Is the hype about this game truly indicative of what you\'re going to be playing?
Well, I\'m afraid not. Before the fanboys begin to flood the site and start bashing my review, let me explain.
Halo 3 has been hyped by all means imaginable. From Xbox360 styles, to a helmet with the game to tournaments and more. With all this hype I can pretty much guarantee you Halo fanboys across the world are going to be singing praises of Halo 3. Now, I\'ll tell you right off the bat that I\'m not here to bash Halo 3, but to give you a down to earth review of the game from my standpoint. First, don\'t go calling in sick to work just so you can wait in line to buy this game and rush home to play it. Here is why...
I absolutely adore a good FPS. Who doesn\'t? I was excited about Halo 3 as much as you were. With that excitement in mind, when I got it, I called ekiM (forum profile) over to partake in some Halo 3 celebration. We popped in the disc, signed on and began our adventure.
We immediately felt comfortable with the controls as with both having previous Halo experience. One of the beauties of Halo 3 is that you can play co-op with one or more people. In any event, we were off. Something we immediately noticed was how often there was a checkpoint. We crossed several checkpoints and never once encountered an enemy of any sort. This is both good and bad I suppose. It\'s fantastic if you\'re stuck on a difficult area and don\'t want to wade through the entire level again but on the same hand it does make gameplay much shorter.
Another thing that shortened gameplay overall we found is that if you\'re playing co-op as we were if one person dies, all you had to do was simply run back to a safe area and your downed partner would regenerate. Not only would you regenerate with full health but a full arsenal as well. Just as with the checkpoints we found this to be both a good and bad thing. It was fantastic in the way of supporting the co-op gameplay but it drastically reduced the overall time we would be playing this game as we found out. It wasn\'t long before we figured out how to use this to our advantage. As I was the first player, I was assigned to be Master Chief. When I found myself running low on ammo all ekiM and I did was retreat to an area of safety and have him kill me. Presto, I was back with full health and ammo. It wasn\'t long before we capitalized on this leap-frogging kill each other for renewed ammo idea.
As we went through we both commented on how the game looked overall. The texture detail was amazing. We did play on a 1080i resolution. Even on a standard TV you should see a noticeable difference from the previous version compared to this one.
Halo 3 introduced a few new weapons and a few new vehicles. Now I\'ve read several reviews already in which they boasted on how many new weapons and vehicles there are. Simply put, there are not that many, only a few. Most of the new weapons were fun to play with for a short while. I constantly found myself reverting back to my default machine gun while playing as Master Chief. ekiM on the other hand playing as Arbiter couldn\'t wait to pick up something new. We jokingly made references to Men In Black how he was almost given a Noisy Cricket to use while I was given a chain gun. Obviously some exaggeration there, but you get the point.
We did look forward to hopping on a Warthog and unleashing a barrage of lead on anyone that stood in our way. It seemed we were always better off paired up together in vehicles. On several occasions we tried splitting up and letting an AI driver take us for a tour. That\'s pretty much what happened. We got some nice tours and found ourselves yelling at the driver to head to where the objective is instead of down some untraveled path that led to nowhere. It wasn\'t long before we gave up on that concept and re-joined forces.
One of the new features in this game was the ability to pick up and use items. Some of the items consisted of a shield, a health regeneration field and more. Playing Halo 3 in single player you might find yourself using these more often. As we played through the entire game on co-op I\'d say the number of times we used these were very minimal.
The enemy\'s AI performed rather well. We found ourselves being flanked on numerous occasions and if not for the radar display would have certainly received more damage. We were equally able to use flanking to our advantage as well. Numerous times I had ekiM attack a group of enemies in essence laying down a suppressive fire while I snuck around from the side and let loose holy hell.
Some levels of Halo 3 we literally completed in less than thirty minutes while others took us well over an hour to complete. It all depended on the complexity of each level.
No matter the level we played, each seemed pretty linear. Never once did we find ourselves lost or trying to figure out which way to go.
The audio in Halo 3 is superbly done. It was nice to hear the tempo increase and decrease as you progressed through a level and/or encountered resistance. It was completely different than what you\'d expect from a FPS in a good way.
We started playing Halo 3 at 9PM and were finished by 2AM. That brings us from beginning to end a whopping five hours of gameplay? Five hours!!?!? You\'ve got to be kidding me! All this hype about how well this game is going to be and you give me five hours!? Granted, we played on co-op on the standard difficulty and I\'m sure by playing co-op we had it easier. So let\'s tack on an extra two hours to be generous while playing single player. A seven hour single player mode? I\'m sorry, I don\'t care how good the multi-player is. If I\'m going to purchase a game, I want it to be longer than five to seven hours of gameplay for the single player campaign mode.
Halo 3 in my opinion was a disappointment. Sure the co-op and multi-player were fun but it really felt as if I was playing a spruced up version of Halo 2 with some extra weapons and vehicles.
A game of the year this is not. If you\'re looking for a good FPS check out Bioshock and Our Review of it. As having played Bioshock myself, I can pretty much say definitively that you\'ll get more bang for your buck out of Bioshock in a single player mode than Halo 3. Sorry to disappoint, but Halo 3 doesn\'t remotely live up to the hype that has been put behind it.
Follow up by: Julian Moorer
A single man has taken us all in. Maybe more than a man. An icon, a hero, maybe even a God. We have never seen his face. We have rarely heard his voice. As a matter of fact, very little is known about the man they call Master Chief. Still, the third and final (?) chapter in his saga made an entire nation take pause.
Halo 3 is upon us.
I’ve always been a Sony man myself, so I’ve never been sucked into the Halo-hype like others have. Don’t get me wrong; had I owned a 360, I’d probably been out there camping out with the rest of the fanatics, thrill seekers and all around fanboys. Instead, me and a buddy of mine plugged up his Xbox, and held our breath for the plethora of awe and excitement that commercials, previews, and forums promised the game would bring.
We had to be resuscitated.
This doesn’t mean the third installment is boring. Not by a long shot. Bungie keeps with the tried and true method of placing Master Chief in seemingly un-winnable battles, with limited ammo, waning grenades, and the little annoying Grunt things. The game is noticeably more difficult than its predecessors. We decided to be bold, and set the game on Legendary to start with. By the time we got to the second level, I was having flashbacks to Halo 1’s final level, The Maw. Yes people, it gets that bad very early. Turning corners too fast meant getting sniped. Slyly taking out said sniper and stopping to scout the area resulted in getting sniped. Hell, I think there was a time I respawned and got sniped.
This isn’t to say the game was impossible. As a matter of fact, an average player could probably ace the game in less than a day. Halo 3 offers a bunch of tweaks that you wish you’d have had in the first two games, including a ridiculous amount of check points, and full ammo whenever you died. Naturally, abiding by the Bill Belichick rule; If you Not Cheating, Your Not Trying, this lead to repeatedly killing Master Chief in safe areas to not only acquire quick ammo, but to throw away the awful weapons the Arbiter kept getting. We reached the games climax in about 7 hours. Never once did I yawn, but I must say it was a bit disappointing. Halo faithful have waited so long to find out would Earth pull out a win, and it ended very quickly. Some levels were mighty short, as a matter of fact; no level took more than an hour to complete. Maybe I’m being a bit rash though. Maybe it three games I’ve become so adapted to the game, that I can tear through even the toughest levels in no time flat. You can stop laughing now. Its wishful thinking. I spent more time in the final level of Halo 1, then more than half the levels of Halo 3.
The joy of the game lies in the multiplayer. It’s so customizable; it makes you want to vomit. Seriously. Whether it was the match of King of the Hill, with low gravity and all the weapons are gravity hammers, or the ever-exciting game of zombie. The all-new ranking system puts a unique spin of the “I’m better than you” argument. The customization actually makes multiplayer fun again. The ranking system made things so serious, Noobs being berated for their crappiness, and the so-called lords of the game being dodged for fear of being slaughtered. Seeing people go flying through the air, or watching 17 other people run from one sword wielding zombie made me smile again.
Who can forget the all-new Forge mode? Multiplayer maps are completely up for remodeling, down to the crates you use for cover, the types of vehicles, where weapons are found…etc. This got really interesting when we began creating piles and piles of those exploding plasma coil boxes. And then piled warthogs on top. Needless to say…boom.
So here lies the question, is this game of the year? Not even close. Now, as I ready my e-mail for the years of Spam and hate mail and potential viruses from fanboys, let me explain. This game is only new in a small sense. Yes, the story continues, and they threw in some campy new weapons, but the game still plays the same. In a tough battle situation, the new weapons are almost useless, as the standard assault rifle, and the always-fun battle rifle stand was the best combinations. The new grenades are interesting to use, but again, nothing seems to work quite as well as the frag/plasma method. Even in multiplayer, the quickest kills come from the old “Shoot em a few times, then hit em with the pistol whip method. Halo 3 feels exactly like Halo 2, and in some ways that’s all right. And while checking out the new rides was hilarious and adventurous, we went back to the warthog when things got serious.
Shockingly the best thing about Halo 3 was the audio. The soundtrack was nothing short of ‘Banging” and the voice cast was incredible. Who didn’t love Keith David as the Arbiter? Sure, if you played Saints Row, and got to the ending, you want him dead, but that’s all bridge under the water. The greatest part is bumping into a Marine, and going…”Hey, that sounds like Adam Baldwin!” Wait it gets better! Nathan Fillion and Alan Tudyk join the cast for a reunion of Joss Whedon’s Sci-Fi classic, Serenity. The grunts make for some comic relief as they spout random insults, and swear word when you chuck grenades in their general direction.
So overall, not a bad job Microsoft. The game delivers pretty much what you’d expect, which is why I’d give this game an okay review.
Should you buy it? Yes
Not having this game will make you a social outcast among you 360 Live friends. This isn’t the game to make the Sony Faithful switch consoles, but I liked it nonetheless I honestly feel Halo 3 is a victim of its own hype. The game couldn’t have possibly lived up to expectations. Regardless, you’ll play it, think Master Chief to be God, and the ending will somehow spark rumors of a fourth Halo. It’s the end of the world as we know it. (See How Halo will Destroy the World.)
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