This is, after all, the second pack Halo 3 has offered to gamers since release. The first was the Heroic Map Pack, released in December last year and recently made free to download. In a sense, the Heroic Pack can be seen as more of a parallel to the Call of Duty 4 pack - it was fresh, it felt new to the game, and it added some much needed variety and spice to an online scene whose nooks and crannies had finally all been found. The maps were markedly different from those that came in the stand-alone game: Rat’s Nest brought a strong, indoors vehicle focus, Standoff an almost team tactical element, and Foundry redefined the extremes that Forge editing could reach.
The Legendary Map Pack, then, presents a different proposition. The three maps contained in the download can best be described as the results of a developer, completely at home with their game and online scene, flexing their design muscle.
Lockout has been given a major visual overhaul in Blackout.
The first map in the pack is Blackout, a remake of Lockout from Halo 2. The map isn’t so much a remake as it is a re-skinning - there has been very little done to change the way the map played and flowed in Halo 2. This is a good thing. The map was always a classic, as even though it was quite small the multilevel approach meant that it felt big enough to hide and surprise other players. This general sense of gameplay has carried over to Blackout, and even some of the little tricks hardcore players figured out after hours with Lockout still work. That’s not to say the experience will be the same, though. The map has been subject to some serious visual updating. It now takes place on a weather station in the Arctic, and there is a large amount of visual detail in the map - from the wind sock on the top of a tower to the basketball hoop (great for grenade practice) inside a building. New players - or at least, those who missed Halo 2’s multiplayer - will love the depth of strategy Blackout offers, and veteran players will get a kick out of seeing an old love in new clothes. Still, you have to admit that Blackout was hardly a necessary addition, especially in its unchanged form, as Guardian was already largely seen as a Lockout for the Halo 3 generation.
Avalanche retains Sidewinder's vehicle emphasis, but evens things up for foot-soldiers.
The second map in the pack, Avalanche, is another remake. This time, the original map in question is the epic Sidewinder, from the original Halo: Combat Evolved. Another fan favourite, the map fills a bit of a hole that Halo 3 had when it came to very large-scale combat. Sure, Sandtrap is about the largest map you’ll see in a console shooter, but Avalanche now gives variety. In this case, the look of the map has been kept roughly the same. It’s still icy, it’s still snowy - only now, you’ll walk down a slight slope to get to the apex of the U-bend in the map, and beyond that bend there are no towering ice walls, but instead, an enormous drop. The gameplay, however, has received quite a few tweaks in the upgrade. There is still the strong vehicle focus of Sidewinder (perhaps even more so, as this is the only map to have Scorpions and Hornets - minus their rocket launchers - by default), but now the designers have added a few nuances to make it a little easier if you’re unlucky enough to go by foot. The most obvious? Huge man cannons. Now, if you missed that Scorpion tank when you spawned in, the easiest way to hit the centre of the battlefield is not the teleport-and-walk method of Halo 2, but the land-on-the-enemy’s-face method of the man cannon. There are several placed through the map, and most are easily accessible. They can be used for devious purposes as well - we had fun launching our Ghost into one of the usually on-foot only enclosures and witnessing the carnage that followed. There are now some advantages to going by foot, as well, as the designers have scattered Halo 3’s most overpowered weapons throughout the map for vehicle-destroying goodness.
In Ghost Town, enemy fire can come from anywhere.
The final map, and the only wholly original one in the pack, is Ghost Town. Fan excitement for this map has been low compared to the other two relatively known quantities, however, in our estimation, Ghost Town is the best addition to Halo 3’s vaults. Set in an abandoned water facility, the map looks decidedly spooky and uninhabited - perfect for a firefight. Gameplay-wise, the best way to describe Ghost Town is that it is a small map gone large. It has the tight, twisty corridors of many smaller Halo 3 maps, and the small enclosed hide points, but everything is elongated to provide plenty of ranged combat. In development, it was apparently called “the Counter-Strike map,” and it shows. It’s very much an urban warfare design, and it works very well to add a new variety of map to the game.
All three maps have their own unique Forge items, of course, and players will no doubt be able to change the flows of each map significantly with only small alterations. Most interestingly of all, however, is that Bungie included so-called Forge filters with the Legendary Map Pack. These are placed like any other object and make visual adjustments to the overall look of the game. These effects range from pretty standard black & white (Colorblind) and sepia tones (Old Timey) to more advanced photoshop style effects (Pen & Ink). These aren’t restricted to aesthetics alone - the Nova effect makes everything as hazy as an 80s video clip, and renders distance fighting near impossible. There’s also Juicy, which gives the lights and darks more emphasis, and Gloomy, which the design team labelled the Gears of War effect. These filters are an interesting addition, and we can’t wait to see some of the screenshots, let alone the machinima that will come as a result.
Overall, the Legendary Pack is a very solid addition to Halo 3’s multiplayer, and really shows how much of a handle Bungie has on their game. Each map is considered, and will fit in nicely with the pre-existing maps available. That said, however, the Legendary Pack won’t set your mind alight and won’t mark a life-changing event in your Halo 3 play. It’s a good addition, and at 800 Microsoft points (about AU$14), adequately priced. But it isn’t a must-have addition to the game, and, we imagine, won’t knock Call of Duty 4 off the top of the charts. The Legendary Map Pack is released this Tuesday, the 15th of April.
- being legendary map pack only i think im going go get some microsoft points
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