Tonight, the Chinatown section of New York City played host to a bunch of media types as they became some of the first to play the upcoming multiplayer beta version of Halo 3 at a local nightclub. Yes, developer Bungie and publisher Microsoft plan to release the limited beta next week but FiringSquad got a chance tonight to get some early hands-on time with the beta and we came away very impressed indeed.

So you might be asking yourself, "So what have they changed in this version of Halo multiplayer compared to the first two games?" The answer, oddly enough, is not a lot in terms of the gameplay but a bunch of new weapons and items have been added to the mix this time around. You will still get the tried and true Halo weapons (dual wield machine gun, sniper rifle, rocket launcher and the like). but the new weapons we got to see and play with tonight. One is a new missile launcher that is massive and causes your player to move more slowly (along with switching your viewpoint to the third person) but it makes up for it with tracking missles that are ideal for vehicle takedowns. A tracking laser gun is another new addition. You point the laser at your target. The longer it stays on target, the more it charges up until you can fire a devastating blast. Another new weapon is the new grenade launcher that can take out enemies with just a few shots.

There's also a new duel wielded energy pistol that can cause huge damage if you are up close. One other new addition is in fact a refinment of a Halo 2 weapon. You saw gun turrets in that game that you could take over and use. In Halo 3 multiplayer not only can you fire gun turrets but you can take them off their perch and use it as a hand weapon a la Jesse "The Body" Ventura did in Predator ("I ain't got time to bleed.") Yet another new weapon is a flat land mine that you can place down on the ground. Yet again this is another nice way to take out a roaming Warthog. We were told that there are other multiplayer weapons planned that will not be in the beta and a couple of new single player weapons won't be use in multiplayer at all.

More important than the new weapons are the new items that you can have access to in the game. One is a portable grav-lift that when placed on the ground can lift players and event vehicles high up in the air (we can't wait to see the movies that uses this device). Yet another new item is the bubble shield. You saw it in action in that pre-rendenered trailer for Halo 3 several months ago. Bascially when placed and activated it creates a transparent shield around a large area. You and other players can walk through the shield but no weapons can be fired through it. The best new item we got to see is the energy drainer. When placed on the ground it creates an area that saps down a player's personal shield, making them easy pickings for a grenade or rocket attack.

We also got to see and play with the new one man Mongoose vehicle. This one man unarmed transport is perfect for getting to and from places on large maps but as you might expect it also can leave you vunerable to weapons fire. (the two man Warthog and the alien Ghost hover vehicle will also be in the Halo 3 beta) We got to play on the three maps that will be made available in the beta version. One, High Ground, is a small map set in a barren and ruined base camp but which has lots of cover (both natural and artifical). The second map, Vahalla, is a larger forest and river based map with Covanent emplacements. It definitely is the "eye candy" level that will make you just look around and go "Cool. Finally there is Snowbound, a large cold icy level with alien gun turrets that will fire and kill you automatically if you stray too far away.

So how is the gameplay? Like we said, if you played Halo 1 or 2 you know what to expect here. There's lots of running around, lots of jumping to avoid enemy fire and lots of flying up in the air as you die from a well timed rocket blast. However, the new items like the bubble shield and energy drainer do add more strategy to the game than previous Halo titles and we can't wait to see how experience multiplayer opponents uses these new features.As usual Bungie has given people access to a bunch of different gameplay modes from VIP (team based protect the designated player type) to Oddball (hold onto a human skull without getting killed) and custom modes like all rocket launcher matches or all sniper rifle games. Bungie has also implmented a new ranking system that combines both experience and skill points that should make looking for matches that have similar players a lot easier.

One neat additional feature that will be used in limited form in the beta is the new movie maker. Basically you can see your match from your point of view and then show off that demo movie to friends. It's currently limited to just your point of view without anything else but when Halo 3 is released this fall the movie maker will support things like different camera angles, fast forward, reverse and a bunch of other editing features.

It took a lot to get use to give up playing the beta version tonight (theres too many press folks and not enough demo stations) but we have been promised a beta key that we can use to play the beta again when we go home on Saturday so we may have some more info from the beta later this weekend.

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