The Weapons
So what has Bungie given you to aid you in your murderous rampage? There are a multitude of grenades, special “item” grenades, not to mention your standard machine guns, alien rifles, shotguns, and “50 cals”. In Halo 3 they managed to keep the majority of the Halo 2 favs (with some mods/upgrades) while bringing back everyone’s favourite Halo 1 assault rife. They also brought some of Halo PC to the game with the addition of the Flame thrower. Although Bungie seems to have done a decent job of appeasing their different fan groups, the new guns for the most part are quite mundane. There are however some exceptions.
The Spartan Laser after a slight “warm up” period fires a beam of massive murdering proportions. The familiar Needler has been revamped with better tracking (yea, it actually can kill someone now) and a lack of dual wield capability. The sword has a little bit less tracking and can now clash with other swords in a… uhh… swordfight. The sword has also met its match with the boom of the Gravity Hammer. Remember the end boss of Halo 2? Remember that big hammer he kept wasting you with repeatedly? Well it’s yours now.
The standard grenades still come in the familiar frag and plasma varieties with the addition of the spiker and incendiary grenades. The spiker grenade fires spikes in an opposite direction to which it is thrown (basically a funky version of the frag) and the incendiary? Well it burns. The twist in Halo 3 is the equipment grenade. One can launch everything from a mini grav-lift to an EMP bomb that takes shields off like there is no tomorrow. Lastly, it looks like the Spartans finally figured out that their genetic engineering and power armour is good for something; you can now tear turrets from their emplacements and carry them around. Nothing like a .50 cal to get the party started.
The Vehicles
The vehicles follow the same general philosophy as the guns. Take the best of the previous games, change it a bit, and throw in a couple of new surprises. The wraith has it’s normal boom cannon with an added turret for a buddy to ride along in. The ghost is its typical sweetness as is the banshee. The main new additions are the mongoose, the brute chopper, and the elephant. The mongoose is basically a suped up ATV that has “cap that flag” written all over it. The brute chopper although cool in theory doesn’t quite pan out. Control difficulties and a weapon that has a bark much louder than its bite make this vehicle fairly ineffective. The Elephant can only be found in Sandtrap (a multiplayer level). This vehicle is a slow heavily armored assault vehicle. There are a couple of 50 cal turrets on the either side of it as well as a launch bay with a mongoose for quick departures. Whether it is its team orientation, or its similarity to the GI Joe toys of my youth, the elephant is major fun.
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