Overview

Yeah yeah... better late than never, right? Halo 3's only been out for two months, so considering that I don't actually have a game console to play it on, I'd say I'm not too late... erm... yeah. So, right, do I really need to spend too much time over viewing this one? I found myself ready to finish the fight at about 11:55pm on October 24th, and walked out of Game Stop at 12:04am Oct 25th after arriving at 12:02am with a fresh copy - much to the irritation of the sorry sods that hadn't had their copy bought and paid for six months prior and had to wait in the block-and-a-half long line. Of course, I wouldn't actually play it for another three weeks - after borrowing a friend's 360 - but I had my copy, right? Er, yeah... let's get on with the review.

Review

On the faint chance that somebody hasn't heard the basic storyline, your role is that of a Spartan-II, Master Chief John-117, last of a group of genetically and mechanically enhanced super soldiers in the year 2553. You've been fighting against the Covenant, an alliance of fanatical alien species bent on destroying all of humanity, and igniting the 'sacred rings.' This is an act that would in truth wipe out all life in the galaxy capable of being a food source for the Flood, a hive-creature capable of consuming and taking control of all forms of sentient life, mutating them horribly in the process. You've already destroyed one 'Halo' installation, stopped the Covenant from firing a second, and now they've decided to come knocking on our front door... And the Covenant have a bad habit of turning planets to floating balls of glass once they're done with them. Got all that?

So who's fighting with you? Well, aside from the regulars of the UNSC, this time around you've got the help of the Elites, former members of the Covenant that broke ranks after finding out the truth of the rings. There's also Commander Miranda Keyes, daughter of Captain Keyes from the first game and your direct CO, and Sargent Major Avery Johnson, Earth's biggest bad ass since Lillith told God to bugger off when He wanted her to be submissive to Adam. We can't forget Guilty Spark, the former monitor of Installation 04 - the Halo that you destroyed in the first game. Last, but far from least, there's John's only really constant companion in the series other than Johnson, Cortana, a sentient AI. Oh yes, and let's not forget the Arbiter, who was a playable character in 2 but seems to be around in Halo 3 mainly to complain that you're shooting at him when he runs across your line of fire every few seconds... I'll come back to that.Halo 3 picks up where 2 left off, with John dropping in on Earth... literally. The first half of the game takes place in Africa, near the ruins of the sky elevator destroyed in the book series. From there you head to the Ark, and then you find yourself on another of god's giant damn hoola-hoops! Heh.

Ok, we're caught up on basic storyline and characters, so let's get to the meat of the game... how does it play? Honestly? It's pretty damn solid. Once I got used to the switch from the original xBox control scheme to the 360's, it played almost as fluidly as the first one did. My major complaint would be that they screwed around with my reload buttons far too much - and by that, I mean that they put a single-use item where my reload was in the original and 2. This is NOT GOOD, and I found myself wasting items that I meant to save because of it. I also didn't particularly care for the setup for switching between grenade types - something else I'll come back to in just a second - but it was a minor adjustment to get used to it. Beyond that, my only real complaint is that running around felt slow, at least compared to the first two games. I always had a real sense of Getting There in Halo, and that's just not there in Halo 3... darting from cover to cover feels sluggish, and so does turning if you don't pump the sensitivity up. Fortunately, most of the enemies seem to be effected by the same sluggishness, so it doesn't effect game play overall.

The assault rifle is back, u-fuckin-rah! Ahem, you might have guessed that this is where I'll cover the weapon balance... and wow, what a selection of weapons in this one. All of your favorites are back - though the pistol is still useless without a scope - and so many new weapons have been added that I lost count. Among other things, there's the spiker, which is basically a weaker mp5, the mauler, a pistol that fires like a shotgun - lethal at short range, especially dual wielded. On the high-end damage scale is the Spartan Laser. This one's fun - zoom on your target, hold the trigger to build up a charge... and watch things disintegrate. Unfortunately, they're only good for five or six full powered shots, and it's useless against anything moving faster than a crawl.

Two new grenades have been added too, the spiker grenade, which throws up a column of spikes and can stick to targets, and what amounts to a Molotov cocktail. I'd really like to say that I like them but... frankly, they suck, and their addition means that I can only carry two frags and two plasmas at any given time. You still get to lug around eight grenades, sure - if you can even find all four types on one stage - but the new additions are worthless. The spiker is the 'brute' grenade, and you can be standing on top of it at half shields and not even have your shield pop. The Molotov grenade is marginally more useful, if you've got the aim to stick it.

What's really fun, though, is the ability to rip turret emplacements off their mounts and carry them around. Master Chief can yank off Gatling guns, missile pods and plasma cannons. Unfortunately, doing so means their ammo supply shrinks from infinite to 200 - 8 for the missile pods - and carrying them around slows you to about half speed, but the awesome amount of power and the fact that you're able to conserve ammo on your primary guns make it well worth your while. There's also a flame thrower that works similarly, if somewhat ineffectively. It just doesn't have any stopping power, and both times that you get one, it's to square off against The Flood, who just crash into you and set YOU on fire. The range is painfully short too - if it were a little longer it'd at least be a truly viable option, because the flames do take down the Flood fast.

Unfortunately, for the sheer variety of choices for weapons in Halo 3, there really isn't much of one. Most weapons just don't feel like they pack much punch, and the ones that do REALLY pack a punch. The Battle Rifle is a solid all-around weapon if you need a little range, but I stuck to the assault rifle most of the time for true full-auto fire. The shotgun is still godly for fighting The Flood - and to the naysayers that complain that it doesn't have any power at range, I ask this... are you REALLY fighting the Flood at that sort of range? For that matter, it's a freaking shotgun! It's not supposed to have power at range! Getting high honors is the Brute Shot, which doesn't do much damage with its grenades, but packs one hell of a wallop with that handy melee blade, easily bringing down all but the toughest Flood and Covenant in one or two shots without the problem of running out of power like the Plasma Blade. Still, overall I just wasn't impressed with the weapon balance. There's only a few standouts that are vastly over powered compared to the others, and there's still a sense of severe ammo shortage as well.

I mentioned earlier that there are also single use power ups that you can save and deploy as you like. These include portable plasma shield covers, the 'bubble shield' seen in promos, flash bangs, shield regenerators, shield drainers, cloak generators, invulnerabilities... Conspicuously absent, though, are the over shields that we've all come to know and love. It's not so much that you need them if you use a little caution, but they would have been fun, allowing for more daring assaults.

Halo 3 sees the introduction of a large number of new vehicles, too. The old standards are back, including the ubiquitous Warthog, now with the new flavor of pure troop-transport in addition to Gatling and gauss cannon versions. New for the humans is the Mongoose, a two seater ATV, and the Hornet, a really funky looking aerial craft that's kind of a mix between a jet pack and a helicopter. The Scorpion tank is still as big and bad as ever. In the words of a marine... tank beats ghost... tank beats hunter... hey, what the hell, tank beats EVERYTHING! That includes those damn pesky specter drop craft that you've been itching to blow out of the sky since you first saw them in 2. They make damned short work of the few Scarabs that you have the opportunity to use them against too. I will say that, while the Warthog drives a bit better than previous incarnations, it's also SLOW!

Graphics is where Halo 3 really struts its stuff, just like we all knew that it would. The locales are stunningly realized. For instance, there's a point where your squad mates start pointing up to the sky in awe... I won't tell you what you see, but it's awesome. Colors are rich, vibrant, and the world in general just looks great. Character textures aren't as photo realistic as, say, Gears of War, but they're damned good. The models are excellent, though. John's armor really has taken a beating over the series, and you see it in Halo 3. The devs put the 360 through its paces with Halo 3, and even on my standard res TV, it looked great.

What wasn't so stunning in Halo 3 was the enemy AI. I don't know if it was just me, but enemies had a way of ignoring me until I actually attacked them. That's normally not a problem... however, when you're standing in full view, I'd expect at least SOME sort of response. Yet, time and again in Halo 3, the bad guys just kinda sat there, or else ignored me and went after squad mates instead. It's not a constant issue - but it cropped up often enough for me to notice. Worse still were the squad mates, who insist on crossing lines of fire. I know that this is something hard to program for, guys. I mean, there's no REAL accounting for where I might be aiming... but when allies constantly run DIRECTLY IN FRONT OF THE FUCKING GATLING GUN I've been firing non-stop for the last minute or so... The arbiter seemed particularly vulnerable to this, running across my path all the time. Would it really have been so hard to add a little code to tell allies to AVOID space in a cone in front of me - especially when wielding something like, say, the rocket launcher? Fortunately, the allies in Halo 3 seem a great deal more durable than their counter parts in the earlier games.

The multi-player in Halo 3 plays a lot like the multi-player in Halo 2, with the addition of the ingenious Forge system, and a MUCH better game finder. There's also a great deal more room for armor customization this time around, though unlocking the options means finding some pretty well hidden skulls scattered throughout the main campaign, as well as completing some surprisingly difficult Achievements. I didn't notice any real lag in the hand full of games that I played. Pretty solid all around here. I mentioned the Forge, so let me give a brief overview: Basically, it allows you to edit a level to your likes. You can add, remove, and move any object that isn't a part of the actual rendered level. Translation, no, you can't actually change the terrain - just everything else. These levels can be saved and shared. Another fun option is the replay ability, which records your matches and saves them on Bungie's servers - that's right, no need to waste space on your own HD. You can then go back and watch them, fast forward, slow motion, etc, etc.

I've been waiting for the sound track for Halo 3 since I very nearly threw the controller in disgust at the cliffhanger ending of Halo 2, and it did not disappoint. The updated Halo theme was awesome, and most pieces have a very heroic feel to them. There's a bit more of a rock theme to this sound track too, continuing the trend in Halo 2. Voice acting was spot-on too. I've been a fan of the Arbiter's VA, Keith David, for years, and Johnson's was just as awesome as always. Also deserving of mention is Cortana's VA Jen Taylor, who had to put a hell of a lot more effort into the character's overall emotional and pained dialogs this time around.

Overall

Hey, we've been waiting for this one for a long time, and I don't think that it disappointed. The storyline was a bit shorter than I'd have really liked, I'll admit. I was also looking forward to playing as the Arbiter for a few more levels, but overall it was a damn nice summation to the plot line, and even left room for continued adventures in the book series. I'm not a big fan of PvP multi-player in general - the last time I was, Team Fortress was still a kick-ass mod for Quake the original - but 3's is solid, and this time around you can play online co-op too. It's about damned time. The storyline really is better if you've read the books, but they aren't required, as you can pick up enough from Halo 1 and 2 to get everything important. Still, an all around great FPS with sweet graphics and solid story. The AI needed a little more work this time around, but go ahead and check this one out, folks.