Sometimes hype is a bad thing, sometimes it is a great thing. In the case of the blockbuster hit Halo 3 it was a very good thing. Screaming past all previous video game records Bungie’s Halo 3 for the Xbox 360 had enormous copies of it preordered and one of the highest budgeted marketing campaigns ever seen for a video game. None of this marketing would mean anything if the game they were selling was no good, luckily Halo 3 made the publisher’s job almost too easy by being one hell of a game and easily the best end to one of the most successful gaming franchises ever created. Besides hype the other word that comes to mind when speaking about Halo 3 is epic, this game is epic in every sense of the word. As I played through the legendary campaign for the second time last night with three of my buddies at 4:30 in the morning, with work the next day, the word epic was the only thing that kept me going, well that and the Halo 3 sponsored Mountain Dews filling my mini-fridge. Unfortunately this game could have been coated in 24K gold and transport you to an actual futuristic battlefield and it still would not have lived up to the hype created since the release of Halo 2 three years ago. Halo fans do not worry though because the good far outweighs the little bad and if this game would have come out with no hype it would have easily been the best game ever created; even so it still comes very close to that title and gamers who pick up either one of the three editions will not come away feeling cheated. Halo 3 is almost everything fans have been waiting for and will close out this epic trilogy in a fashion most should be happy with, see there is that epic word again.
As far as storylines go this one in deep, as in two entire games deep, so here is a quick synopsis. In the first Halo the Spartan warrior, Master Chief, was sent to save humanity from an alien race threatening the species’ existence on earth. There was a weird virtual reality woman named Cortana and then a huge weapon shaped like a circle and known as a Halo was discovered, and as the game ended Master Chief destroyed it. Halo 2 involved a new alien species and the previous enemies (Master Chief and Arbiter) had to band together to stop the use of the massive destruction weapon that was Halo. When Halo 2 ended Master Chief was barreling towards earth in a space ship with only one thing on his mind, finishing the fight. Lucky for gamers Bungie gives everyone the chance to finish that fight in Halo 3, this is the epic conclusion everyone has been waiting for and no storyline tidbits will be left unanswered; no cliffhangers here. When the end credits roll for Halo 3 you will know there is nothing left, this is the end of the series.
In short the plot of Halo 3 is up there with both of it’s predecessors and on some levels is one of the best storylines seen outside of a Japanese RPG. Enough with trying to dance around the storyline of Halo 3 though, there are just too many new developments that if explained would ruin some gamers experience with this epic game so let’s just move on to the gameplay section of the review. Everything in Halo 3 is about Master Chief, yes the Arbiter is there by your side at all times but the game revolves around the green clad Spartan warrior. Some may be turned off by this as much of Halo 2’s story had to do with the former but for me Bungie made the right decision, this series is Master Chief’s baby and it needed to end that way, enough said. Halo 3 is full of diverse environments, which was a big problem/complaint with Halo 2, and our hero’s adventure will take him through jungles, space stations, and other epic battlefields that you have to play to see. Unlike other first-person shooters the single player campaign does not take place entirely on foot. Many times throughout Halo 3 gamers will be given the option of taking a vehicle (warthog, ghost, etc.) and traversing throughout the level with the pedal to the metal. While this may not be the best way to take in the scenery it is still the best option on some of the harder levels, especially if playing on legendary. Some of gamers favorite weapons are still here from the previous Halo games, but Bungie has added some all new weapons (and items) which make the game feel entirely new. I will not spoil any of the new guns but as for items I have to explain at least one of them, the bubble shield. Anyone who has seen the E3 trailer for Halo 3 knows what the bubble shield is but I doubt anyone (unless they have played this game) knows how freaking amazing they are to actually use in game. Never before has Master Chief had the ability, if taking on massive fire from enemies, cannons, whatever, to toss down a small grenade and instantly be inside a fortified bubble. This is what the bubble shield has the option to do and it changes the way both single player and multi-player is played, freaking sweet.
Halo 3 includes different levels of difficulty when playing through the single player campaign. There is “Easy” for newbies of the genre (this is way too easy), “Normal” for the more average gamer, “Heroic” for all those Halo veterans, and “Legendary” which is insanely hard and really only playable if teaming up online via 4-player co-op over Xbox Live. Some people will only play Halo on Legendary settings but it can take away from some of the fun of the game, my advice is to start out on Heroic and if the game is just too hard bump down to Normal, everyone should be good on that setting. The controls will be very familiar to anyone who has spent ten minutes with a Halo game before. The left analog moves Master Chief around, one face button jumps, one drops special items, one melee attacks, and another switches weapons; the right trigger shoots, the left trigger tosses grenades, right bumper reloads, clicking in the right analog stick zooms in, clicking in the left trigger crouches, and the d-pad is used for a variety of different things (using your flashlight, etc.). The developers of Halo 3 did include a number of unique control options but none of them work as good as the original. The time spent beating the single player campaign is really dependent on the level of difficulty it is played on, but all you need to know is this is just the beginning of the epic game which is Halo 3 in terms of game modes, and alone it is plenty long to justify a purchase.
