Since it's release, it seems like first person shooters have been the genre of choice for the Xbox 360. Everywhere you turn, there are announcements for new shooters coming out on the console. With games like Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2, Rainbow Six Vegas, and Bioshock already on the market and Half Life 2: The Orange Box right around the corner, one has to wonder if Halo 3 will live up to the hype generated by it's massive advertising campaign.
I have to say that I was very skeptical whenever I put the disk in my 360 and started up the game for the first time. I had played Halo and Halo 2 a couple of times but I have never been a huge fan of first person shooters on consoles. I always thought that a keyboard and mouse setup gave more control and the pc was a better platform for these types of games.
I was pleasantly suprised.
I am going to steal a phrase I read from one of our moderators over in the Napoleonics section. He was referencing the HPS engine and said that new games were evolutionary. Halo 3 is much the same way evolutionary rather than revolutionary. It's very much your standard fare of first person shooter goodness. If you have always hated these types of games, chances are that Halo 3 will not magically convert you into a rambling fanboy. However the end package is much more than a sum of it's parts.
I will start off with the campaign which is what a lot of people will spend quite a few hours playing. The game has you locked in as the Master Chief for the entire campaign. This differs from the previous version where you spent some of your time as the Arbiter (a weird alien race) going through his version of the storyline.
There are 9 massive levels to play through this time around. They are varied enough to make things interesting throughout the whole campaign. With the other troops constantly by your side, the illusion that you are fighting one part in a larger conflict is present throughout the game. The friendly AI is smart enough to give you a little assistance in killing the bad guys but don't expect any miracles out of them.
The difficulty level is significantly lower than previous games in the series. I think this has a lot to do with the broader market appeal that Bungie was aiming for. Thankfully there are several difficulty levels you can play at and as you increase the difficulty the enemy AI starts to really shine. Enemies will engage you with rudamentary tactics like suppression and flanking. The weird looking little guys with shark like dorsal fins will take two plasma grenades and suicide themselves into you or a group of your allies.
Throughout the levels, you will encounter and get the opportunity to use all sorts of different vehicles. Everything from ATVs and Dune Buggies to Tanks and aircraft. This adds another dimension to gameplay and is implemented very well.
The ending leaves no doubt that Halo 3 is the final game in the trilogy. This is a refreshing approach in a market bombarded with countless sequals. One has to wonder where Bungie is going to go from here. There is no doubt though, that Halo will go down in history as one of the most successful franchises in gaming history.
The multiplayer aspect is where Halo 3 really shines. You have your standard varients like deathmatch, team deathmatch, capture the flag, VIP, etc etc. As well as a number of new game types like Infection where one player starts off as a "zombie" who has nothing but a sword. The other players have their usual assortment of weaponry and team together to kill the zombies. As a player is killed by the zombie, they too turn into one. The last man standing gets extra points and the player with the most kills, wins the match. There are also 11 multiplayer maps ranging from small indoor levels to extremely large outdoor maps and everything in between and more multiplayer content set to be downloadable in the future.
The matchmaking service is something worth mentioning here. In previous games on Xbox Live, this has been one area where consoles have been generations behind their PC counterparts. Bungie has done a great deal to shorten the gap between PC's and their Console counterparts. Gone are the days where you had to wait for random people to come into a room you created. Now you can set matchmaking to find people with similiar skill levels. That means no matter how good (or bad) you are at the game, you can always find people who will give you a challenge. No longer do you have to suffer being obliterated by a 15 year old teenager who has spent the last 3 weeks doing nothing but sleeping and playing Halo.
You can also invite people on your friends list into a game and if you need more people, pull in some of the general population (GP)to fill the gaps. When the game is completed, you as the host have the option of keeping any of the GP in your room (friends automatically stay).
The forge is yet another great feature that Halo 3 offers players. We all know that after a while people get tired of playing the same maps over and over. In an effort to increase replayability, Bungie has given players a tool set that allows them to customize each level to their liking. You cannot actually change the architecture of the levels. However, you can almost anything in the level such as weapon spawns, machine gun emplacements, levitation pads, vehicles, boxes or anything else.
On top of this, users can create their own game types. An example would be something some friends of mine and I played over the weekend. It was a varient of the "Infection" mode I mentioned earlier in the review called "Critters". In this game, the zombie had 300 percent movements speed and his only weapon was a gravity hammer. Opposing players could kill zombies with one hit though. This led to some interesting moments where groups of players fought with their backs to one another facing endless swarms of zombies trying to breach their defenses.
Of course Halo 3 has it's shortcomings. Most noticably is the complete lack of a cover system. The game is all "run and gun" and makes no apologies for a complete lack of realism. The voice communications can be cumbersome too. Making players press up on the D pad to start communicating seems like a mediocre fix to constant chatter on the voice comms. Maybe I am just not used to it but I constantly forget and think that what I am trying to communicate to team mates actually makes it through.
Overall though, Halo 3 lives up to the hype. With the right group of people, multiplayer is a complete blast. The group I play with have a "Beerlo" night where spirited beverages are consumed throughout the evening of gameplay. Needless to say, this makes for some interesting conversations the next day as hand/eye coordination decreases and seemingly normal things suddenly become much funnier.
Ben
I have to say that I was very skeptical whenever I put the disk in my 360 and started up the game for the first time. I had played Halo and Halo 2 a couple of times but I have never been a huge fan of first person shooters on consoles. I always thought that a keyboard and mouse setup gave more control and the pc was a better platform for these types of games.
I was pleasantly suprised.
I am going to steal a phrase I read from one of our moderators over in the Napoleonics section. He was referencing the HPS engine and said that new games were evolutionary. Halo 3 is much the same way evolutionary rather than revolutionary. It's very much your standard fare of first person shooter goodness. If you have always hated these types of games, chances are that Halo 3 will not magically convert you into a rambling fanboy. However the end package is much more than a sum of it's parts.
I will start off with the campaign which is what a lot of people will spend quite a few hours playing. The game has you locked in as the Master Chief for the entire campaign. This differs from the previous version where you spent some of your time as the Arbiter (a weird alien race) going through his version of the storyline.
There are 9 massive levels to play through this time around. They are varied enough to make things interesting throughout the whole campaign. With the other troops constantly by your side, the illusion that you are fighting one part in a larger conflict is present throughout the game. The friendly AI is smart enough to give you a little assistance in killing the bad guys but don't expect any miracles out of them.
The difficulty level is significantly lower than previous games in the series. I think this has a lot to do with the broader market appeal that Bungie was aiming for. Thankfully there are several difficulty levels you can play at and as you increase the difficulty the enemy AI starts to really shine. Enemies will engage you with rudamentary tactics like suppression and flanking. The weird looking little guys with shark like dorsal fins will take two plasma grenades and suicide themselves into you or a group of your allies.
Throughout the levels, you will encounter and get the opportunity to use all sorts of different vehicles. Everything from ATVs and Dune Buggies to Tanks and aircraft. This adds another dimension to gameplay and is implemented very well.
The ending leaves no doubt that Halo 3 is the final game in the trilogy. This is a refreshing approach in a market bombarded with countless sequals. One has to wonder where Bungie is going to go from here. There is no doubt though, that Halo will go down in history as one of the most successful franchises in gaming history.
The multiplayer aspect is where Halo 3 really shines. You have your standard varients like deathmatch, team deathmatch, capture the flag, VIP, etc etc. As well as a number of new game types like Infection where one player starts off as a "zombie" who has nothing but a sword. The other players have their usual assortment of weaponry and team together to kill the zombies. As a player is killed by the zombie, they too turn into one. The last man standing gets extra points and the player with the most kills, wins the match. There are also 11 multiplayer maps ranging from small indoor levels to extremely large outdoor maps and everything in between and more multiplayer content set to be downloadable in the future.
The matchmaking service is something worth mentioning here. In previous games on Xbox Live, this has been one area where consoles have been generations behind their PC counterparts. Bungie has done a great deal to shorten the gap between PC's and their Console counterparts. Gone are the days where you had to wait for random people to come into a room you created. Now you can set matchmaking to find people with similiar skill levels. That means no matter how good (or bad) you are at the game, you can always find people who will give you a challenge. No longer do you have to suffer being obliterated by a 15 year old teenager who has spent the last 3 weeks doing nothing but sleeping and playing Halo.
You can also invite people on your friends list into a game and if you need more people, pull in some of the general population (GP)to fill the gaps. When the game is completed, you as the host have the option of keeping any of the GP in your room (friends automatically stay).
The forge is yet another great feature that Halo 3 offers players. We all know that after a while people get tired of playing the same maps over and over. In an effort to increase replayability, Bungie has given players a tool set that allows them to customize each level to their liking. You cannot actually change the architecture of the levels. However, you can almost anything in the level such as weapon spawns, machine gun emplacements, levitation pads, vehicles, boxes or anything else.
On top of this, users can create their own game types. An example would be something some friends of mine and I played over the weekend. It was a varient of the "Infection" mode I mentioned earlier in the review called "Critters". In this game, the zombie had 300 percent movements speed and his only weapon was a gravity hammer. Opposing players could kill zombies with one hit though. This led to some interesting moments where groups of players fought with their backs to one another facing endless swarms of zombies trying to breach their defenses.
Of course Halo 3 has it's shortcomings. Most noticably is the complete lack of a cover system. The game is all "run and gun" and makes no apologies for a complete lack of realism. The voice communications can be cumbersome too. Making players press up on the D pad to start communicating seems like a mediocre fix to constant chatter on the voice comms. Maybe I am just not used to it but I constantly forget and think that what I am trying to communicate to team mates actually makes it through.
Overall though, Halo 3 lives up to the hype. With the right group of people, multiplayer is a complete blast. The group I play with have a "Beerlo" night where spirited beverages are consumed throughout the evening of gameplay. Needless to say, this makes for some interesting conversations the next day as hand/eye coordination decreases and seemingly normal things suddenly become much funnier.
Ben
