WATER WORKS
This map is absolutely massive, by far the biggest of the five we played, and definitely the best suited for 16-player team games where tactics and planning are your most effective weapons. It's a huge, deep cavern separated by a bottomless crevice. A bridge spans the void and connects two installations (presumably the Water Works) set at opposite corners of the map.
It could be Earth, but it could be a totally different planet; perhaps the Moon, which has been rumoured to be a location in Halo 2's Campaign Mode.
It's certainly dark, so suddenly stealth tactics become extremely valuable. The level ceiling is also extremely high, which allowed us to hop into Banshees and try out some aerial dog fighting. Speaking of, vehicles feature heavily on Water Works. We saw Spartan Warthogs and Scorpions, and Covenant Wraiths, Banshees and the new Phantom. We had a shot of this huge beast, and while it's not too fast it'll terrify a bunch of enemies when you swoop down on them with plasma cannons blazing.
You can pretty much write off Slayer on this map as the sheer size makes it difficult to even find an enemy. Assault and Capture the Flag are the reasons for hitting up the Water Works. The level throws up some cool problems - should your team storm the bridge and risk getting cut to shreds by a defensive force, or split up, dissolve into the darkness, and find more stealthy ways across?
(And for the record, I ended up picking up the Xbox version of BO3. Still, both the motion blur and the spark effects on the PS2 version are slightly nicer. No need to bust my balls for noticing.)
