced quality, but the sound it would make as if it were actually having to travel through various terrains, objects, and the atmosphere. I love the sounds the weapons make... even reloading the AR. I also found it quite trippy how being under water muffles everything as if you were actually under water.

Saved Films. Amazing idea. I can't wait for the full setup... several things now I've done I wish I could view from the point of view of the enemy, and from different perspectives. Fast forward, rewind, etc. I stuck a guy with a spike grenade from behind the gate in High Ground, blind throw. I wish I could see that.

Thar. </end long geeky post>

honestly, i don't understand why is halo driving everybody nuts.
My brother played it (the original one), and i watched him playing it till he beated it. I really didn't look like anything special... just another FPS. What makes it different?

One word: shiny.

In actuality, I'm not really sure why it is so successful. It probably gets talked about a lot because it seems to be popular with typically non-FPS gamers. I'm not really sure why (graphics, weapons, storyline, the fact that you can only hold two/three weapons at once, something else?), but something does seem to set it apart. I have played a few FPSes, and I can say that Halo is really the only FPS I really liked (except maybe the original Doom; that was cool). It might have been the storyline of the first game that got me interested; but I'm only saying that because I usually play RPGs, so that would make sense. I'm not really sure why I like it, but I do.

I've played the H3 beta a few times at this local console-arcade in town (it's pretty sweet actually, since I don't own any of the next-gen systems); they've got several rows of wide-screen HD TV's hooked up to 360's, PS3's and Wii's. The 360's are all system linked and Live active, so I got to play it quite a few times. The maps are all interesting, and the new weapons (especially the Spiker) really round out what was a good but limited game experience from Halo 2. The addition of the new grenade types and items (Power Drainer!) I think will make Halo 3 the most well-rounded shooter for years. I enjoy Rainbow Six: Vegas and Call of Duty and whatnot, but Halo's always been my bread-and-butter. Resistance is alright, but something about the PS3 always makes me feel sick/nauseaus when I play it.