More on Halo 3 multiplayer

By Tom Bramwell Published 2 November, 2006

Courtesy of the French.

Following Halo 3 revelations in a Swedish magazine at the end of October, now the French are at it - with more multiplayer information seeping out in the French Official Xbox Magazine.

Their preview, partially reported by IGN, reveals three new multiplayer modes - NinjaBall (about hanging onto a ball, obviously), TankFlag (where a tank carries the flag - they worked hard on these names y'know), and Elimination (where the idea is to kill off five opposing team members) - and confirms a 16-player limit.

There's also some more on the Spartan Laser mentioned in Sweden - apparently the vehicle-busting weapon's powerful application will be off-set by the need to lock on to the target by holding it in the sights for around three seconds before firing.

As for the "Man Cannon", which sounded like a sort of projectile bounce pad - apparently it will be possible to use it to fire explosive barrels and even vehicles in looping arcs over the battlefield. When a player uses it, they will be able to fire or be shot down as they zoom over the top.

Other new information includes some on the controls - with the Warthog and Ghost vehicles apparently handling similar to the way they do in Halo 2, and the control pad's X button as-yet unassigned (but destined for greatness no doubt).

The game's currently in the alpha stage of development, the preview added, with Bungie saying it'll be done "when it's ready".

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (22) Latest comment 5 years ago

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  • octo #1 5 years ago

    I believe the man cannon should have been called the purple headed custard thrower.

  • Xerx3s #2 5 years ago

    I wonder if it will be possible to 'mancannon' a 66 ton tank. Who would expect an aerial attack by a tank?

  • funkyd #3 5 years ago

    All hail the mighty X button!

    Tis the chosen one....
    Edited by 1 at 02/11/06 @ 09:17

  • Xerx3s #4 5 years ago

    The most logical thing would be that, when pressed, it auto detects yankee screamer kids & co and mutes them or kicks them out of the game.

    Another option would be that H3 features a build in 'standby' button considering that it was so popular in H2 but players had to resort to their router.

  • octo #5 5 years ago

    :-) @ Xerx3s

    Perhaps it's reserved for the single shot pistol scope?

    But I doubt it.

  • MadMirko #6 5 years ago

    The mancannon thing sounds like someone in Halo land likes Rocket Slime DS.

  • lambtron #7 5 years ago

    lol Disc,

    Its Halo - its always been a bit camp.

  • smoothpete #8 5 years ago

    I was hoping for more than 16 players to be honest

    There are some scans on xboxyde by the way

    [link url=http://www.x boxyde.com/news_3763_en.html
    ]http://www.x boxyde.com/news_3763_en.html
    [/link]

  • gizmo #9 5 years ago

    Bah, the vehicles should handle like the ones in the original Halo - they lost their 'weight' in Halo 2.

  • trevd72 #10 5 years ago

    only 16 players!!!!!! this is next gen so I want 32 player huge sprawling battles like battlefield 2!!!!!. Otherwise big team battle should be called not so big team battle.

  • AL7AIR #11 5 years ago

    16 players? That's a pretty low number compared to other console titles like Battlefield2: Modern Combat (24) or Resistance: Fall of Men (40) ... I was hoping for some BIG team action and vehicle madness like in the good old days with Tribes 2 on the PC :\

  • drivenstorm #12 5 years ago

    16 players is just fine. The problem is that it sounds great having 40 players online but the fact is most of them will quit before the game ends, act like arses and you probably won't be interacting with all of them anyway.

    Furthermore you would have issues with map design to accomodate large numbers - and those games won't be very common anyway. As Bungie has stated, 4 v 4 is the sweet spot and designing the maps around that is the most sensible thing to do.

  • morriss #13 5 years ago

    Alpha you say?

    March anyone?

  • BrokenSymmetry #14 5 years ago

    As long as Halo remains a peer-to-peer multiplayer game, 16 players will probably remain the maximum, because of memory limitations on the host console, and the limited upload speed that most console users have. Resistance can have a lot more players, because they use dedicated servers hosted by Sony.

    Edited by 1 at 02/11/06 @ 11:01

  • brooza #15 5 years ago

    Maybe it will come out for the PS3 launch, after all...

    Halo 3 Premium bundle (with Legendary version) for £250 in March...


    *crosses fingers*

  • peterfll #16 5 years ago

    If it's in Alpha you would expect it to be coming relatively soon, certainly possible within the next 6 months.

    The fact that all we've seen so far is a pretty short trailer suggests they're further away than this, or keeping their cards closer to their chests (they didn't for Halo 2, we had a load of media available for it a year+ before it's release).

  • BadBoyBonner #17 5 years ago

    Come on Bungie stop messing about an get this released, it's ready when it's ready is getting so long in the tooth.

    I mean must be third time lucky for hitting a PS3 launch day, even if it is only the European launch, let's crush the PS3 together! lol

    While I sneak off am go buy one for GT-HD as well as Halo 3 for my 360

  • AHiFi #18 5 years ago

    Xerx3s - 1up released an article clearing up some facts. I think the 'Man Cannon' can fire vehicles too - which I presume means tanks.

  • Lukus #19 5 years ago

    I hope to god the Man Canon is shaped like Master Chief's robotic schlong, else Bungie can forget me buying this.

  • Xerx3s #20 5 years ago

    Actually, maybe, just maybe, the x button gives you the option of weapon modification. Iirc, one of the dev's said that they where looking into a number of ways to enhance strategic weapon choice. I.e. an assault rifle could be combined with a scope, laser, etc.

    As for the Mp thing....

    40 players is....loads of ppl quitting early (including the server)
    40 players is....absolute lack of team play
    40 players is....massive deathmatch
    40 players is....a chance to stay on the phone the entire match while not affecting the outcome
    40 players is....possibly lot's of lag
    40 players is....huge levels that take ages to cross and give you lot's of dull moments
    40 players is....auto cap of the flag simply because you can't find the flag carrier.
    40 players is....20 people screaming in your headset at once.
    40 players is....impossibly strong defences in KotH (usually ending up with 20vs4)

    No, the only thing what massive player amounts are good for is massive mayhem in DM. I've played games that have the likes of 20+ players and they always fail. 4 vs 4 is optimal imo as it really forces a team to work together or fail.

    Don't think that's true? Then why does the BTB in H2 only account of 11% of the matches (and that's only 16 players)?

  • NegativeZero #21 5 years ago

    My hope is that the X button will become part of a proper dual-wielding system, rather than the shitty tacked-on way it was done in Halo 2.

    If i'm holding a one-handed weapon and I have another as my secondary, then I want to be able to press a button to pull out that secondary in my other hand. I want to be able to press that again to holster it so I can throw a grenade. The whole walk-over-it-and-press-x system is retarded.

  • Downside #22 5 years ago

    being at the bottom of a 16 entry score board is better than being at th ebottom of a 40 entry scoreboard :-)