To be fair, while I did bring up the Theatre in this thread, I never claimed it to be innovative. It's just polished. Team Fortress/Source Engine Games don't have a replay function that's so simple to use and share with as Halo does. That's why I mentioned it; it's simple and effective.GIJED said:
In all honesty, it's also limited. That you can't rewind frame-by-frame can be frustrating, and the limit on saved pieces of media is worse. But even considering that, and considering that it's completely passive (as opposed to Source, where you must remember to activate it), I thought it worth a mention.
Oh, and with regards to Forge, it's amazingly intuitive relative to other level-editing suites for FPS (like SourceSDK). It's not a complete level designer, of course, but what's come out of such a limited suite is amazing. I once saw that someone had built the entire Millenium Falcon on the Foundry map. Rocket Race is a whole new gametype that's been created in Halo by the addition of the VIP race mode and Mongooses. A gametype I played had 300% speed, 50% gravity, infinite grenades and melee weapons only (sword/hammer). Called Gods of War, the gameplay was entirely different than standard Halo, with its own nuances and strategies. Such is hitherto unseen on Consoles. I fully recognize that Blizzard's StarEdit and WorldEdit programs have created more dramatic results (DotA, Tower Defense, etc), but that was on a PC and with an RTS. Also do I recognize TimeSplitters' impressive editing capacity. But to my knowledge, Free Radical never achieved the simplicity or community that Bungie have, which has resulted in a diverse and stunning array of creation.
That is why I brought up the Theatre. That is why I defended Forge. They are not the first of their kind, even on console. But they are to date the best.
Back to the multiplayer aspect, I've not seen a game that keeps stats as well as Halo 3 and http://bungie.net do. On console or on PC. I can keep track of a huge number of recent games I played (I have 448 that I can view; all of the games I've played), and have lifetime stats for each map, ranked or unranked, and even in the campaign. Kills with each weapon, personal heatmaps (kills and deaths), total medal count, achievements, all are recorded on the website for me to access at any given time. I can also download any of the last 30 screenshots I took, allowing me to transfer ingame screens to my PC. This I've never ever seen before on a console in any form, and it's something I personally value.
The only downside to Halo 3's multiplayer that hasn't been mentioned is what can happen if you're playing from outside of the US. I'm in Australia, on the west coast, and unless I set the game to "prefer good connection" by hitting X on the matchmaking screen, I'll suffer from hideous lag. And even when I have set the priority to good connection, I can still get some minor lag (which is more often than not unfortunate, but not game crippling) and must endure lengthened matchmaking times. It can take up to five minutes to get a game.
I don't really have anything else to add to this thread, but I would be interested to hear replies to my defense of Forge/Theatre and on my discussion of the website's functionality. I am aware that I come off as a fanboy here, but since we're discussing Halo 3's multiplayer, might as well discuss it completely, eh?
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