You have, by now, been flooded with images, video, Q&As, interviews, stories about Halo 3, heck, I wouldn't be surprised if not a few of you have even been playing the beta for the 360 shooter. But I still wanted to take a second to jot down my early thoughts after playing with the multiplayer beta of the game for more then a few hours last night.

Initially, I was blown away by the game. I liked the way it looked and felt, I LOVED the new touches, the new weapon tweaks, the new equipment. But that luster started to erode quickly as the night slipped by.

The first to go was my appreciate for the game's look. There is no, absolutely no anti-aliasing in the game currently and when viewed on a large high-definition television that equates to fields of jagggy hills, jaggy palm fronds blowing in the wind, even jaggie weapons and snow. Initially, it didn't bother me that much, but my irritation grew as I played it and it become less and less possible for me to ignore the harsh graphic lines.

The weird thing is that overall the game looks pretty good, it's just those jaggies, especially when played in a split-screen mode, that got to me.

Then, after playing the game for hours on end, I started to realize (I'm a slow learner) that the game was essentially a blending of the best of Halo and Halo 2 with a bit added on to tweak gameplay and make it feel different. I suppose I shouldn't have been expecting them to re-invent the wheel, but it would have been nice to see some sort of shift in gameplay, something that Halo 3 most certainly doesn't do.

I can understand why they didn't want to mess too much with a winning formula, and might not be as noticeable once the game hits retail. I do like that they've added this ability to record playback of your favorite matches and play them or upload them for later viewing. I suspect that's a much bigger deal than people realize.

The problem is that while their are new weapons and substantial changes to old weapons, the game is essentially the same at its heart. It would have been nice if there were more additions like the force walls that you can walk through but no shoot through. That changes the way you play those areas of the game. As does the bubble shield and the power drainer.

Of course the big deal, I think, to a lot of Halo fans will actually be the single player experience. Odd for a shooter, but it's the plot of this last in the trilogy that will make or break Halo 3. Brian Crecente