Tray — Halo 3 gets a lot of things right. It delivers a solid FPS experience that will have you gunning down more aliens than you can shake a stick at. The vehicles are as fun as ever and the next-gen graphics are top notch. However, this is 2007 and none of these things, while entertaining, are anything groundbreaking. In hindsight, reading those previous sentences makes it sound like an average FPS, minus the Halo 3 part. And I think that’s exactly what Halo 3 is to me.
One of the main areas where Halo 3 falls short for me is in the realization of its story - especially when you consider the epic nature of its marketing campaign. It’s unfortunate that the TV spot, thanks largely to Frederick Chopin’s Raindrop Prelude, is far more epic and dramatic than anything the actual game manages to achieve.
Perhaps Halo 3 might have worked out better if some of the marketing wizards had some input on the uninspired level designs and repetitive objectives. Instead I found the story disjointed and hard to follow. To be fair, I haven’t played either of the previous games through entirely. But to be even more fair, I shouldn’t have to be a Halo fanfic expert to understand the story.
Instead of finding myself in a massive battle where the fate of mankind sways in the balance, I often found myself running through hallways and playing “Door Opening Simulator 2K8.” That’s not to say that the entire game is that way; the larger outdoor maps are lots of fun thanks to the vehicles.
It is just disappointing to have to endure the same interior level design dead-ends that gamers have been sleep-walking through since Doom. Up the stairs, down the stairs, open the door, go through the door, open another door, go up the elevator, rinse repeat, etc.
It’s a little embarrassing to find yourself playing through these types of levels on a next generation console. At least Bungie was nice enough to break up the boring indoor parts of the game with enjoyable outdoor levels. Unfortunately these only lead you to the next uninspired hallway or stair run.
It’s probably obvious that I’m not making any mention of the online play which accounts for much of the hype surrounding the game. This is intentional. Halo 3 has a massive online community, in no way hampered by a healthy dose of marketing, but it is not the focal point of this review. Without being too critical, I don’t feel that Halo 3 offers anything amazing in its multiplayer outside of the huge playerbase. Large, open maps and big vehicles was something I found groundbreaking 6 years ago when I first played Tribes 2.
If you’re looking for the best single player FPS experience on the Xbox360, I recommend you pick up Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.
Corbin — Halo is your typical alien shoot-em-up with a bland storyline and boring art direction. It doesn’t suck but it’s not the Game God that you have all come to worship. I discovered why Halo has made such an impact in the face of gaming and it ain’t the game.
I have beaten all three Halo titles unlike Tray who doesn’t have as much patience as me. Although now I’m questioning if my patience was just boredom.
Let’s look at our hero, Master Chief. He looks like an oldschool GI-Joe action figure and he even moves like one. He sports an un-stylish, robotic suit that looks like it came from a nerdy 5th grade drawing. His suit also does nothing robotically cool like fly or break dance, its only purpose is to look stupid.
The weapons in the game are fun to play but again with the childish designs and The Covenant’s big purple, laser-blasting, pew-pew rayguns. It was a lot of fun to rip off the turrets, walk around and spray down enemies.
My favorite part about all the Halo games are the vehicles, whether it’s speeding on the Brute Chopper or piloting the attack plane. The motion and controls is just as good as if you were on foot but even this can get old! The first game’s conclusion had you escaping in a Warthog, it was fun but it was long. Halo 3’s ending had you escaping in a Warthog and it was even longer. It’s like infinite skydiving. The first moments are a rush but you want to end, eventually.
Once again, no boss fights for Halo 3, wait, there was the Scarab battle. Now that was an epic boss battle! Too bad Bungie had to ruin it with more Scarab battles, which strips the first battle of any “boss” status and let’s not forget that the Scarab’s first appearance was actually in Halo 2, so it’s technically nothing new. I think the company should have named themselves Broken Bungie because they know how to deliver cutting-edge excitement only to kill itself. Broken Bungie would be awful for marketing though.
But I’ll tell you what is awesome for marketing, sucking on Microsoft’s tit. The Halo franchise would be one of the first home console FPS games on the market and with Microsoft’s money, we’re all going to know just how important that is. From super-limited-edition packaging and MTV spots to behind-the-scenes specials, it’s no wonder 50-year old parents now refer to XBox as “The Halo.”
I applaud Microsoft’s tyrannical marketing more than Halo itself. Have you seen the website? It’s amazing! It’s one of the very rare websites where I actually clicked on everything. I could say that I was more impressed with the content of the website than the game itself.
I really do admire Microsoft’s drive to get people to buy Halo for its true purpose; paying $15 a month for XBox Live. That’s where the real dollars come in, the game itself seems more like a promotional tool to get people to play online. And if the truth is that Halo triumphs with online multiplayer then let’s recognize it as is, which would take away its highly-praised titles given by many game media outlets.
Halo multiplayer is a lot of fun and I know Bungie focuses heavily on that community; I’m sure Microsoft gives them great incentive to do so as well. So is multiplayer the reason why we all think Halo is king because I’m not seeing it in the single player. It just received, “Multiplayer of the Year,” which is appropriate but anything else with “best game ever” is misleading. I can’t even comprehend what’s going on with the single player plot. It’s like Sci-fi woke up with a nasty hangover and is trying to find out who it slept it with last night. It was 6′2″ blonde girl. Unfortunately, she was 6′2″ in width.
After many mundane checkpoints and ultimately beating Halo 3, I felt more freed from a burden rather then a feeling of accomplishment. I just knew that I had to complete all three of them before giving it the score I did.
I’m sure it’s not the end for Master Chief and Whoretana but if the next installment involves them two plus more shitty looking aliens, then I’ll probably sit out for that one.
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