My respect is earned and although I already thought Haze was going to rock I now have even higher hopes for it if they have classy people working on it. Its similar to how my hopes for EA has dropped based upon stupid comments from some of them. They still make some good games but I am always looking at them with a more critical eye. If they feel the need to bash others then their stuff must have flaws. THIS guy is obviously confident in his own product and thus does not need to trash someone elses.

There is alot of pressure on Bungie now, and I agree with him on the whole Halo 1 and Halo 2 fanbase camps because I see it on Bungie.net all the time.

Kudos to him for not bashing Halo 3 and making some good comments.

Honesly, I don't think Halo3 will meet expections... not because is not going to be a great game, but because people are expecting too much from it. When it comes to halo, people don't expect a AAA title. They expect the game to serve everyone's demands and preferences... the problem with that is that some of them conflict with eachother. What I like may not be what you like... so sometimes one person need to be let down for the other to be happy. I hear some people complaining about the maps... and I hear other that love the maps... how can you make both happy? I think there is no way to win 100%... someone needs to be let down. This goes with every game.

Wait til you see what the final product looks and plays like. People are so quick to judge.

It's quite true about Bungie having to appease Halo and Halo 2 fans at the same time with halo 3. It's mostly their own fault for departing so much from Halo CE in the first place, when allot of stuff was already perfect.

In that respect, Halo 3 has already disappointed me, simply because it takes after Halo 2 too much. I remember Bungie saying that they didn't want Halo 2 to be Halo 1.5. So, I would have expected them to have a similar stance on Halo 3, but unfortunately for me, it's just too much like halo 2. I wouldn't call it Halo 2.5, just that it has similarities with Halo 2 which I think it shouldn't have.

But considering the vast majority of people (I know) prefer Halo CE, I don't see what the problem is.

I'm still waiting for Halo 1.5.

It's what we've all been saying....Halo3 is huge, even dev's realize what that means in terms of trying to sale a game of the same genre anywhere close to Halo's launch.....thus, save Haze for a few months until the smoke clears. He just confirmed what we all thought anyway. -It's not rocket science. -Wow, Bungie's created a monster, I don't care what you think about Halo personally but the Halo brand has some serious status within the industry= RESPECT. -lol, The Train is Coming, everybody knows what to do.

Now I've played both games but i don't know what the giant difference between the two games are, i liked how Halo 2 seem to get bigger.

COuld you give me your thoughts on the big difference.

It has the stability of Halo 1 and the pace of Halo 2. PERFECT Now Haze is a New IP and I love it so far it is like a baby Crysis. I will be buying both games. Ya dig. I suggest you do the same.

Wow, he seems like a real cool guy. You rarely run into honesty of that level in this industry. I know n4g is full of halo haters but people need to realize that from a business persective halo is the king of the hill. That doesnt mean its the greatest game ever it just means it sells like it is. It deserves respect on this merit and its nice to see another publisher who may not like it giving it this respect.

'I personally am happy with the visual level bungie got with halo 3 beta, if you are an avid player of halo 2 the differences are night and day' Thank you Thank you Thank you. You got a bubble for that. Anyone who has played Halo 2 realizes the difference. I ME k this is my opinion I THINK the game looks fantastic. I love the way it looks right now...Forza underwhelmed me, Halo didn't. I didn't start playing Halo 2 til THREE WEEKS ago and I noticed the difference between the game IMMEDIATELY. It's not a shiny upgraded Halo 2, it's truly not. The game is massive and it's also beautiful...'it looks like an upgraded Halo2' DUH Halo 2 looked like a upgraded HALO 1. Their is a distinct art style in Halo people that don't play it alot don't realize...Halo 3 is that and anyone who knows Halo 2 should realize this. I have never been wowed by any of the Halo games graphics, one is not going to turn this on and say 'wow' it just wont happen. But it's wow in it's own way in its own art style. Halo is gameplay and Halo 3 plays fantastic 5 months from release

buddy do u read what u type.

who cares if it sales millions - i buy a game for its gameplay and fun factor - not because i know every sheep is gonna go buy it so i have to buy it.

it could sell a billion copies - that doesnt make it a good game.

HALO3 isnt bring nothing new...its that simple...they were to scared to change the feel and try something intresting - instead they played it save - hey ppl like halo1 & 2 so lets not change to much. and ive said this b4 that is their down fall.

halo3 will sale to only the ppl that have a 360 - i dont seeing it drawing more ppl to go get a 360 because its a must have title

I just wanted to post this from a weekly update like 2 months ago from Bungie...everyone who doesn't like Halo wants to talk graphics. everyone who is a fan wants to talk gameplay...well this right here especially the last paragraph will explain the depth, and sheer size of what their doing with this game. Which should hopefully make you realize that it's why it wont look like Gears Of War.

A Flock of Seagulls

There are two aspects to this story, one literal, one metaphorical. I’ll start with the latter. Genius programmer Damian Isla is working on “flocking behavior” for distant battles. There are certain parts of the game where large scale air battles are going on in the distance, and the most convincing way to do that is to use real craft having real battles. Now, these particular ones are for show rather than interaction, but they should look convincing. Damian’s been tweaking the behavior of all these craft – I won’t name ‘em, but you can probably guess what various kinds are going at it – so that they have visually convincing fights.

That might sound like a cheat, but it’s not. When you’re in aerial combat, regular AI will be used against you, but that doesn’t necessarily look exciting from that kind of distance, so flocking behavior is used. The craft you’re seeing are real – and if they shoot each other, they explode – as a matter of fact, if you had a rocket launcher and got lucky from that distance (think miles), you’d be participating in the battle. And the battles look amazing. It’s all about immersion.

But on a more literal scale, one of our contract 3D artists is working on birds. So far I’ve seen seagulls and what appears to be some kind of coc8atoo. Both kinds flock, wheel and fly in very large numbers. Who knows what those numbers will grow or dwindle to in the final cut, but right now the demo was about 50 seagulls wheeling and cawing above a cliff top, and looking remarkably like Discovery channel footage of an otherwise boring scene.

Perhaps more importantly, the seagulls and coc8atoos can (at the moment anyway) be shot. They will then fall, individually out of the sky and you can go take a look at how detailed they are. Believe me, we’re not wasting any processor cycles on this stuff, so if it causes a hit, out it goes, but hopefully they’ll be there. There are at least two keen hunters on staff who want to go grousing in Halo 3.

In combat, the scale is just as large, but the AI is different since it’s tuned for fun and challenge rather than grand spectacle. No point in a glorious sequence of barrel rolls if they serve no gameplay purpose.

And gameplay is there. Seriously. The designers would scoff at that opinion given how much polish time they have left on these encounters, but already, gameplay has reached new heights. And I don’t mean Halo 3 – I mean for the entire series. This part is going to sound like hyperbolae, so I’ll reinforce the fact that this is merely my opinion:

Halo 3 encounters are more fun, more challenging, more varied and more enjoyable than those in Halo or Halo 2. The interplay and strategies created among the various Covenant foes is just thrilling. One weird thing that I just can’t get used to (in a good way, I mean) is the fact that you have to plan for multiple encounters in one location. You can see a group in the distance, and head down to fight them. You could toss a grenade to get the party started – but here’s a hint. Between you and them and the tumble of rocks and scree between you, I happen to know that a Phantom is going to drop off four Grunts and a Brute Chieftain. The Phantom itself is going to start laying down fire on you, so my suggestion is to bide your time, wait for the first Phantom, and take care of that before irritating those guys way down the hill.

The AI on the opponents is more interesting too. Even a lone Grunt can be a nasty challenge. Actually, a lone Grunt is sometimes a cornered Grunt now. You’ve been warned.

And I’ve heard more than one Bungie staffer say the same thing at the urinal (that’s where we talk, and yes, we call it the water cooler). You’ll see them come in, laughing and peeing, peeing and laughing, as they recall a particularly brilliant gameplay moment.

Now wash your hands.

The contract 3D artists are working on the little detail touches that are going to make spaces feel real and lived in. That could be anything from an electronic wall panel (complete with a smashed and damaged state) to a shiny military latrine. It’s fun to watch the look of concentration on an artist’s face as he puts the finishing touches to a gleaming, stainless steel toilet.

But speaking of Damian, he and a couple of other folks have been slaving away on a cool Easter Egg. Most of you will never see it, but if you do, you’ll maybe think back to this, and say, ooh, that musta been the thing Damian made.

Now, back to campaign for a moment. I was playing a level, let’s call it a quarter of the way into the game. I exit through a very large doorway, emerging from an indoor space, to a large (medium, based on the scale of other H3 locations) outdoor space. I will go ahead right now and admit it’s part of the level that some journalists caught a sneak, and very early peek at during the Alpha event many months back.

I thought it would be as good a place as any to describe the content of an average H3 Encounter. To do this, I made the Chief invincible, detached the camera and flew around counting stuff. Now, remember, this is live, so these guys were all fighting each other, lobbing mortars and dying, so I may be missing a few (Jackals for sure, since they were pinging me pretty good from somewhere), and I definitely saw a Phantom deliver two more ghosts while I was counting, and I literally stopped counting when, after a couple of Marines had been killed – a door on the far side of the location slid open, and revealed a whole passel of jerks. I figure the list below will pretty much give you the idea. Remember that, if you had a sniper rifle or rocket launcher, you could have destroyed any or all of the following in that one, single location. And I am deliberately leaving out a couple of items here, because they haven’t been revealed yet.

Encounter Recipe:

* Scary Post Apocalyptic Environment: 1
* Phantoms: 3
* Grunts: 14
* Marines: 6
* Brutes: 8
* Jackals: 3
* Wraiths: 3
* Ghosts: 6
* Mongoose: 1
* Warthogs: 1
* New version of old favorite: 1
* Chief: 1
* Giant Bad Guy in distance: 1
* Frightening and Inexplicable Maelstrom: 1
* Ancient Forerunner Artifact: 1

That is 43 guys, 1 chief and 2 vehicles plus anything else in the environment. Do you really now believe this game was ever going to look like Gears Of War with 43 guys on screen...

SMBB will outsell Halo 3

1. Ibleedblue, you call us sheeps yet your ass is firmly seated on the PS wagon, way to go, sit with the past winner, tool.

Hanseo, SMBB will sell at most 2 million copies.

odion SSBB will Outsell halo 3 why beacause it will sell in japan unlike halo3

Halo 3 doesn't need Japan to sell well, it sold 9.8 million copies last time without Japan. SSBB has never outsold a Halo game or any other major franshise.

See Nintendo may sell the most hardware, but when was the last time you saw a Wii game in the top 20 of any chart? DS games sell like hotcakes but not Wii games.

Balance, balnce, balance... strategy---lots of strategy. Raection time? You better be quick---damned quick. And---you better have a plan; a plan of attack, a plan of defense and a plan of escape. You'll need them all.

Relentless conflict.

Absolute immersion.

A sense of ever-present danger.

That's Halo.

No other game does 'Halo' better than Halo.

4-million presales and counting.

Add back Halo 1 key gameplay elements with Halo 2 Key gameplay elements then All new Gameplay elemnents from 3 and You have the perfect game. Wait ain't Halo 3 doing this? LOL!

Sept 25 b1tches its coming!

It's art direction and type of gameplay may not be for everyone. But it is for me. Halo is not about graphics when the first halo came out I had seen way better things on PC's at the time. But something about halo, the style of gameplay with a o.k storyline just clicked on the spot. Maybe it was the music style. For back in the day it was the first time I actually said dammmm that music must of been expensive to create. The music in Halo 2 is even better. Who ever that guy that composes the music for halo I give him alot of props. He applys the perfect combination of music and character to the scene without ever having go over the top. To me thats one big thing that I like in Halo and I am waiting for Sept 25 like many others.

"When asked if he sees the Xbox 360 version of Haze getting lost into noise surrounding Halo 3, Doak replied, "Clearly on 360 you're going up against the juggernought that is Halo. It's wise to not be standing in the middle of the road when it comes towards you because there's nothing bigger on Xbox. In many ways Halo 3 has already won that battle before it's even really started."

well i admire his honesty

Just like the horrible Killzone...Haze is just trying to get more publicity for its game by attacking the Halo series. As you can see from this site, it is working.

There are fans of both games that real hardcore and don't like the other.

its really fun and does have a good mix of halo1 and halo2 but i just cant stand the graphix......when it comes down to the enviroments they just not detailed...but after playing this game for 20 min you will soon forget about it all and have fun

there is no learning curve in this game

pink spartans rule.

You Said: i just cant stand the graphix......when it comes down to the enviroments they just not detailed...

now to counter this you said: i have played the halo3 beta <--- Being the key word. Its Just that my friend.

You said: there is no learning curve in this game.

You ever seen what nasty Halo player does in Gears?
Well see whose good in Halo 3 come Sept.

I'll put it like this. I Play against a lot of people in gears i though was tough because they had about 10 kills, 8 downs and lead the team in short time or whateva only to realize that most of the kills was stolen or lucky due to bullet lag. Then when you get to see them more ofter they sh1tty and you wish you never added them to your friendslist.

I was all excited for halo 3 till i saw the beta frankly am not impressed. I have no doubt that it will be improved upon but i doubt its gonna be all that great. Call me crazy but i got my eyes on Haze now

All I everwanted from Halo 1 or 2 was for the needler to be effective. It was always used as just a digrace kill by melee. Can anyone tell me who is in the beta if the needler actually tracks better now....also is the noob combo just as bad.....Thx

Halos dead

Just like the first one being remade, using UE5💩 MS with all their money couldn't get ID Tech 8 and modify it to work with the Halo remakes? 😑 If they did I'm 100% sure it would run as good as Doom The Dark Ages. I can see the performance issues already. As DF Alex puts it "stutter struggle".

I just hope they're good. Halo CE remake looks very good, so this could be good for Halo.

Of course, let's go with the Nintendo way.

Considering Halo 3 never got the remaster treatment, I strongly support this endeavor. Let's give Reach the remake treatment at some point, too.

Not for me personally, I enjoyed the Master Chief Collection, but not enough to invest in the remakes, the MCC still feels relatively new to me.

A lot of people asking for Multiplayer, just go by an Xbox, hell, almost any Xbox, or get a 1/2 decent PC, then if you really wanted to play Halo, you can play all of them.

MS multiplatform situation has really show that people talk so much smack it's not even funny, people go on how exclusives sell consoles, but I see it's only to a small degree, people usually go with where there friends are or the hype surrounding something (Nintendo is the exception). A lot of PS fans bought Forza, GoW:Remake: Sea OF Thieves, and PS Fans bought Grounded, in fact these MS games were dominating Sony sales charts...so if exclusive sells systems, why didn't Sony fans buy an Xbox to play these one time exclusives, that they clearly wanted to play?