Mark:
I was never a very big fan of Halo, and this is the first version that I have really spent much time with. The main reason I got into it was because, being the proponent of social gaming that I am, the multiplayer capabilities of the game greatly appealed to me. I also loved that fact that Russ, Tyler, myself, and presumably, if someone awesome enough existed, a fourth person, could play together through the campaign mode. Those turned out to be my favorite aspects of the game: the relative ease and quickness with which one can join a group of friends in an intense session of hardcore pwning.
But, in the end, it is still just Halo. To me, all the hype that came along with it was more than it deserved. I feel that if this game came out at the time it did and was named anything but Halo, it would have drowned in a sea of Call of Duties, Bioshocks, Orange Boxes, and hell, even Gears of Wars. The graphics are nothing special, the run-and-gun playstyle is puddle shallow, and the pattern of spawn-shoot-melee-die-lather-rinse-repeat gets repetitive. Repetitive, I say. But it’s this same simplicity that makes it fun. The battles turn out to be quick, frantic, and with teammates playing together as a team, can turn out to be very rewarding.
90/100
Russ:
Halo 3 did the unthinkable - it didn’t fall apart under all that media hype. I know. Unthinkable. With improved graphics and a few (but not too many) additions, this game compliments and in many cases improved upon the two previous titles. The single player campaign neatly packages the story arch into a mostly-believable conclusion that is fairly rewarding.
What makes this game stand out is its incredible multiplayer. There’s a good reason it’s the most popular online FPS on the planet - the gameplay is so refined and deceptively deep that there is always something there to keep you playing. This is a game that people will be playing feverishly for five years. The problem is, if I was to slip this game into my console five years from now, I would get my ass handed to me so quick that I’d turn it back off again before you can say “gravity hammer”.
93/100
Tyler:
So much of Halo 3 is just more of the same (the same being all good things like tight controls, clean graphics, quality gameplay, ’splosions and a not-super-original-but-still-pretty-cool storyline). But when the game brings something completely fresh and unexpected to the table, the quality of the those unseen aspects stand out head and shoulders above the rest of the title. I’m talking, of course, about the online suite that accompanies Halo 3’s slightly above-par single player campaign.
Like the COD and BF2MC titles, I purchased Halo 3
- 75% for Multiplayer
- 16% for Single Player
- 9% for the Cheeves
I can just imagine the thoughts of other, single player-heavy game developers while playing Halo 3 for the first time. “Pthfff, this is it? We got this game beat!” And then what they thought after playing online. “It saves full, multi-angle videos of my last my last 25 matches/single player levels, and I can edit clips and share them? I can access an extremely detailed and up to date records file and stat tracking community site which covers my whole time online? A matchmaking system that incorporates practically every online multiplayer configuration imaginable for assured enjoyment with my friends? Fucking Heatmaps!?”
My sincere hope is that the best aspect of Halo 3, the multiplayer functionality, becomes the standard in online gaming. Cheers to the game makers at Bungie for setting the bar so very high.
91/100
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