News
March 2, 2009
A Look at
“Halo 3” Mythic Map Pack
by Mike David
An excellent addition to add even more life to your online gaming.
While not an official review, the new Mythic Map
Pack for Halo 3 adds several more hours of online gaming to you die hard
fans of the Live experience. But be advised, you must have a copy of the
original Halo 3 game in order to play. Featuring a plethora of gaming
add-ons, the new Mythic pack is pretty much everything that you could want.
Now, since the game doesn't drop here in the
states until Mar. 3rd, I won't get too crazy in some of the surprises, and
yes there are some, but I can tell you that those players out there who love
playing online are pretty much gonna go goofy with what is possible now.
The Mythic pack features three main playable
locations; the first is Sandbox, a limitless forge experience if you will
within its huge open landscape. If you can think of building it, you can do
it in the Sandbox. Featuring a tiered design system you can really make some
crazy custom maps (huge, tall maps). Add to this, the game comes custom made
for large scale vehicle combat. Its an absolutely gonzo style of play and
customization. I had plenty to do in the Sandbox and was actually freaked
out (in a good way) that you can make a golf course and use a golf club,
which is like the gravity hammer. Its actually quite a bit of fun.
The second is a level that is taylor made for
capture the flag style gameplay, its called Assembly. It takes place in an
enormous factory where the Covenant build Scarabs. It has the typical
futuristic look of the Covenant architecture. Players will instantly be
reminded of some of the more Covenant heavy levels in the other online maps.
I personally thought this level had the cleanest look of the game and I
enjoyed playing slayer in it as it brought back memories of playing the
single player adventure. When you play levels like this, it makes you pine
for a true 4th title featuring the Master Chief battling aliens. Clearly the
folks at Bungie and MS had a lot of fun designing this map.
The last is called Orbital and it takes place
out in space on a station that is asymmetrical, meaning lopsided in its
design. I liked how the design was made to make a player feel uncomfortable
and with new games like "one-flag" (race to it and bring it back to your
side), and "one-bomb" (think about it), players are going to jump in with
both feet. Now this is the map that I think will see the most use right out
of the gate because of its uniqueness.
The map pack features the same high level of
graphics and sound and blends pretty much seamlessly together. The Sandbox
forge map editor is a very easy to use tool considering the additional
extras that are now available. Players who have experience in Forge are
going to be able to do the things they always wanted to do. Some surprise
weapons and other goodies are in store for those players willing to shell
out the expected 800 MS point price ($10). I don't know exactly how much it
will be but 800 points is nothing considering what you get.
Come and get it on March 3rd!
Pros:
Lots and lots to experiment with and new, cool
maps to play on. Some interesting new games and other goodies.
Cons:
None at this point, maybe the fact that Halo
Wars also drops this week might steal some of the thunder, but I doubt it.
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