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Finish the fight. Three years after Halo 2’s cliff-hanger, Halo 3 has arrived to smash all kinds of entertainment records. Microsoft boasted day-one sales of over $170 million with analysts estimating that the game sold somewhere around 2.5 million copies. Halo 3 isn’t a radically different game than its predecessor but it’s hard to deny that the game raises the bar for what we expect from Xbox Live even if its graphics do not.
Halo 3 begins immediately after Halo 2’s cliffhanger ending. The Covenant is coming to Earth to activate the Halos in their quest to destroy humanity. It’s up to Master Chief and the rest of the UNSC to stop them from accomplishing their mission. Master Chief is joined by others like the Arbiter who also assist in the quest. Halo 3’s story provides a satisfying end to the Halo trilogy but that’s all we’ll say regarding the story.
The singleplayer campaign isn’t very different from previous Halo games. The campaign is structured as a series of hour-long or so chapters. Most of the levels have you simply shooting down enemies but the game adds a number of new weapons to make this more interesting. The new weapons include many Brute weapons such as the mauler, a cool new shotgun, as well as flamethrowers, plasma canons and missile pod. The classic Halo balance with guns, grenades and melee attacks is back in full force. The game also has a number of vehicle segments where you’ll commandeer Halo vehicles like the Warthog and the Ghost, the hovering aircraft.
Halo 3’s top-notch campaign can be played with up to three other players either offline or through Xbox Live. There are a number of achievements related to co-op including some for finishing the game with high scores (you get points for kills and lose points for deaths). Additionally, you can turn on hidden skulls which serve as modifiers. The modifiers may, for instance, change the health of enemies to make them stronger opponents. The game doesn’t get noticeably more difficult with more players, so we recommend playing in Heroic or Legendary for a suitable challenge.
Of course, the game includes competitive multiplayer. Multiplayer, which includes 11 maps, can be played with up to four players on one Xbox or sixteen players on via Xbox Live or System Link. The game includes many game types including FPS staples like deathmatch, team deathmatch and capture the flag, as well as more interesting modes that add an unique twist to the Halo experience. You can still change pretty much any option in the game such as the map’s weapons, speed, gravity, starting weapons, etc. Further, there is a mode called Forge that lets you move around the map’s objects in real time which should provide for some interesting matches. You can share these with your friends on Xbox Live or even publicly share them so that other people can rate them on Bungie’s website. You can even use this system to share screenshots and movies of your gameplay sessions. The game even includes some editing features that let you detach the camera for some cool videos.
Halo 3 isn’t going to win any awards for its graphical engine. The graphics have improved considerably from the multiplayer beta thanks to much sharper textures, detailed and vast landscapes and many enemies onscreen. The game even manages to put out some good looking lighting effects. The frame rate is smooth throughout the entire game, which is nice. At the same time, these environments aren’t the most detailed you’ll see nor are the character models, textures, etc. Thankfully, Halo’s art style and smoothness eases out some of the technical shortcomings.
The game’s audio is pretty good and similar to previous Halo games. The traditional Halo background music as well as excellent new background tracks that you’ll hear throughout the campaign. There is a lot of excellent voice acting that helps bring to life the sharp dialogue.
There is no individual aspect that makes Halo 3 “deserve” the hype that it gets. The graphics aren’t the best available on the Xbox, the gameplay isn’t the most frantic nor the most demanding. The typical sci-fi story isn’t even radically different than something we’ve seen before. But Halo gets all these aspects just right: the right gameplay balance, an absurdly deep multiplayer mode, sharp graphics and sound. It’s the Halo sequel that fans have been demanding. And it’s the game that’s going to sell a lot of Xbox 360s. -- Jose Liz, PGNx Media
---- Sep 30, 2007
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