Post Halo 3 Beta Reminder

Now that the Halo 3 Beta is all over and done with, never to return, don't forget to clean it and your Halo 3 Beta videos off your harddrive! I was able to clear about 1.5 gigs.

If you entered the beta through Crackdown, the beta will be listed under Crackdown in your Memory. But any films you saved to your harddrive will be listed under the seperate category of Halo 3 Beta.

Halo 3 Beta Says Farewell

So last night the Halo 3 beta ended. I was able to get an hour or two in yesterday before I packed it up. If you did see me online yesterday "playing Halo 3 beta" it was mostly because I was recording the videos to my camera. I've got some decent video which includes some great grenade work from Charlie, an awesome sniper shot from Shayne, and some great killings from Nova. I would have included Andy and Santana, but they did split screen and I just didn't want to deal with that. Plus I think Andy already saved his. I also have my first game recorded as well as a couple of custom matches where the speed and super jump were turned on. Custom games were some of the dullest games I've ever played on Halo.

I tried logging onto the beta this morning to find the Shadowrun message. You can still log into the beta with Crackdown, but you can only get to the main screen. There's no option for the theater to watch your movies.

According to the Bungie forums, some fans played past the beta in custom matches. Some questioning if they should leave their 360 on and logged into that particular lobby.

In the end the Halo 3 beta was an awesome experience with the final release a little more than 3 months away. I'm excited to see how the final version plays with custom armor, new weapons, new vehicles, new maps, and a campaign story that I can't wait to see resolved. My videos will keep my Halo fix in check until then as well as the comic book series that starts next month. Until then I guess I'll play some Shadowrun or better yet Monster Madness was a great demo.

XYBA Podcast 08

Episode 08 is out. We finally had schedules that permitted this almost hour long podcast about Halo 3 beta and those other games whose names escape me. The sound is getting better, but I need to stop eating my mic. My apologies. Andy did try to tell me, but I didn't realize I was that annoying. We'll get the next one right. Here's the breakdown.

00:00 - Introductions with Josh, Andy, and Chuck
01:00 - Games that we're playing
05:50 - Command and Conquer 3: Mission Impossible
07:21 - Halo 3 Beta impressions :|: Rick Ross
13:35 - Simcity 2000 :|: Onslaught Review
14:38 - Games Tori's Playing
15:11 - Gaming News :|: World Series of Video Games July 29th, Legend of Zelda II: Adventures of Link coming to VC, Wiimote has a voice translator, GoW Novel, Analyst predict GTA IV will be pushed back, Guitar Hero III Battle Mode, Prince of Persia movie, games moving to other consoles rumors squashed, and more.
28:09 - Bumpers bites Andy and Charlies thumbs hurt from holding the mic. Hold this Charlie *Josh grabs his huge junk*
33:00 - Round Table Discussion about casual gaming and how it affects console gaming then we go off on a tangent about movies translating into games and games translating into movies.
43:20 - A bug flies off of Chuck's face
43:42 - Games we are looking forward to: Simcity on DS, Spore, Fracture, Bioshock, Mass Effect, Manhunt 2 on the Wii
50:04 - No rants this week
50:47 - Shoutouts
51:06 - LAN Parties a thing of the past?
54:59 - Outro Music by Grant while we discuss more Halo 3 Beta



Download XYBA Podcast Ep08

Halo 3 Beta Extended

In an effort to appease upset gamers, Bungie and Microsoft have extended the end date of the Halo 3 beta. Now, instead of ending June 6th, the beta will end on June 10th 11:59 PM PST. That's four extra days! Hooray!

This will give me a chance to show the beta to my friend Will when I'm up in Pennsylvania.

See how I'm updating the blog because my beta download is taking forever while Josh and Charlie are both playing without me!

How to Get Halo 3 Beta to Download

You need to clear the cache on your 360. Here are the steps.

1. Go to the system blade and then select memory.
2. Press Y on the HD symbol and then press X,X,Left Bumper, Right Bumper, X,X.
3. Once you do this a messsage will appear saying: Do you want to perform maintenance on your Xbox 360 storage devices?
4. Hit Yes
5. Go into Crackdown
6. Go to Download Content and Select Halo 3 Beta
   

Edit by Jester013:

And here's some photo evidence that Josh is telling the truth.

Halo 3 Beta Guide

Tonight was the final episode of the Gilmore Girls an annoying show on the CW. It was also the night that Bungie released the Halo 3 Beta Guide. Check it out for the following:

• Getting Started
• Controls and Voice
• Matchmaking and Parties
• Saved Films and File Share
• Halo 3 Beta FAQ
• Halo 3 Networking FAQ
• Identity and Appearance
• Weapons and Vehicles
• Equipment
• The Maps

Enjoy the Halo and rejoice that there is no more annoying Lorelai and Rory. Boo yaka.

Halo Stuff

So Luke is at Bungie now and got to post his first post for the weekly update. The Bungie site now shows how many people are playing Halo 3 (over 1000 as of right now), also it shows how many Halo 2 games have been played in the last 24 hours (over 400,00 as of right now).

The Friends and Family invites went out today. I checked my Bungie private message section and found no invite. It must be from all the ball kissing I talked about.

A new Halo novel is coming out this fall. It is titled Halo: Contact Harvest and is written by Joseph Staten, the writer of Halo:CE and Halo 2. So it should be interesting to see a story coming straight from the creators.

Bungie released a video showing gameplay of the Halo 3 beta. I've posted it below. Also Bungie has posted a bunch of new screen shots. The missile pod looks pretty cool. I know Eric is just as excited as I am.

There is also a new Halo 3 Beta forum section. Some things mentioned on the forums: needler rocks and makes a good weapon, one guest is allowed, crouching is faster than Halo 2 so teabagging is easier, the game films are saved to the harddrive or to file share and the user determines the amount of space to allocate for this, and slow downs with downloading the game. Seems like the 16th we won't be playing as much as we'll be downloading.

XYBA Podcast 07

So we are up to our 7th episode now. I got a mixer and we have 4 mics, but the audio still sucks. I think I got phased out because my audio is really low for having my own mic. We recorded it at Chuck's place. Here's the breakdown.

00:00 - Intros with Josh, Andy, Eric, Charlie, and Grant
00:42 - Games that we're playing: Princess Peach on DS, Halo 2, LOTR online, GoW, Paper Mario, Guitar Hero II, Hotel Dusk, America's Army, and Farcry
04:17 - News which is mainly 360 news
27:47 - Roundtable about fanboys
44:00 - Slamming controllers
44:40 - PS3 Home Beta Invites: Chuck didn't get in
46:10 - Games We're Looking Forward To
53:15 - Counter Strike
54:20 - No Rants
55:00 - Gaming Magazines and their contribution to gamers
59:25 - Shout Outs and Satan makes an appearance
1:01:00 - Outro



Download XYBA Podcast Ep07

Halo 3 Zanzibar Video Leak

Gametrailer.com has a 7 minute video of the Halo 3 beta build. The level is a Zanzibar remake that looks great. You can see the bubble shield in action which looks different than the huge ring we've seen in the docuvid from Bungie. Here's the link http://www.gametrailers.com/umwatcher.php?id=59795.

Lets just hope that music isn't in the final build.

Bungie Announces Halo 3 Beta Date

You read that right, Eric. Bungie has announced that May 16th is the day to start testing the Halo 3 beta. It will include 3 maps, Valhalla, High Ground and Snowbound in matchmaking only. Other features include:

• Enhanced Online Functionality
• New Class of Weapons, Grenades, and Vehicles
  
• It Will Include the X-Button Functionality
• A Lot of Secret Features

There is also a new docuvideo that apparently shows what the x-button does. I'll post an edit to this once I see it. Enjoy.

Edit: I watched the video and it appears that the X-button will either activate the bubble shield, which by the way looks too big for the MC to be carrying, or a new exploding device called the trip mind. Basically you drop a bomb on the ground that if someone walks or drives on it goes boom. They demonstrated it as a way to prevent people from running players over. No Elite skins were used at all in the video.

Oh, by the way, Charlie's birthday is like May 15th or 16th, so keep that in mind when you're thinking of the Halo 3 beta date.