Whether you are a massive Halo fan or someone who doesn’t see what all the fuss is about, it has been pretty tough to miss the hype with the release of the third installment in the epic series. Master Chief is back, and is on a mission to finish the fight. Does Halo 3 live up to the hype and silence the critics? Let’s find out!
It’s Like Neopolitan Ice Cream!
With Bungie and Microsoft taking things to the extreme you might expect them to release different versions with varying bells and whistles. You’d be right. The Legendary edition is made for die hard halo fans and includes everything from a “Beastiarum” detailing the different races to a replica Master Chief helmet (that CANNOT be worn!).
There is also a limited edition as well as the regular old standard edition that must grunts will be coveting. With a Halo 3 edition Xbox 360 also available, Microsoft has given you every opportunity to empty your bank account with glee! In fact, they outgrossed Hollywood on every single movie release this Summer. Sucks to be you!
The Story
For those who have been completely out of the gaming loop for the last few years, Halo is a futuristic first person shooter of epic proportions. It is set sometime in the distant future when humankind has mastered space travel and has developed colonies. Into this domestic bliss came the Covenant, a group of religious fanatics on a mission to begin “the great journey”. What is this journey you ask? Well apparently there was an ancient race who created a weapon (the Halo rings) capable of destroying all sentient life within *insert ridiculous number here* light years. Still with me?
So the Covenant have apparently come to Earth in their final effort to push the button on galactic annihilation. Unfortunately, despite being a giant intergalactic collection of multiple races, no one in the Covenant seems to be able to figure out that they are in fact going to kill everyone (including themselves) if they succeed. If the “Covs” weren’t bad enough, trailing right behind them is the flood.
The flood are a parasitic race that infect Humans and Covenant alike and turn them into tentacle beast style monsters (think Borg-Aliens-Bodysnatchers). This enemy, ruled by the ridiculously poetic “Gravemind”, are trying to infect any and everybody they can in their own efforts at galactic domination.
So Who Are You?
You are Master Chief, a leader among genetically designed, mechanically enhanced super-soldiers. As one of the last survivors of the elite “Spartan” force, it is your task to save your AI/friend/closest thing you’ve ever had to a girlfriend Cortana from her captors while wasting the Flood, the Covenant, and anyone else who stands in your way. Oh yeah, and you might have to blow off one of those annihilation Halos in the process.
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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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Finish The Fight Two Ways…
Single Player: Although the majority of Bungie’s focus in the third installment has been on multiplayer integration, the single player campaign is a definite improvement over the sequel. Whether it was the disappointing finish or the Arbiter missions, Halo 2 just didn’t quite have it. It looks as if they’ve made a few major improvements since then.
Firstly, they brought back some favorite levels. One might say they were right out of the previous games. There is the classic assault on control room, a beach battle of sorts, and some moments that felt very 2001. They also brought back some of the better moments of Halo 2 with some improvements. There is the scarab romp, where I swear you need to have a harpoon gun installed on the back of your banshee; Hoth Ice Planet style.
There is some tank action where all your buds hop on the side to come along for the ride (who knew that wasn’t a safe place to hang out!). Finally, there are some uniquely Halo 3 additions. There is a ride in the Human air attack vehicle, the Hornet. This vehicle is more or less an Apache Helicopter with jets instead of rotors. The flood levels have a definite “Aliens” feel to them with the walls being infested with weird slimy objects, not to mention sphincter doors.
Although in general the campaign was entertaining (while avoiding the repeating room syndrome), the end was just a little unsatisfying. Unlike Halo 2, the story comes to a definite conclusion. However, the final battle with the Guilty Spark (An annoying, robotic floating cube that is from previous games) was very anti-climactic. The final drive to freedom was just silly, far from the exciting race against time in Halo 1.
There were two endings I would rather have seen. Firstly, the far more logical ending, would have been to have a final battle with Gravemind the slimy leader of the flood. Secondly, it would have been cool if the combination of the Flood and the Covenant resulted in the annihilation of the human race where as the last surviving member, you activated the rings in a suicidal blaze of glory. As if to preserve possibilities for future games, one gets only circumstantial evidence of Gravemind’s destruction and Master Chief goes back into the same box he emerged from in Halo 1; ready to emerge for Halo 4. For the most part, the campaign story and flow kept the controller glued to my hand from beginning to end despite the fact that the fight still seems unfinished.
Multiplayer: While the Halo 2 campaign was heavily criticized, it was the multiplayer that made the game great. Bungie has continued that tradition with some great additions. Firstly there is the campaign scoring mode that gives you a score based on your kills (i.e. headshots, double kills, etc…) and deaths tallying it all up at the end for major bragging rights and achievements. This can be set to both competitive and cooperative modes.
Secondly, over Xbox Live you can play the campaign cooperatively with up to four players. With both achievements and bragging rights on the line, these enhancements add some extra fun to your normal coop campaign play. You can also play the same old local multiplayer from the pre-Xbox Live days. Local multiplayer even has the option of using temporary IDs similar to those in Halo 1 (think Hollywood, Noodle, Wiltshire, etc…) for extra fun! Although the majority of the multiplayer is designed for Live, it is nice that they kept the option of having the local 4 player deathmatch, something absent in many games these days.
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Game Types
The online multiplayer also has many different melee pickup game types to choose from. On the ranked side there is the Lone Wolves, Team Slayer, Team Objective, Team Tactical, and Team Doubles. In these ranked matches, you are pitted up against players of similar skill levels in a variety of situations. From the standard “kill them bastards” to more complex CTF and King of The Hill game types, there is enough variety and competition to appease the most picky of gamers (sorry no guests allowed). In the unranked playlists, there is Rumble Pit, Social Slayer, Social Skirmish, Big Team Battle, Multi Team, and Social Doubles. These guests allowed variants are almost exactly the same as Halo 2 and help to give rise to similar all-night halo fun with everyone in the same room on one Xbox 360.
The ranking system has also changed slightly from the standard numbering system that was in Halo 2. There is also an actual army ranking system in addition to the numbers. This not only increases the addictiveness of the online play (like any Halo fans really needed that), but it also creates a powerful deterrent to would-be quitters. An early quit causes one to lose 2 EXP points towards their next promotion, something that any 1337 player would rather die than have happen. Unfortunately one thing entirely absent is the Clans of Halo 2. Although there has been some talk of making this a 360-wide feature, there are some folks that will find this a definite disappointment. The online multiplayer has definitely reached its most fast paced and furiously addictive levels yet.
Let’s Do This!
Part of what made Halo 2 online play so much fun was the weird user-created variants. Whether it was an additional turret where there was previously none, or an old fashioned game of Zombies (a game where one of the players has a sword and hunts down all other players turning them into “zombies” when killed), these games allowed the user to have their own fun. Halo 3 has not only kept and enhanced these games, but the new “Forge Mode” takes this aspect to near map editing proportions with the ability to add vehicles, weapons, powerups, teleporters, and to edit certain properties (i.e. respawn times).
All this mode is missing is a custom game search engine to unleash the map variants. Unfortunately, despite the fact that the search was initially announced, there is no such feature in the final game. Looks like you will have to stop playing with yourself and make some friends!
Graphics, Sound, and Extras…Oh My!
If there is one thing that stands out as being somewhat of a disappointment in the third installment it is the graphics. Firstly, although there are some definite graphical improvements (i.e. massive battles with many units on screen and good frame rate), the visuals all seemed very Halo 2. There is of course more detail, not to mention some great backdrops, however overall I didn’t quite feel as wowed as I would have liked. Secondly, there is the 2 player split screen view.
I play on a 50 inch wide-screen HDTV, and although I might be somewhat of a minority in the quality of my TV, the inability to even stretch the top and bottom 2 player to fit the whole TV without doing some weird graphical downgrades was just silly. Although it was an improvement from the Halo 2 shopping cart side-to-side 2 player, the two black bars on the side are terrible. Although it apparently is done to preserve some sort of aspect ratio, I would have loved to be able to stretch this out.
The inclusion of the theatre mode gives you the ability to take shots of our favourite moments, and to even save whole videos of previous games. This is just the icing on the cake when it comes to taking pictures of brutes that you grav-hammered into the ceiling. There is also some improvements with character customization.
Gone is the standard Elite or Spartan costumes. In its place is the ability to customize your character with various unlockable outfits. The sound has also made some improvements. I noticed that the surround was more in effect and that all the sounds just seemed to be a little bit more clear. Although there is still the general lack of music throughout the game, I was pleased with some of the nostalgic space-like music that would appear at certain times throughout the game. For those who want a less subtle soundtrack, there is always the Xbox 360 standard music player and your own collection of tunes.
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Summary
With the third Halo I can easily say that both true fans and casual gamers will not be disappointed. The campaign makes some major improvements over Halo 2, and despite the silly ending, in my humble opinion, the addition of campaign scoring, a large number of attainable achievements, 4 player coop over Xbox Live, and various secrets to attain make it not only fun but totally replayable. The multiplayer builds on the previous fast paced Halo 2 in some of the smoothest online play yet. With the various ranks available to the 1337 and different “outfits” for your spartan, all-nighters are inevitable.
The extras give the opportunity to the custom “mod” gamers to go crazy with different game types (mongoose race anyone?). Add in the ability to film and take screenshots of your favourite moments, and you are guaranteed to have a great time and send your friends the pics to prove it. Despite my little gripes, Halo 3 is now part of my Xbox 360 diet and you should make it a part of yours too.
The Good
- Different game versions provide an option for every level of fan
- Almost everything you liked from the previous 2 games is in here in some form
- Campaign is enhanced for increased replayability
- Multiplayer is enhanced for extreme addictiveness
- Forge gives the game modders more flexibility (it’s ALMOST a map editor)
- The Elephant in multiplayer has that old school “GI JOE” written all over it
The Bad
- Graphics are a little too “Halo 2”
- “End boss” and “Drive to freedom” in the campaign make a pretty disappointing finish
- Having the Forge without a custom game search is brutal
- No clan support
The Ugly
- If I paid that much for the legendary edition, you can believe I wanted to wear that helmet!!!
Overall Rating: 9.0 / 10.0
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