Throughout the Halo 3 Beta, GotFrag's own Halo coverage staff will be blogging about their experiences. JP "Moogle" McDaniel, Head of Halo Coverage, kicks it off with his first encounter with the Beta.

Moogle's Experiences
Wednesday - 6:30 a.m. Having been up all night in preparation for the beta being released at 7:00 a.m. CST, you would think I was tired. The anticipation of actually playing the famed Halo 3 Multiplayer Beta kept me going, but Bungie had other plans. Due to some technical mishaps I sat there and waited for the next 17 hours. I was pretty disgruntled, as was most of the community anxiously waiting for their chance to download the game through Xbox Live.

Wednesday - 11:15 p.m. And then it was released. The download took maybe an hour and a half, but I was not too worried about it due to the fact that I had the Spurs vs. Phoenix on TV (I live in San Antonio, you can guess who I was cheering for). To top it off Bungie gave everyone an extra couple of days on the Beta to play; more than enough to compensate for the 17 hours it was not available. But enough about the boring wait lets talk about the game.

The first thing you see when you load the Beta is the loading screen (obviously). Being the video-game geek that I am I was still impressed by the minimalistic approach Bungie took by just having the lines "Halo 3 Beta", "Loading" and the somewhat humorous "Love, Bungie". After the loading screen, the main menu pops up. The background is a trip around Valhalla, artfully done with the tranquil Halo theme playing. From here you can choose: "Play the Beta", "View a Film", or "Quit to Dashboard". Having waited all day long I picked option A, Play the beta.

From here you're immediately placed into a lobby and given an array of options within it. You can switch the lobby into "Theater" which allows you to watch games that you have saved. Then you have your standard Playlist choosing and, of course, "Start Matchmaking". One of the cool new things that they have added is the ability to bring up the options screen while still in a lobby. Simply by hitting the start button a side menu comes out and you can view your "Service Record", your file shares (video transfers that you are uploading/downloading), and your active transfers. Right next to this is the "Settings" Tab where you can change your controls, your voice, the appearance of your spartan avatar and your in-game Service Tag. Wait, What's a service tag you ask? A service tag is a one letter, two number tag that is always shown above your head in-game and allows for your teammates to easily distinguish you while in the heat of a battle.

Thursday - 12:45 a.m. Having waited almost all day I decided to just play the friggin' game and stop wading through all of the menus. I loaded up Team Slayer in the matchmaking and waited for the game to begin. One of the cool things now (I am not sure if this will be in the final release however, maybe just for the Beta for Bungie to collect information) but it shows you how many people are searching for the same matchmaking decision you are. Soon, the party fills up and the first thing I notice is the option to "Veto Map". Simply by pressing the "X" button your vote is cast and is shown on the screen. If the majority of the party decides to veto the map, then another selection is made, however this one cannot be vetoed. This is a rather cool choice due to the fact that if Team Rockets comes up on a map you can quickly veto it off and it will hopefully choose a different gametype, and not the same one on a different map.

The game starts and it is Team Slayer on Valhalla. I quickly looked around to get a glance at the scenery; I was in a state of awe. I have never seen a map in a multiplayer game as gorgeous as this. The water flowing through the level, the hills throughout the map, even the mountains at the edge of the maps were stunning. I quickly hop onto the "man-cannon" and I'm shot to the middle of the map right into the fray of battle. One of the first things I notice about combat in this game is that cover from different terrain comes into play a lot in the map; Valhalla especially. There are so many small 'bumps' in the map that you can duck behind to get out of bullet spray from your opponents.

After collecting a few kills and wandering around the map, I find myself on the far edge of the map where a turret is placed along the river side and a small hill with the bubble shield is sitting. I did not know that it was the bubble shield as first, but after picking it up I was as giddy as a schoolgirl and had to press X to try out the new equipment. The bubble shield spawns around me and once again I am in awe. It looks really amazing being inside of it and seeing the distorted view when looking through it. The equipment itself seems like it is going to be very important in competitive play because of the unique roles it can play during the fight: throwing down a bubble shield while in the middle of the map without cover for example.

One of the things I noticed in this first game is how well the weapons work within the game. The starting weapon, the Assault Rifle, works really well when you're immediately coming under fire from the enemy team. You are able to take down almost any opponent with whatever weapon he or she chooses, save for a select few power weapons.

There have also been some changes to many of the weapons. The Battle Rifle / Plasma Pistol combo, also known as the "Noob Combo", is not as powerful. The Plasma Pistol no longer tracks enemies as well as it did in Halo 2 and the Battle Rifle offers less precision shots at long distances, but is still very strong in mid-range fights. One new thing that the Plasma Pistol does offer however is that it can temporarily disable vehicles. This might come in very useful on a map such as Valhalla with an incoming Warthog.

Halo 3 seems to have a plethora of power weapons. The Spartan Laser, the Sniper Rifle (including the Covenant Beam Rifle) and even the Needler can be considered some of them.

The Spartan Laser seems like a weapon that will be surrounded by many fights because it offers long range precision shots with a one shot kill. It takes quite some time to charge up to deliver a shot. If you're being charged by an enemy with an AR for example, this is not the weapon you want to pull out and switch to due to the fact that 95% times that I have tried I have always been killed by the AR right as the laser is about to go off.

The Sniper Rifle offers some minor tweaks from Halo 2. There is now a bigger kick back after firing a shot, so much that if you are zoomed in you must aim down again in order to hit an opponent. Also, in Halo 2 you were able to fire a full clip very quickly. In Halo 3, there is some delay after firing a shot so you cannot quickly take an opponent out if you miss the first shot or do not land a head shot.

Finally, the Needler. In Halo 2 the Needler was rarely used in competitive play. However it is different this time around with Halo 3's Needler. The spikes were given a damage boost and now only 8-10 needles are needed for a kill. Because of this damage boost however, the weapon can no longer be duel wielded.

As far as competitive play is concerned, many of the top professional players I have played with thus far use the Carbine Rifle as their choice weapon. It is the most accurate weapon delivering a quick death if all shots were headshots. It also has a fast reload time as well as being able to fire a full clip rapidly.

In only one night of play it was quite an experience. I'll continue this blog throughout the course of the beta, updating it with information the more I play.