Review of Halo 3

On September 25th, 2007, one of the most anticipated games of all time was scheduled to hit the shelves when the clock struck midnight. Having had 1.7 million pre-orders, the game was proclaimed the best pre-selling game of all time. A lot of hype for a video game, but let's see how it lives up to it.

During the beta testing of Halo 3, a lot of people complained about the visuals of Halo 3, of course during beta, what you see isn't what you'll get in the final version. Thankfully, that holds true as Halo 3's graphics were improved for its release. One area of the game where they were a little lazy with graphics was in the faces of those Master Chief meets on his mission to save mankind. The faces of the marines specifically are very badly textured and feature little detail; unlike the graphic colossus Gears of War where models were very well detailed. Another problem with Halo 3's graphics is while the games lighting is very well done in certain places, it's the exact opposite in some places. Specifically in some hallways or corridors, the light is so bright it seems as if you're walking into the realm of heaven. Despite the few problems with the graphics, it's still quite an attractive game.

The gameplay of Halo 3 hasn't changed much from the old games; despite it being on a new controller, the control scheme didn't change much(nor did the new controller). The only differences in control is flashlight controls, and of course the Right and Left buttons(which is usually used to activate certain items in the game). The difficulty of Halo 3 in my opinion is substantially higher than it's previous brothers, brutes are a lot more difficult to kill in a group than elites were. Not only that, ammo and grenades are a lot more scarce, and for that reason you will be forced to change guns quite a bit. In Halo: Combat Evolved, you could pretty much travel and beat the entire game with the Assault Rifle and the Pistol; ammunition was plentiful in all areas of the game. Same with Halo 2. But for Halo 3, it's a different story. I found myself using guns i never really used before, like the Plasma Pistol or the Needler, simply because i couldn't find ammunition for the guns i preferred. One thing that was added to combat the rare ammunition, is the ability to remove a turret from it's location and haul it around with you. When a turret is mounted it has infinite shots; but once you remove it, it's limited to 200 shots, but in a pinch when you have no / little ammunition, they serve very well.

When Halo 2 came out one thing that left gamers disappointed was the lack of many new weapon types. Sure, the addition of the ability to dual-wield certain weapons was cool, but still something didn't feel right. They took away the Assault Rifle and gave us a Battle Rifle, which to me was a bad move because the Assault Rifle was my favorite weapon. But the good news is, the Assault Rifle is back, and so is the Battle Rifle. Not only are there new weapons, there's an entire new system of items that can be deployed; support items. Both you and your enemies are able to deploy certain support items; ranging from Bubble Shields that protect those within it, to a field of degeneration that lowers the shields and health of those in it's range. In the past, for all of the games in the Halo series, weapons have followed the rule that if the UNSC(Marines), have a weapon, the covenant have a counterpart, like the Assault Rifle and Plasma Rifle. However this never really held true as far as vehicles go, but Halo 3 took a step in the right direction. Covenant have always had "the ghost", a vehicle that can be operated by one man and travel at a speed faster than any other ground vehicle, and the UNSC only had the warthog, and scorpion, as far as vehicles go. However, in Halo 3 there are several new vehicles for both sides. The Mongoose was added for the UNSC, which has faster speeds to the ghost, but is not operable with one person if you want to have artillery, which makes it a little less than a ghost in terms of power. Also, the elephant, which is a heavy armored vehicle that looks similar to the vehicle in the desert, when C3P0 and R2D2 are wandering around in Star Wars. The elephant is really cool, because it can hold twelve soldiers, and a Mongoose respawns in its forward hold. The covenant vehicle is a pod-racer looking contraption, but instead of pods it is propelled by two large spinning wheels called the Chopper, which is a little difficult to maneuver but the artillery on it is great.

One of the best additions added to this game was the ability to play Co-op with your friends over Xbox Live. In my opinion, one of the selling-points for me in Halo was the great co-op mode, but the downside is your friend needed to be right next to you to play it. Now you can play with anyone, and not only that, you can play with four people in the same campaign. Although it is a little laggy, you do not have to play Split-screen, which to me is a great thing.

Overall, i think Halo 3 did not live entirely up to it's hype, but none the less is a great game. The game is filled with new features, and the online co-op makes playing through campaign that much more fun. If you were a fan of the original Halo or it's sequel; Halo 2, go out and rent or buy this game if you have not already, it's challenging and packed online, mostly with immature little brats but hey they're fun to argue with.

GAMEPLAY: 8.5/10
GRAPHICS: 7.5/10
SOUND: 9/10
RE PLAYABILITY: 9/10

OVERALL: 8.5/10