HALO 3
System: Xbox360 (exclusive)
Developer: Bungie Studios
Publisher: Microsoft
Release date : late 07'
players : 1-4 coop (split-screen/system link/Xbox Live)
2-32 multiplayer (Confirmed is 24, 32 is still a possibility)

Here is the trailer released at E3 in 06... this was the first footage of Halo 3 shown to the world...Keep in mind this footage is all in-game.





This was the Special TV spot shown on Monday Night Football... YOu won;t see this on tv again, unless you download from Microsoft Marketplace via 360...This is a mix of ingame elements and CG video.



Making of the Brute vid




The following are updates published from 1up.com...

The controls have been revised. There's an entire new "sandbox" of weapons to balance. One of the buttons on the Xbox 360 controller isn't even working in this build of the game. No wonder the staff at Bungie looked nervous when we walked into a room full of televisions displaying Halo 3 at their Kirkland, WA studio.

The Five Best Things About Halo 3
Over the last three weeks, we've been tasked with bringing a slew of information and finding different ways to present it. All of the information we've dug up, we dredged in a single day spent at Bungie's studio. What's best about the pre-alpha version of Halo 3 that we played?

The MAC6 Assault Rifle:
From the Halo 3 announcement trailer, we saw Master Chief carrying a new(ish) weapon. Like we've detailed previously, the revised assault rifle is the new starting weapon in Halo 3. Here's what we said:

With the MA5C Assault Rifle, the clip-size has been drastically reduced from 60 to 32, and as a trade-off, the weapon's accuracy at long-range has been increased.
The revamped assault rifle is a near-perfect addition to the Halo repertoire. As a starting weapon it is perfectly utilitarian -- it's the intersection where balance meets functionality. In fact, the MA5C is so functional, it relegates weapons like the Battle Rifle to non-essential status in player equips on a given map. Sure, if you can get to a Battle Rifle it's still worth picking up, but the mid-short range functionality of the Assault Rifle outclasses the BR in several respects.

More than just reducing the importance of the Battle Rifle, the Assault Rifle also minimizes the importance of dual-wielding because it allows players to be competitive from the moment they spawn, until the moment they are waiting to respawn. When the playing field is leveled across the core weapon sets, like with the Assault Rifle, it allows the power weapons to truly shine in multiplayer play. Unfortunately, the only "power weapon" we've toyed with is the brand new anti-personnel and anti-vehicle shoulder-mounted Death Star, the Spartan Laser.

Described as an anti-vehicle weapon, the Spartan laser fires a small red "sighting" laser to spot your target. While that laser is pointing, the shoulder mounted monstrosity charges for three seconds, red energy collecting in a swirling orb before ejecting a stream of certain death.

On Valhalla, the wielder of the Spartan Laser controls the map -- at least with the weapon set that was appearing on the version of the map we played. The team that controls the laser most consistently stops Mongooses as they skip across the map and Warthogs as they hum by toting flag runners.

Compared with a weapon like the Rocket Launcher -- its lower-tech cousin -- the Spartan Laser fits right in to the Haloverse. Visually, its art style matches the other weapons and it brings a more focused functionality to the Halo weapon sandbox. Because of its sniper-like functionality and vehicle decimating prowess, the Spartan Laser is a bit of a hybrid among the weapon sets. Unlike the Sniper Rifle, though, the Spartan Laser is held back from being totally imbalanced and broken (hey, Energy Sword) because of its small clip size. In the build we played, the Spartan Laser fired four times before the clip was empty.

Controller Evolved:
The nervous stares that greeted us when we arrived at Bungie were due, in part, to the changes Bungie is making to the Halo 3 control scheme.

Reload has been remapped off of the X-button and onto the respective bumpers. When dual-wielding, RB reloads the right weapon while LB reloads the left weapon. Similarly, RB replaces the X-button as the action button. Boarding vehicles, picking up weapons, everything the X-button used to do is now done on RB. At first, this change felt a bit iffy. There were a handful of times early in the day when I was gunned down while standing over a sniper rifle mashing X to pick it up.

After stumbling around like a newb, the controls started to stick. Having the reload right near the trigger frees up key real estate on the Xbox controller. With reload and fire being fingered by the index finger (in a classic control scheme) players can still look using the right stick, while reloading. Topically, this may seem like a small change, but it will lead to more flexibility in what players can accomplish in the midst of battle.

Bungie has freed up the X button on the controller for an unannounced feature that may appear in Halo 3 -- this build is a pre-Alpha build and it is entirely possible that the feature could ultimately be scrapped (but we doubt it will disappear). Bungie staffer Brian Jarrard said that the guys didn't even have to "activate their X buttons" to beat us in the next-gen Humpday Challenge -- what kind of feature would you activate?

The Highest Ground:
While it lacks the novelty of Snowbound's shield doors or the pleasant familiarity of Valhalla's sprawling symmetry, if High Ground is setting the standards for Halo 3's maps, we're all in for a treat next year.

Smaller than H2's Zanzibar, High Ground offers some of the same mechanics: A base, a gate to open, multiple entrance points -- and while not on the version of the map we played, an armory's worth of weaponry for both the assaulting and defending teams. Frank O'Connor and Brian Jarrard detailed some of the new stuff on High Ground since we saw it last month on a recent 1UP Network podcast. Now, in addition to the Spike Rifles, Spike Grenades and Sniper Rifle on the map, Bungie has added a Spartan Laser to the base-team configuration. In a cave along the left side of the map (approaching from the beach), they've added a Rocket Launcher -- and there's a Sword (now with depleting energy) in the small tube inside the base. Apparently, the new, non-terrible single-wieldable Needler is on the map, as well.

With the Sword, Rocket Launcher, Sniper Rifle and Spartan Laser on a map built for 8-10 players, there's a load of weapons to keep cycling through depending on where you are and the situation you're facing on the map. We haven't really seen weapon options or the need to constantly switch weapons like this in a Halo multiplayer experience before. In past Halos, there's been a particular weapon setup that works best and the game centered on acquiring those -- in Halo 3, that doesn't seem to be the case.

Matchmaking Remade:
If you missed out on our Q&A with Bungie about Halo 3's matchmaking service you might have missed on what's best about Halo 3, period.

Changes like the call sign system, where players will have a self-chose identification number for their Spartan, instead of an image of a golden bee (think "L75") are examples of the little touches Bungie is adding into their matchmaking and online experience in Halo 3.

One of the biggest problems with Halo 2's matchmaking system was that it didn't have a similar functionality for Custom games. If players wanted to play a particular map or a custom gametype and couldn't get enough people in the room, there was no way for players to find that game. It segregated Custom Games and Matchmade games, completely. In Halo 3, that's changing. While Matchmaking and Custom games are still completely separate (ranks will only increase in the confines of Bungie's matchmaking service), for players who just want to play Custom Games, Bungie has created XBL Public.

XBL Public is where players can advertise their custom games and then players will be able to seek out modes, maps and gametypes. If a player is looking for a Team Slayer match on High Ground, he'll be able to find the ones that are available and they'll be sorted by how good the connection to the match will be.

There's a two-fold ranking system in Halo 3's matchmaking. One is fueled by Skill and the other by Experience. Ranking up via Skill will advance your profile through a fictional UNSC (or possibly Covenant) military ranking system. Ranks like Private, Sergeant will be attained based on the skill ranking. However, while a rank like Sergeant may require a level 20 in Matchmaking, the next level rank might mean players have to reach level 30 -- what happens if they can't? Well, that's where the Experience ranking system comes into play. The more games you play the further through the Sergeant tree your rank will move. Your progression in the Experience tree might move from Sergeant to First Sergeant to Master Sergeant -- those changes will be reflected in your rank. There are two forms of progression now to (hopefully) discourage cheating.

Halo 3 is Closer Than You Think:
Bungie's announcement of a public multiplayer beta for Halo 3 is something we haven't seen in the console space before (public beta testing is far more prominent in PC gaming). The beta is currently scheduled for Spring 2007. What this means is that before you know it, you'll be playing Halo 3 in some form on your Xbox 360. And what will you be playing? We don't know for sure, but it's safe to say that it will be more polished, refined and tuned than what we played at Bungie in October.

There's still no official word on how you'll acquire the beta, but Microsoft's recent implementation of downloading HD movies that leave your hard drive after a certain amount of time could be a hint at how the beta experience will unfold. Could the beta be a timed download that lasts for a month before it self erases like the HD movies? Could it be distributed on a game disc (that'd be a way to boost a title's sales, wouldn't it?)? Will it just be a microtransaction on the Xbox Live Marketplace? Right now, we don't know. What we do know is that a few months from now, we'll be reading your impressions of Halo 3.


HALO 3 SINGLE PLAYER

"Just call it 17.25 seconds," laughs Halo 3 design lead Jaime Griesemer. "It was probably shorter than that, but just say it's 17.25 seconds, anyway." No, Griesemer isn't modifying his statements about 30 seconds of fun in game design; he's talking about how many seconds of Halo 3 single-player footage I'd just watched.
At the end of the E3 Halo 3 teaser, Cortana declares, "This is the way the world ends." She's referencing the T.S. Eliot poem "The Hollow Men," and the line that follows is "not with a bang, but with a whimper." If Halo 3 is the way the world ends, these 17 seconds are a part of the bang -- not the whimper.

The single-player footage opens in the middle of a gray warzone. It's colored in a palette I haven't seen in the Halo-franchise. Everything is painted in grays -- the colors look like the New Caprica encampment on SCI FI's BattleStar Galactica. We're on what appears to be Earth -- the large, blown-out buildings aren't Forerunner architecture. It's a city, not unlike the now-dismantled New Mombasa (which was destroyed by a Covenant cruiser's Slipstream jump in Halo's previous episode).

The footage is all in-game and being played (it's been captured using Halo 3's new Saved Films movie feature). Think back to the E3 2003 presentation -- it's like that, but not dark. Master Chief's Battle Rifle looks different; has it been upgraded? It almost looks partially cobbled together. There appears to be wear and tear on the weapon -- the muzzle, while open in Halo 2, seems to be even moreso right now (Bungie tells us it is the same Battle Rifle, despite any perceived aesthetic differences). The scope still reflects light, and now it appears to use the real time reflection we saw in the H3 announcement teaser

After a few quick steps forward, the Master Chief hops into the back of a Warthog with a Gauss cannon mounted on the back. There's the familiar whirr of Warthog engines humming to life and the hog spins out from underneath the building's overhang. After lurching out from beneath the overhang, the road opens into a staging area. Overhead there are explosions streaking the sky; in front of the Warthog is a Covenant Wraith tank. The familiar purple tank is swaying side to side and the Warthog screams past it. Master Chief rotates the gun backwards to target the Wraith tank and looks to the sky to see a Covenant Drop Ship taking off -- two banshees flying in formation fly by, right behind the Drop Ship. They don't stop to attack -- they just fly by.
The familiar whine of a Covenant Ghost howls and Master Chief lowers the Gauss cannon. But this Ghost is unlike any Ghost we've seen before. Instead of the two small wings that normally frame a Ghost, this model is more tube-like in design. The sound is unmistakable, just like its bumpy hover. There's a much larger driver at the back of this new Ghost-type vehicle -- a Brute. This is the first vehicle we've seen from what Griesemer describes as "the Brute Sandbox."

The vehicle appears similar in color to the Covenant Ghost. It sounds the same as well (but this is pre-Alpha code, so it could be placeholder sound), but the wings have been folded up and the result is a much thicker, tube-ish vehicle. As Master Chief lowers the Gauss cannon on the Ghost, the demo ends.

Visually, the demo is everything that it should be, considering the quality seen in the announcement teaser from E3 2006. While the game is technically in pre-Alpha with presumably a year left in development, the single-player footage looks incredible, so much so that it might make some people say "Gears of Huh?"

What Does This All Mean?
Location. Location. Location. Across both previous games, there have been memorable (Delta Halo from Halo 2) and unmemorable (yes, the Library) structures, but the architecture has been pretty consistent. The art from Halo 2's High Charity level -- a series of curves, circles and luminescent lighting -- is wildly different from the repeating corridors and angular designs that make up Forerunner structures.

The buildings in this snippet of Halo 3's campaign look like the structures from the Metropolis and Outskirts levels of Halo 2 (i.e. human buildings in the middle of a city).

It is a warzone, and assuming this planet is Earth, Master Chief appears to be right in the middle of the mess he was flying toward at Halo 2's conclusion. Is this before or after the announcement trailer? It's hard to tell -- there weren't any shots of the Chief's armor for us to compare the damage with what we saw in the trailer.

Bungie has remained adamant that the single-player footage we saw -- which was framey -- was something just slapped together. It was footage from one of the debugs that had been stored as a Saved Film. After the developers finished showing the footage to the media, it was discarded -- don't expect the same footage to surface any time soon.

The single-player screenshot that Bungie released on the fifth anniversary of Halo was not from the area of the game that we'd seen. That area is much darker and looks like it could be somewhere underground -- what we saw was a fracas taking place on some planet's (likely Earth) surface.


Halo 3 Multiplayer

During our recent trip to Bungie's office, the developer showed us three multiplayer Halo 3 maps. And nestled in these three are similarities, familiarities and surprises that will fundamentally change the way you play in this ridiculously anticipated first-person shooter. Read all about the game in the December issue of EGM, on newsstands now, or continue on for an in-depth look at those maps themselves.

SNOWBOUND:
The first is a small outdoor map blanketed in snow. The map's outer edges are guarded sentry-style by large guns, and while they weren't active in the pre-Alpha build we played, the plan is to have them kill players who try to venture outside of Snowbound's borders. Plus, several rock outcroppings cover one half of the perimeter with weapons strategically placed along the edge among the cover.

Two forerunner structures act as bases on either side of the map, with a series of intertwining tunnels beneath connecting them. You'll also find two other entrance points into the underground tunnel system. A shotgun is in the underground tunnel network, placed in the middle of explosive fusion coils (the things behind the Sniper Rifle on Lockout in Halo 2). Up on the surface, a Sniper Rifle sits in a similar room just underneath a snow drift -- and it, too, is guarded by explosive fusion coils.

What's New: Punitive parts of the environment that kill players aren't new to Halo's multiplayer (lifts have squashed players in multiplayer in the past, and Terminal from Halo 2's Multiplayer Map Pack had a train that would send players to respawn as well), but there will be auto-firing gun turrets on this map when it's finished. These guns, when we finally see them online next year (pun unintended), will be an extension of the environment-that-kills mechanic; maybe there will be a way to get them to target you and then use their fire against other players?

The Shield Doors are hands-down the best truly "new" multiplayer aspect found in Snowbound. These relatively transparent doors don't open or close, but they serve as barriers between Snowbound's underground tunnels. You can see through them, but explosions and gunfire don't pass through the doors. When the now-famous beeping of "no shields" tick comes up in multiplayer, those near a tunnel taking gunfire may have a chance to duck through the Shield Door and get just enough of a reprieve for their shield to recharge.

The weapon sets have seen some new additions (read about the new "sandbox" on page two) in addition to the resurrection, retooling and repurposing of one of Halo: Combat Evolved's most memorable weapons: the Assault Rifle. In the Halo 3 announcement teaser, Master Chief is very clearly carrying a weapon that looks very similar to the Assault Rifle in Halo. It is similar aesthetically, but that's about it.
The MA5B Assault Rifle in Halo: Combat Evolved had a 60-round clip, was fully automatic and ineffective at long-range shots (it could be, because the M6D Pistol was so great overpowered at that range). Only one of those three characteristics of the MA5B remain: it's still fully automatic.

With the MA5C Assault Rifle, the clip-size has been drastically reduced from 60 to 32, and as a trade-off, the weapon's accuracy at long-range has been increased. Why the revisions to the Assault Rifle? Well, the starting weapon in Halo 2 -- the SMG -- didn't exactly work out how Bungie wanted it to. Jamie Griesemer, lead designer on Halo 3 (you know, that "30-seconds of fun" guy), points to the two previous starting weapons and their problems. "It shouldn't do headshots... and it shouldn't be dual wieldable," according to Griesemer. The new MA5C Assault Rifle allows neither.

Instead, in the MA5C, Bungie believes it's found the third side of the multiplayer "Golden Tripod" (seriously... Bungie's words, not ours) -- Melee attacks and Grenades need to supplement a versatile, functional (but not too functional) starting weapon.

Ideal # of Players: 4-10. A five-on-five game pushes Snowbound to its claustrophobic limits (not in terms of performance, just in terms of fun). The tunnels beneath the bases get crowded with people (and corpses) pretty quickly.

Best Gametypes: Slayer, Team Slayer, Tank Flag, Ninjaball, Oddball, and King of the Hill. It's an excellent Slayer map because of its size, and we also played a bunch of "ball" games on Snowbound. The underground tunnels make a ball carrier navigating between bases and finding ways to protect him- or herself perfect for Snowbound.

How Bungie Played It: Bungie might or might not have told us that the fuel canisters guarding the Sniper Rifle and Shotgun were explosive, and since the canisters were retouched visually from the Halo 2 versions, we might not have noticed that they functioned the same -- until one of us strolled in to pick up the Sniper Rifle or a Shotgun, that is. Boom!

Additionally, guys like multiplayer designer Lars Bakken turned the Shield Doors into cat and mouse fiascos, popping their heads in and out tempting us to chase after them into, well, traps. In Ninjaball -- a mode where the ball carrier runs and jumps 150% faster and higher than the other players, we saw Bungie guys (who were at this time intermixed with us to show us the ropes) use the elaborate tunnel system to prolong the ball carrier's life and, well, set more traps.

HIGH GROUND:
High Ground is a medium-sized map that revisits some familiar ground tread in Halo 2's Zanzibar. There's a beach and a compound, and the map is built with objective gametypes (One Flag CTF, Assault) in mind. Instead having of a giant spinning wheel and a huge distance to cover from beach to base, High Ground is a much more compact assault map.

Like Zanzibar, there are several entrance points to the compound and both teams have a vehicle and weapons of their own. Both teams have access to shotguns and the squad coming from the beach gets a Warthog and a Sniper Rifle. The base's garage houses a Ghost and a turret sits atop the gate, acting as the anti-vehicle weapon.

Also like Zanzibar, there are multiple ways to infiltrate High Ground's base. Along the left side of the map (approaching from the beach) is a small half-blown-apart bunker. Players can enter the bunker through the side and into a small tunnel system leading into the base, or they can use a Spike Grenade or a Plasma Grenade to blow apart the hatch on top of the bunker and drop into the tunnel system that way.

Along the right side of the base, players can jump up a group of rocks and onto the walkway where the turret sits. Also on the right side players can access a small pipe system that requires them to crouch (still with a click on the left analog stick) and infiltrate the base that way.

The beach team's Sniper Rifle is supposed to keep the turret in check -- it's no shield door, but it definitely provides another game of cat and mouse.

What's New: Destructible environments (OK, hatches covering bunkers) aren't entirely new, as much as they are neat, and alternate routes into a base aren't new -- that's just good map design. But High Ground is the map where Bungie let us mess with the first of Halo 3's new toys.

Griesemer calls one of the major changes to Halo 3 "the Brute Sandbox." The Brute Shot and Brute Plasma Rifle (a red plasma rifle with a higher rate of fire and as a result a faster overheat) were introduced in Halo 2, and in this installment fans will get the Spike Rifle and Spike Grenade.

The Spike Grenade has a spot in the HUD, just like plasma and frag grenades, and it combines the technology of both grenades. Visually, the grenade looks a bit like the Nail Bat weapon from Final Fantasy VII, with a ton of spikes sticking out of it. Those spikes are for grabbing onto a surface before the destructive, conical blast follows.

Halo players know the familiar "tink, tink" of a frag grenade bouncing at their feet, and they know the static hiss that comes just moments before the plasma grenade stuck to their helmet blows up. In Halo 3, they are going to get used to a new sound. When players throw the Spike Grenades, there's a noticeable "whoosh" -- the sound of the spikes cutting through the air before grabbing a wall like an explosive sea urchin.
Instead of a splash-y blast of damage, Spike Grenades blow a thin cone of energy, perfect for throwing one at your feet when you are being chased. If timed right, the blast will blow straight up into the air and your chaser will be counting backwards from 10 waiting to respawn.

Ideal # of Players: 6-16. While eight-on-eight on High Ground could definitely get a bit crampy, there's enough cover to hide behind to turn the map into a series of strategic strongholds if zergging the base for the flag fails.

Best Gametypes: One Flag CTF, Assault, Slayer, Team Slayer, and Eliminatio. With the break-in-steal-the-flag-and-flee-to-the-beach nature of High Ground, One Flag CTF is a natural choice. Inside the base at the very back is a huge SAMSITE missile station, something Bungie indicated could be a potential target for an Assault game.

Eliminatio is a brand-new gametype Bungie ran us through. In this multiplayer mode, the round ends when a team logs five kills. Players still respawn after they die (although the respawn timer is 15 seconds) and once a team has five kills the round ends. In order to win the gametype, you must win three of the five rounds. Eliminatio presents a completely different pace for a Halo game; the quick five-kill round is offset by the careful, meticulous set-ups, strategic trapping, and kill-swapping.

How Bungie Played It: "Do your job, Joe."

That's Luke Timmins (he's Abe Froman, -- the guy who had the Froman tower in Zanzibar named after him for his relentless abuse of Bungie employees with the Sniper Rifle from that post) chiding Bungie producer Joe Tung. The result of the "Do your job" is Tung racing to grab a Sniper Rifle and Timmins camping at the turret at the beginning of a round on High Ground.

Each round, for the most part, started like chess, with Bungie moving the same pawns into place -- the Sniper Rifle is the judicial system to the Turret's executive order. Occasionally, Bungie guys would rush down from the base and forcefully remove the sniper rifle from our hands, flooding toward the beach through the caves on the map's right side (if you're looking at the base from the beach). When they weren't rabidly defending the console that opens the gate on defense, they were whoring the Ghost. When they'd assault the base, typically two of their players would head in through the hatch on the left side, while a sniper (damn, Joe Tung, damn him) shut down the right side of the map entirely.

VALHALLA:
In Norse mythology, Valhalla is Odin's Hall. In Halo 3, Valhalla is sacred in its own way. As the spiritual successor to Blood Gulch, Valhalla shares several similarities (and even more differences) with its symmetry-filled cousin. Bases are tucked on both sides of the map, and a river runs angularly through the terrain. Two elevated plateaus in the map's center hold weapons of their own -- on one sits a new shoulder mounted weapon, the Spartan laser, and on the other, a turret.

What's New: By the point in the day we saw this map, Bungie had rolled out a new starting weapon, a new grenade, a new one-handed weapon, and declared the Brutes would finally have a series of guns all their own. What's left -- a new vehicle? That's exactly it. Remember that whole "old is the new newness" business from the intro? Aside from the return of a new iteration of the Assault Rifle, Bungie has dusted off one of its long-shelved ideas from the Halo-verse for Halo 3's multiplayer: the Mongoose ATV.

"Press RB to ride Brokeback." The message flashed on the screen as Bungie demoed the four-wheeler. After announcing that the passenger in a Mongoose was "riding Brokeback" (and the Microsoft PR team pulling its heads out of its hands), the developers let us toy around with the new vehicle. Quick and agile, the Mongoose is pretty much designed for racing someone from point A to point B. The fastest ship in the fleet would require a new way to counter it -- the team admitted it's still thinking about how the rocket launcher might work in Halo 3 (it's lock-on system was a bit overpowered for blowing apart vehicles on the ground in Halo 2). Until the rocket launcher situation is sorted out, Bungie has another way to counter vehicles in Halo 3.

Enter the Spartan Laser.

A shoulder mounted rocket-launcher in appearance (see the EGM cover image in here), the Spartan Laser functions like no weapon currently in the Master Chief's arsenal. When using the Spartan Laser, there's a three-second delay while the weapon charges. A thin red sighting-laser shoots out of the gun, while in true Death Star fashion, the laser cannon charges. At the tip of the shoulder-mounted cannon, a sphere of energy boils before exploding into a single beam of light that completely obliterates whatever it hits during the shot. The laser does not persist; rather, it fires the burst of energy and dissipates.

How to use the Spartan Laser, then? Well, as an anti-vehicle weapon, its use is obvious: the sight laser lets you track the target while the pulse charges before completely eradicating everything in its path (including multiple Spartans if the ducks are all in a row), but the weapon ends up functioning equally well as an anti-personnel weapon.

Kills made with the Spartan Laser are attributed as "Snipe kills" on the medal-log in the Post-Game Carnage Report (it's safe to assume those will be back, as well). However, the ease of use, despite the three second charge time, has Bungie concerned -- it is being extremely careful with Halo 3 to make sure one weapon doesn't become too useful (see: the Human Pistol in Combat Evolved).
By now, you've probably heard the term "Man Cannon," and you know it's real. In addition to vaulting Spartans half-way across Valhalla's terrain, the Man Cannons will also launch projectiles and some strategically placed boxes. Players can drop grenades onto them, launch the Mongoose (with guys riding Brokeback) off the lift, or even shoot the Warthog (though it's a pretty weak limp off of the lift instead of an airborne exploration).

While only the main center-launching Man Cannons have been discussed, there are actually two lifts on each base. The second lift launches Spartans to the side, either into the treeline or near a narrow path through some rocks (depending on the base).

Ideal # of Players: 6-16. Anything less than six will feel a bit empty, and with 16-player high jinks, the map will fill up quick. How do you feel about eight-on-eight Warthog/Mongoose only? Yeah, same here.

Best Gametypes: CTF Classic, CTF, and Team Slayer. This is the optimal flag-at-home-to-score map. The flags aren't underground in the bases (but some weapons are), and two ramps lead up the back of the Forerunner structures to the flags for an easy grab and eject off the Man Cannon to a waiting Mongoose.

How Bungie Played It: In addition to a handful of Bungie staffers being able to execute the shooting gallery-style duck hunt slaying of inbound Man Cannon'd Spartans, being able to drive the Mongoose much better than we could and just generally having played the game for, uh, six months longer than we had allowed them to attack with strategy. Attacks on bases unfolded in stages, with infantry arriving to start the murder and Mongoose vehicles arriving to escape. Several times, our own Mongoose guys were ganked for the ease of their escape.

As certain members of the Bungie team (Joe Tung) redefined the term "weapon whoring" with their constant grabbing of the Spartan Laser, we reminded them we should probably get to use it, since we had to write about it. They (he) begrudgingly allowed us to use it... once in awhile.