christiangamer

As a basic piece of entertainment Halo 3 is a phenomenon. It broke crazy big entertainment sales records and people bought 360 consoles just to play this game. You can read Microsoft tooting its own horn here, and they kinda deserve it. The video game release made more money in it’s first days than Spiderman 3 did (170 million – whoa). And besides all that hype – Halo 3 is a great game and a great way to end the trilogy that began on Microsoft’s big black box so many years ago. While the gameplay itself hasn’t evolved into anything incredibly new – it’s still some of the best fun to be had on 360 – especially the single player campaign. And while the moving and shooting hasn’t been altered much, the other innovations are downright incredible.

SINGLE PLAYER: Halo started Microsoft’s Xbox off with a bang and for good reason; it had a cool story. It wasn’t necessarily the deepest book in the library, but it was awesome nonetheless with it’s cool characters, scary plot twists, and “did you see that??!!” moments. Halo 2 was great, but not as good as Halo. Halo 3 is the upgrade it should be. Its fun sci-fi storyline and still-cool characters are all great fun and the ending is much more satisfying than your average action tale (be sure to stay after the credits). Also, though technically you might consider this belonging in the multi-player section, you can experience all the fun with a friend: from beginning to end on one console. It’s kind of an easy game unless you pop the difficulty up a notch; but that doesn’t make it any less fun. It is, however, a little on the short side. I teamed up with some friends on my day off and we played through it in 6 hours our first time through. You could beat it in less time if you know where you’re going.

CO-OP MULTI-PLAYER: While you can play through the campaign with a friend on one box; it’s even cooler that you can play through it with 3 others over Xbox LIVE or system link. Yep, the awesomeness of 4-player co-op is here, and it should be in every game from now on because it’s a blast! This is how I experienced it the first time through, and playing any other way is just not the same. This was my favorite aspect of the game by far. I have now played through it about 4 times and yep, I’ve beaten it on Legendary (with some help…).

VERSUS MULTI-PLAYER: Although the single co-op multiplayer campaign is my favorite part of Halo 3; no doubt most people came to play the world-class versus multiplayer. It is in my opinion a great upgrade from Halo and Halo 2; but at it’s core it’s still the same running and gunning you’ve come to know and love or hate. I am personally somewhere in the middle, and this is purely a taste issue. I love Halo 3 at LAN Party’s. I personally host a LAN Party for the game regularly. We all know each other; it’s a non-threatening environment; and you can have 4 players per Xbox 360 and up to 16 in the same game. It’s a great time and may not be toppled by another game anytime soon.

Put me up on Xbox LIVE, however, and I just get kind of tired of it. Yep, it’s the same game – but I prefer playing this one with close friends. It may be the uber-competitiveness of it all; it may be that 12 year old that can snipe you whilst in the crest of a 20 foot jump; or it may simply be the crudeness of the players that seem to gravitate to these types of games (Note to self – write an article about the idiots, er, I mean idiosyncrasies of playing games on Xbox LIVE); or maybe I just like my versus-play to be more tactical. And then there’s those times when you empty a clip into your foe only to have to race towards him and mash the B button to win the duel. At any rate – if that’s your thing -then this is a must-have title for you. And that’s a matter of taste.

On the account of the actual game and it’s technical merits – wow is it awesome! Usually it’s lag-free; the options are plentiful; the friends and party systems are great (as is the fact that you can mute the other team completely with one setting change); the level design has something for everyone; and a new game mode (infection) is great fun! Really, there is a supporting cast of amazing options that take the game to new levels. You can record every game you play and save it to your hard drive. You can take screenshots and make movie clips and share them with your friends. You can completely redesign the layout of a level. You can create a new gametype and download new gametypes from bungie.net. All of your statistics are captured and displayed at bungie.net. Check out my service record so you know what I’m talking about. All this is pretty awesome; and even though as stated above it’s not my favorite gameplay style, I still love it!

CONTENT: Halo 3 is rated M for mature by the ESRB. Halo 3’s content is at the same level as past games in the series; so if you played those you know pretty much exactly what to expect (except now it has prettier graphics). If you haven’t played it then you need to know why it got the mature rating. Its descriptors say ‘blood and gore, violence, and mild language’ and that’s pretty accurate. There is animated blood that mists and spatters from time to time. It depends on what you shoot as to what color of spray you see (aliens don’t have red blood). There is a moderate amount of PG-level swearing in the main campaign. There is a computer “AI” hologram in the shape of a sort-of-naked female (think: Tron) which is not really offensive or sexual. That being said, I’m not a teenage boy and I’m not attracted to animated girls. Your young’ens might see that differently. There are also quite a few scary and gooey alien creatures that try and kill or eat your character throughout the game, but most teens won’t be scared off by that.

Parents should check it out via rental first; but for the most part it’s pretty tame. Even though it garnered an M rating from the ESRB, it would probably get a PG-13 from the movie ratings board.

BOTTOM-LINE:

• Amazingly fun co-op/single player campaign (4-player co-op is great fun!)
• Awesome production values all around
• Good way to end the trilogy (good story)
• Sci-fi typical violence and alien scariness with animated blood
• Some swearing involved in the single player campaign
• Should be OK for most teenagers

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