| What's in a name? Halo, by any other word, wouldn't make a dent in the gaming world. |
We all know what Halo is. It's the 2nd most popular video game of all time. Everyone knows who Master Chief is, and that Halo had one of the best multiplayers ever. Yet Halo 2 disappointed the entire gaming nation, would Halo 3 be doomed to the same fate?
Graphics- 6/10. Ok, ok. I know it has been a good 9 months since Halo came out, so it is unfair to hold it to the standards of games that just came out. But compared to other games that came out even before Halo 3, it still looks dated graphically. BioShock, Gears of War, and Oblivion all blow Halo's graphics out of the water. Lighting is used pretty well, and the motion-blur helps, but if you look straight down from where you are standing, you'll see how bad the texture work actually is. Our favorite example of this is on the multiplayer map Guardian- where the vines growing all over the map look like re-used graphics from the original XBox.
Halo 3 was supposed to set new standards for the industry in everything it did, including the graphics. I mean, the graphics aren't terrible on Halo 3, but they just don't seem as polished as they should if Bungie really wanted to change gaming. That said, we know that bad graphics won't ruin a game, and great graphics won't save it, so lets move on to what the rest of the game has to offer.
Story- 7/10. After playing Halo 1, the story was found to be superb. However, the same couldn't be said of Halo 2, finishing it was grueling, but maybe we're missing something. Halo 3 doesn't deserve anything higher than a 7. This time, the bulk of the story revolves around Cortana, who has been stolen, and you have to go on a killing spree to get her back, and eventually vanquish the Covenant from the face of the Earth. Sure it's Master Chief killing some bad guys, which is always good stuff, but the cut-scenes can be downright corny, and in my opinion, way too long. In the beginning of the game, you are forced to sit through a 5-minute cut-scene, and a tutorial of how to use the controls. It's friggin' Halo- we just wanna shoot things.
It seems as if Bungie really designed this game for people that weren't huge fans of the original two Halos, as you don't have to have any previous Halo experience to follow the story. You might wonder why you are fighting in the first place, but Bungie did a good enough job of trying to keep it a new, fresh story. Granted, this has something to do with the anti-climatic ending of Halo 2, but that is for another review. Of course, campaign and story go hand and hand, so if one stinks, they both stink.
Campaign- 5/10. Forgive me if the word predictable comes up more than once, because that is definitely the theme of the campaign. The basic mission you will have to suffer through in Halo goes a bit like this- fight your way through hoards of the covenant to meet up with the rest of your squad, watch a brief cut-scene telling you that you have to fight your way back the way you came, and again go throw hoards of covenant to be picked up by a pelican, and flown to another mission in another location. There is almost NO variation in the missions. Occasionally, you'll get to fly a hornet or a scorpion, but that's it.
It's not ALL bad, though. One thing well liked was the ability to take down the covenant drop ships in Halo 3, something missing from past Halos. Another thing Halo does really well in its campaign, is implement all sorts of different weapons. We just love using the Spartan Laser to take down those puny grunts; not to mention the return of the Assault Rifle. Thank goodness for the Assault Rifle. This is probably the biggest improvement over Halo 2's campaign play.
Forge/Theater- 9/10. We were quite pleased with both the forge and the theater in Halo 3. Both are new features for Halo, or any FPS for that matter. We would love to see both of these in more FPSs, and Halo set a new standard for the industry in this regard.
In forge mode, you play the basic multiplayer, but with the ability to edit objects all over the map. You can add vehicles wherever you see fit, and drop weapons for a quick way to end a fight. We thought of a few things that could be added (like color effects, and different objects to add, like ramps), but this is a minor issue in the grand scheme of Forge. Theater is self-explanatory. You get to watch some of your most previous matches in their entirety, and save the games you like the most. You can also edit the games down to video clips of the best moments, plus in addition to watching yourself, you can look at the other players in the game as well.
Game Play- 9/10. There are only a few knocks on the game play, but they are easily forgiven. The biggest problem with the game play is the cover system, or lack thereof. In Gears of War, and now GTA, the cover system is terrific, granted they are both 3rd person games, but it seems as though Halo could have done something more than the simple ability to crouch. Another problem found, and maybe this is just a personal issue, is the invisible barriers the game has set up. When climbing a hill, you are often stopped by seemingly nothing.
We LOVE the weapons of Halo; there are just such a variety of them. If you can think of it, it is probably in Halo in some way, shape, or form. From the basic UNSC weapons, like shotguns, assault rifle, and battle rifle, to the strange, but always-fun covenant weapons like the needler, Halo's weapons reign supreme. The same can be said about the vehicles. The vehicles are just such a staple of Halo; you couldn't have the game without them. We love the vehicles, but there is no denying that the handling of them has gotten significantly worse from previous Halo games. The warthog having the biggest handling issues, as it can't go over bumpy terrain without going crazy.
Multiplayer- 10/10. This is the best multiplayer on the market. There is almost limitless tweaking to be done, and game modes to play. Oddball, infection, VIP, Capture the Flag, and slayer are the headliners of the different game modes to play, but with XBox Live adding a new game mode every weekend that you can play for double the experience points, there is literally a never ending amount of game modes.
The matchmaking system is head-and-shoulders above any other matchmaking system. It matches you with players that are as close to your skill level as possible, which is a refreshing change from other multiplayers out right now (I'm talking to you, GTA IV). Overall, I don't see any ways the multiplayer could have been improved on. With XBox Live, Forge, and Theater, it's as close to perfection as you'll see.
Halo was indeed doomed before it was even released. It's a bit like Christmas. When you were a kid you would set the bar so high for Christmas that it would be impossible for the actual day to be as good as you imagined (had to throw in at least one bad analogy). And though this game definitely doesn't live up to the hype, if played correctly, you can still get a very enjoyable experience out of the multiplayer and just messing around with your friends on Halo. We're going to give it a 7.8/10, a respectable rating, but not what we had come to expect from Halo.
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