Halo 3 Heroic Map Pack - an Early Look

Submitted by KP, HBO Reporter at Large

Bungie invited members of the press and community into their offices last week to sit down with the new maps. We were privileged to have the company of the biggest game sites, some local publications and Tied the Leader's XerxdeeJ. It was a good group, all good sports and some pretty decent Halo players.

We were taken into the multiplayer lab around 10 AM, where we were introduced to several of the key developers involved in producing these maps. We were given quick overviews of the geometry by the artists, and tactical walkthroughs by the designers. After that they had us take up controllers and jump right in.

Standoff

Returning a flag up the middle can only mean certain death.

They broke us in with Standoff, a mid-sized, symmetrical map which graphically resembles The Storm. It looks fantastic and plays really well. It's a bit like a mid-sized version of Blood Gulch, with two opposing bases with an S-shaped vehicle route cutting through the level. As Chris Cotton commented, it plays smaller than it really is, because most people pretty much just run up the middle; the heatmap from our Slayer and Capture the Flag games may have looked something like a sideways hourglass.

The bases are actually bunkers, with chest-high slots letting you look out, reminiscent of - but brighter than - the bunker on High Ground. They have multiple rooms and levels with one entry point in the front leading straight to the flag room, a second off to the side leading to a room connecting to the flag room, and a third which is further off to the other side, bringing you into the basement.

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The weapons layout seems really generous at first, with multiple power weapons at your disposal. Each side is well stocked with Battle Rifles, decent short-range weapons and a shotgun. Towards the middle of the map, each side has a Rocket Launcher and in the very middle is a Spartan Laser. Cotton explained that while it works well with Shotty/Snipers matches, the Sniper Rifle does not spawn by default here.

As far as gameplay goes, the map appears to be built for CTF and it plays that way. One and Two flag were great fun here and Team Slayer was decent but the lack of a Sniper Rifle was ultimately pretty noticeable. Its absence in CTF and Team Crazy King is not troublesome but it definitely does feel odd for TS.

Foundry

Not pictured: Xerxdeej's Thunderdome.

This map is almost completely customizable via Forge. If you delete everything (first thing most of us did) you end up with a rectangular area with only one immovable wall which juts out 30 feet or so. The default arrangement is decent and they did what they could, but it's not much on the eyes. That's not really the point of the map, though, the onus is on the community to deliver the real excitement and judging from the creations we saw after half an hour of screwing around in Forge, there's no question that this map has great potential.

When you check out Forge on this map for the first time, you'll notice that there are several new objects for you to choose. The most exciting of these objects are the mancannon - listed as Cannon, Man - and the Soccer ball. Taking advantage of these, Sketchfactor helped a few of us create a soccer field. Nets made from boxes, mancannons placed in the corners to keep things interesting and Guilty Spark to hand out the red cards.

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Lars spent his time piling up boxes inside a high fence in the middle of the map, where he put a hill and low gravity. Default spawning weapons were Gravity Hammers and players were invincible. Mancannons were the only way into the hill, where you were lucky not to get immediately bounced by someone's Gravity Hammer. If these are the kinds of maps that can be created in half an hour, I can't wait to see the gems on Bungie Favorites after a week.

Rat's Nest

Hai guyz chek out ma hammerz!

This map is basically a huge rectangular track laid down around two symmetrical bases. Visually, the map is based off of Crow's Nest and looks great. The bases are accessible either by running through the middle of the map or by grabbing a Hog and using the track along the outside of the map. There is also one side alley leading into each base which provides a more stealthy route into the base.

Of all of the maps we played, Rat's Nest was the most adaptable to different gametypes. Our group was ten strong until we were joined by a few more Bungie employees to get a full party, where we were able to see the map at full capacity. CTF was fantastic, vehicle control can absolutely win a match but the most exciting moments came when either team was trying to move the flag through the more defensible middle.

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Territories was a lot of fun as well, as you're forced to divide your attention between dominating the vehicles and tending to the interior of the bases. Learning to work as a team to lay down overlapping fields of fire so that you can lock down those rooms is key. We also had the chance to play Last Bullet, which has so much potential on this map. Anti-Zombie convoys are both suspenseful and a hell of a lot of fun.

Many thanks to Bungie for inviting us into their offices to have a look at the upcoming DLC. It was great fun to hang out and play with the guys responsible for the maps. They'll be available December 11th for 800 MS Points, and if you've read this far, it's easily worth the ten bucks.