\"Well well, what have we here?\"
Halo 3: Spoiler Free Review
Platform: Xbox 360
Released: 26th September (2007)
Players: 1-4 (2 – 16 online)
Price: £39.99
Genre: First-Person Shooter
It’s Time to Finish the Fight
I have a small confession to make. Until Halo 3 was released back at the end of September, I had barely touched any of the games in the Halo series; in fact my total Halo experience was the first level of the original. Yet such was the expectation, I knew this was a game that I just had to own. The big question is does it live up to the hype surrounding it? Let’s find out…
An important aspect to any game is the content. What are you getting for your hard earned £40?
First off, there is the main campaign that completes the Halo story. The player resumes control of Master Chief, the main protagonist of the Halo universe. The campaign features nine decently sized levels that vary from luscious jungles to dark and mysterious covenant space craft. Visually, they look stunning. Admittedly, I do have a high definition VGA set up, but things still look pretty neat and tidy even on my ageing fourteen inch CRT. A big plus is the repeatedly recycled areas that plagued Halo 2 appears to almost completely gone, albeit with one exception - the penultimate level felt very repetitive and tiresome when I ran through it.
Perhaps the most appealing aspect of the campaign mode is the ability to play up to four player co-op, either on the same machine split screen or via the Xbox live service. The second player takes control of the Arbiter, and additional players take on the roles of two new elite characters, each with their own back story. The game retains the difficulty levels of easy, normal, heroic and the fiendishly difficult legendary modes found in the previous instalments, and also adds an additional campaign scoring to the co-op play whereby players are awarded points by defeating enemies, achieving certain goals or finding items hidden throughout the levels. Likewise, players are penalised for dying, thus creating a more competitive experience.
This all sounds very good, but it should be said Halo 3 is not without its problems. Despite the decent size of the levels, the campaign still feels far too short for my liking, especially on the easier difficulties, although at least the variation and size of the levels go some way to countering this. The A.I is also somewhat questionable at times, with some enemies just running around in circles, and computer controlled team mates are just plain idiotic, firing rockets launchers a little too close for comfort at times. On the whole though, the single player is a very pleasant experience, and leaves you with a very accomplished feeling when completed on the harder difficulties.
Despite the shortness of the single player, Halo 3’s multiplayer mode is where most players will no doubt spend most of their playing time. Halo 3 brings back the match making system, whereby players are able to create a party or group of friends and are matched with players of a similar skill and experience who are searching for similar game scenarios. Personally, I’m not a big of fan of this. I much prefer to create my own party and then choose manually which game I want to play, especially as the match making process can take the best part of minute at times to locate games, although in all credit to it, I’ve had no other problems with it yet. Up to sixteen players can play in one match, with up to four players on one console using one Xbox Live account. So how does it play? The simple answer is very nicely indeed. Gone is the hideous bullet lag that has plagued other 360 titles. That’s dedicated game servers for you. A nice twist to the multiplayer is the large array of vehicles available for use. Players can jump on quad bikes with a buddy on the back, go solo with several different flying machines, or take to the trusty jeeps (see picture). And yes, running someone over will well and truly ruin their day. Perhaps the greatest aspect of the multiplayer though is the vast quantities of scenarios to choose from. First you have the standard free for all, team battles and team doubles. Then you have the team objective mode, which includes sub categories of capture the flag, deliver the bomb, team onslaught and base onslaught, where players must capture various parts of the map, similar to king of the hill, but with five hills at once. And yes, king of the hill is in there as well.
Halo 3 also brings in several new features. These include an interesting game type new to the Halo series called Forge. Here players can edit the contents of a map, for example adding extra vehicles or weapons and altering ammo supply and weapon spawn times. The big difference is, this can actually be done during a match, which can make for a very interesting game. Interestingly for a first-person shooter, Halo 3 includes replays! If you are particularly satisfied with a multiplayer rampage or you’ve got some comical kills, then you can save a video of your match and watch it back to your hearts content. In addition to this, the videos can be shared amongst other Xbox Live users, so you can send it to your friends for them to watch and learn.
My overall impression of Halo 3 is it is a very good game, with a fun and solid, albeit short single player and a very strong multiplayer that will keep most players entertained for months. I think the game suffers however from the weight of expectation on its shoulders. In many quarters it has been dubbed “The game of the decade”, which I’m afraid I find to be somewhat unjust at this time. This could be that I’m just not engrossed enough in the Halo series yet but it feels like it has something missing and doesn’t really add anything new to the genre. However, there is no doubt the game is very good, it seems to do most things right and I would definitely recommend it anyone who had enjoyed either of the previous Halo instalments or is a fan of first-person shooter in general.
Overall: 8.5/10
Chris Savoury
