Donkeyboy's Halo 3 Review

[Donkeyboy]

No fanboy love/hate, please.

After spending so much time playing Halo 2, and after being burned by the ending, and after investing so much in the XBL MP Beta, it's finally here.  And I have to say, I am impressed.

It's pretty, sure.  The story is a little short, sure.  But that changes nothing - it's still a worthwhile game to play.  The combat is more visceral, the sound is incredible and the gameplay is on point.  The difficulty has been scaled a bit this go around, with easy being ridiculous in simplicity and forgiveness and Legendary handing you your ass.  The thing is, though, is that while #1 and #2 had 2-player co-op via splitscreen, #3 has 4-player via XBL.  And that makes all the difference.

Heroic is cake with 4 guys.  Legendary is substantially easier with 4 players, but still poses a bit of a challenge.  But this time, it feels like the Story is the icing on the cake, not the Multiplayer offering.  The Multiplayer is the reason this game exists, no bones about it.  Don't worry about balance - it's there, for the first time since the first game (bitch how you want to about the magnum lacking a scope - it's better this way, you shouldn't be able to pistolsnipe across a map).  Do not fear modders, for this game allows you an unprecedented degree of control over how you want to set your matches up - you really can change EVERYTHING.  Add in the map-altering capabilities of the Forge gametype, and you're set for near-limitless possibilities.  But this isn't the best part of the package.

Enter Saved Films.  Every match you play is saved as a data file, able to be replayed and watched from every conceivable angle.  There's nothing I love more than taking my exploits that people wouldn't believe and throwing it in their faces with unvarnished truth - I really did stick that dude with a plasma grenade from ALL THE WAY across the map!  You can take the game as a whole, or just keep the parts you want, upload them to Bungie's servers and send them to friends to brag/show off/rub it in.  Take screenshots and have them automatically be uploaded to bungie.net for download.  Case in point:


Click for fullsize.

See that guy who isn't getting stuck in the face with a ball of electric-blue fire?  Yeah, that's me.  For real.

That alone is amazing.  The fact that there is a near-seamless integration of the internet and the XBOX communities is astounding.  No other project has set goals that ambitious and actually pulled it off.  I'm proud to be a Halo player again.  And that says a lot coming from a man who's sworn off 99% of FPS games.



No scores.  I don't need them.
Just play it.  You'll see.

[aseddon130]

Halo 1's Single Player wasn't that good i thought, the Multiplayr when i played against a few mates was quite fun, but i always felt that Halo was massively overrated.I hated Halo 2, the Single Player campaign on Halo 2 was unbearable once you was the Arbiter - i hated it that much i couldn't even finish it when i bought the PC version, it had achievement points and i really hated it that much, i couldnt bear to finish it even for AP.

I had low hopes for Halo 3, infact, i was convinced it was gonna blow chunks, but they've done something to it to put a lot of faith into Halo again, the single player campaign is simply awesome. The Vehicle action is intense, the new Vehicles are great fun and the new guns are cool too. Blowing up them scarabs is also very satisfying, the explosion / lighting it gives off is just amazing! The only bit i really hated was the Cortana level, that was the most annoying part in the whole game but the game counters with what i considered, the best 'last level' in any game i've played this year, the whole driving section in that bit had me on the edge of my seat and it was very very well done. The inclusion of online cooperative play was a winner for me also, the majority of time i have done the coop was just with 2 players which was great fun (did most of legendary on 2 player coop) but 4 players is just astounding, Gears Of War will have to include that into GoW2 to compete!

the whole theater mode isn't something i expected when getting Halo 3, it's inclusion though is fantastic, it records everything you do, shame that when you playback a campaign video you can't fast forward any quicker, record a clip or rewind at all ... i'd love to be abl to make a few clips on that.

yeah, very good improvement on the last 2 games - fantsatic game!!!