So some of you may have heard of this little game trying to make a splash onto the gaming scene called Halo 3. All jokes aside, Halo 3 is probably the most anticipated game in history, and most of you are wondering if it will deliver on all the promises it has. The answer is clear once you turn on your 360, yes it does.Bungie, the game development team behind Halo, has said all along that Halo 3 will not only finish one fight, but it will finish all the fights you started back in Halo 1. And by gone that’s exactly what they did. Halo 3 starts exactly where Halo 2 left. Master Chief is returning to Earth which is under attack from the alien assembly known as The Covenant. The story arc in Halo 3 is a fine balancing act. It leaves you with a great sense of closure in the story, but it also leaves you wondering what could possibly happen next.
Halo 3’s campaign mode will take you through nine different chapters as you work your way through the story line. You can play through these chapters on the 4 difficulty levels provided: easy, normal, heroic or legendary. The default setting for anyone who has played the previous Halo games or has had experience with first person shooters should be heroic. Through the nine chapters you will see quiet a large variety of environments you will be playing in. You get to see some jungle scenery, snow, desert, more mechanical stuff, cities, the list goes on. All these different environments really help immerse you into the game. The core game play in Halo 3 remains familiar to all players yet at the same time, throws new objects into the sandbox that enable the game to take on new mechanics to the way it is played.
One of the biggest changes to the game play is a new thing called equipment. Activated with the press of the X button, the player is able to throw out various equipment. These pieces of equipment include. The bubble shield, which is the most common piece of equipment in the game, which forms a protective bubble completely surrounding you that bullets or explosions cannot penetrate, but anyone can walk right through it. The power drainer which when throw drains an enemy’s shields or when thrown at you drains your own. The regenerators creates a small glowing field, and as long as you are standing in the field your shields constantly recharge. There are others such as the radar jammer, or the flare which is the equivalent to a flash grenade, or the deployable cover. To obtain these pieces of equipment you will have to kill your enemies in the campaign who are carrying them. Throughout the game your enemies will use the equipment they are holding especially on the higher difficulties like heroic and legendary. You will come across instances in the game where the enemy uses the equipment in intelligent ways. For instance you just through down a regenerator, but the Brute Chieftain you are facing just through a power drainer at you which cancels the regenerators effect. However for the most part the enemies will mostly use bubble shield thrown out when they have lost most of their shield or when you are attacking from a great distance. Equipment seems to be more suited to the multiplayer side of the game, where players can use all different types of equipments against there enemies in both smart and annoying ways, and yes I am talking about teammates who throw flares at their own team.
Halo 3 introduces a hand full of new weapons that really add to the games experience. There are now weapons that the newly in charge brutes have brought to the table. Weapons like the brute spiker, which is a dual wieldable weapon that shoots, you guessed it, spikes. When the spikers are dual wielded they are really a force to be recon with and can just tare guys apart. The brute mauler is also dual wieldable. This weapon is the brutes answer to the shotgun. Slightly less powerful then the human shotgun, but when dual wielded, becomes a strong combination. A sure crowd pleaser is the Spartan laser. It takes 3 seconds to charge up then releases a thunderous laser pulse, which is a one hit kill against human or vehicle. While there are a lot of new entries, all of your old favorites are still there. The battle rifle, the assault rifle, the sword all make their way back into the game. It really is a nice balance between old and new. All new to the game this year is the idea of support weapons. These weapons are things like the machine gun turret or the plasma turret, or yes the flamethrower. The turrets placed in the game are now able to be broken away from their standing and carried around with the player. This pulls the camera out to a third person view. When carrying these weapons the players movement speed is reduced but at the same time makes him a powerful force because the weapons are so powerful.In Halo 2 we were introduced to dual wielding. Well in Halo 3 it is downplayed significantly. It seems Bungie is trying to go back to the formula of guns grenades and melee. With dual wielding two of three were taken out of the equation. But now they are brought back which really changes up the way players use grenades and melee as apposed to in Halo 2.
Along side weapons, Bungie has also thrown in some new vehicles. The brute Prowler is the equivalent to the warthog but with the gunner in front. But probably the best addition to the whole game vehicle speaking is the brute chopper. This is the equivalent to one tough bad-ass riding round the street in a Harley. If anything gets in the chopper’s way it will be destroyed. This includes people and vehicles. It also had twin cannons on each side which deliver a powerful blow.
In previous Halo games you have been able to play through the campaign with a friend over local co-op play. Halo 3 raises the stakes allowing up to four players to play the same game simultaneously. Also you can do it all over Xbox Live. This really sets the bar high for other shooters to follow. As you can expect though, when playing with other friends, the games difficulty seems less extreme, and this can cause the entire game even on legendary difficulty to be played through in roughly 6 hours.While playing with yourself or with your friends, you can turn on something called the meta-game. What it does is keeps score of all the things you do throughout the campaing, and yes there are achievements linked to getting a high score. Basically you can play individuals scores to see who is getting the most kills or doing the coolest things, or you can have a team score to see how high you can really get.
Throughout the game there are these hidden objects called skulls. Yes skulls have appeared in previous Halo games, but in Halo 3 they seem to be more flushed out. Once you pick up a skull, if you can find them, what it does is unlock additional game play tweaks that can be accessed in the main menu. These tweaks include making enemies have a health bonus, grenades get thrown twice as often, one actually stops drawing your H.U.D. These tweaks along side the meta-game really make the game have a lot of replay value in the campaign mode.
Without giving too much away the game also offers the chance to dig deeper into the Halo universe through things called terminals. These are scattered throughout the game and offer more information about the mysterious race known as the Forerunners.
All of these elements combined really make the Halo 3 campaign feel deeper and ultimately a bigger experience then the pervious titles. However good the campaign may be there are still faults. Some people will still be a little annoyed at levels where you have to back track through it without any opposition to face. Marines can not drive vehicles to save their lives or in this case your life. The games length is also another consideration. With about 9 – 10 hours of game play it might leave you wanting more. But there is always the meta-game and skulls to make a different experience when played through again.
The graphics in Halo 3 are improved from those of Halo 2. Although not drastically in the multiplayer, the campaign provides two graphical greatnesses. The lighting in Halo 3 is probably the best lighting you will see in a video game. If you are coming from an indoors structure and step out into a bright area outside, it will take a second for the light to adjust. The light reflections off all the objects in the game is just spectacular and really makes it seem more realistic. Secondly Bungie does a very good job of explosions. The explosions are colorful and seemingly random which really adds to the flavor of the game. Another worthy note is the water system. Completely interactive and realistic. It really adds to the realism. The scenery also looks beautiful, although it may not have microscopic details; it still has a way of awing the gamer.The multiplayer in Halo 3 is fairly similar to that of Halo 2’s. It seems that Bungie definitely stuck with a formula that worked. The multiplayer offers 11 maps out of the box, all of which are very good. You will see some remakes of older maps but for the most part they are new and fantastic. Some maps are going to be more popular than other all thanks to the inclusion of the man cannon. The man cannon replaces the teleporter, and actually sends you flying through the air to your new position. If you’re a really good player you will be able to pick guys off while flying across the map, but if you really suck you will find yourself getting taken out in mid flight. Also making its first time to Halo is the inclusion of the Infection game type which was a popular custom game in Halo 2 which followed unwritten rules, but now thanks to Bungie players are can battle the zombies with a set game type.
The multiplayer customization option is where Halo 3 really breaks away from Halo 2. Yes in Halo 2 you could customize a few things in your games but Halo 3 takes it to the next level. You can set the gravity, the player speed, you can designate team leaders who have different characteristics. There really is no end to the different types of games you can come up with.
For the first time in the Halo trilogy, you can customize how your Spartan or elite looks online through things called armor permutations. These permutations are unlocked through achievements and really allow you to make a look for yourself online.All new to the Halo series this year, is something called Forge. On the surface forge doesn’t seem like that great of an addition. It’s a map editor that doest actually allow you to edit the geometry of the level. In turn it ables you to change weapon placements, spawn point, and add any object you want to the map. Pressing up on the D-Pad turns you into a monitor who can fly around the map and actually do the editing. It’s really cool to see what kind of crazy things you can do with the forge. Set off a chain reaction of fusion coils that never slows down, hit a rocket out of the air with the gravity hammer or try to make your own professional version of CTF to have others play on. Forge mode doesn’t just limit you to creating a map, you can also have a game in the forge. Say there is a tank barreling down on you. But you buddy throws you a bubble shield. Now you are completely protected against him. Then you get a Spartan laser, and you take him out. This kind of play really makes the forge mode fun and unpredictable and you will probably end up having a lot of unintentional fun with it.
Of course when something really awesome happens, whether it be in campaign, multiplayer, or forge, Halo 3 enables you to go back and watch it happen again thanks to saved films in the theater. Saved films actually save all of your recent game play to enable you to go back and watch, take screen shots, make movies, or send it to your friend who you just killed. Saved films really bring trash talking to the next level. Because it’s not I just shot you in the head from across the map, it’s I just shot you in the head from across the map in slow motion. The films can also be used to study strategy or even too look for skulls around one of the campaign levels. Really, saved films just add to the ever expanded Halo 3. However there are some set backs. You cannot make videos when viewing a campaign film, and the rewind button does not work exactly how you would hope it to, not to mention you can’t rewind in campaign footage at all. But besides all that, it is a really nice feature.
Thanks to Bungie’s official website, you are always able to check your stats in a really deep way that you couldn’t with Halo 2. Also you can post and share all of your videos, screenshots, map variants and game types on the web page which really opens up the community and enables everyone to share their greatest creations.On the surface, Halo 3 might not seem that different from Halo 2. It has a campaign, multiplayer then there are these forge and saved film things that don’t really look like much. But when you roll all of this together, it really comes together in a great package. Although it might not be perfect, Halo 3 really offers a fantastic campaign, one of the best story lines available, tons of replay value, one of the best multiplayer platforms around, and the great custom options in forge mode along with saved films. Halo 3 is one of the years best and a must have for any gamer.
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OVERALL: 9.5/10
Game Play: 9.5/10
Graphics: 9.0/10
Sound: 9.3/10
Presentation: 9.5/10
Value: 9.8/10
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