Hawty McBloggy Invites You to Play

The water in Halo 3 is worthy of its own blog. It is beyond glorious and deserves to be revered, relished, and otherwise reveled in. I bet Frankie will join me on this journey. I will let him do the introduction.

From the 3/23/2007 Bungie Weekly Update :

There have been a few changes to water recently. The water tech has been handed off pretty much by the graphics programmers (often very artistic themselves) to the artists “proper” and they have been tweaking and tuning it in every level to make it more delicious. Honestly, I care about it more than they do because of my Rain Man style obsession with the stuff. One difference I noticed on High Ground is that as well as normal waves on the ocean, there are the mini-ripples of wind on the surface of the larger, tide-generated waves. A small detail, but a convincing one.

Even more convincing is the coloring and reflection work being done on the water surface. Water isn’t really clear and transparent until you’re looking directly down – at an angle, it’s a darker version of the blue of the sky, or picking up colors from rocks and trees reflected in it. But it was Joe Staten who spotted the best new water feature (I would describe him as about 85% less excited by it than me) which is a waterfall from a very early level, where the water flows smoothly and slickly over some big, smooth boulders, and then cascades more energetically down the larger drops – to end in a convincing mist and splash as it hits the main body of the river.

Have you played in the water yet? If you haven’t, I strongly recommend you gather a full party of 6 and go into Rumble Training with the agreement of exploring instead of killing. Veto until you get High Ground and let the fun begin.

Things to do :

• Shoot all the weapons into the water.
• Throw all the different grenades into the water.
• Watch a buddy walk around and jump in the water.
• Drive all the available vehicles in the water.
• Stop and look at the bubbles in the surf.
• Watch the waves lap against the shore.
• Spend an entire game having a friend kill you in the water and then listen to the underwater sound effects. Over and over.
• Watch your dead body float in the current.

I spent two entire games simply playing in the surf and watching how the water reacts to everything. To say it is beautiful is an understatement. To say it is simply stunning doesn’t even begin to describe it. One thing I still have on my list of things to do is to play in the waterfall on Valhalla. I have no doubt the experience will be just as amazing as it was on High Ground. *sets controller to vibrate in anticipation of the upcoming highly pleasurable waterfall experience

The Halo 3 Beta Series
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10