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Halo series; it was good but could have been so much better

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 9 / 11
Date: September 27, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I would just like to say, I am a big halo fan. I do and still consider it one of the best console gaming series, neck and neck with Half Life (or maybe a little better). But Halo 3, the end of the series is "good" but could have been so much better. My short review really could be summed by saying that Halo 3 is Halo 2.1 for XBOX360. I think Bungie and Microsoft played it safe by just recreating Halo 2 with better graphics and sound. From a business perspective, it was probably a smart move. Literally, there were the same weapons, same ships, same friendly characters just super-sized for the Xbox. The enemy characters acted in the same way, going through the same movements. The sad part is that they didn't recreate those famous battles there were tough as h*ll. There were a couple of tough battles with the flood and that was about it, everything else was a cake walk. After about 2 checkpoints, I knew I had to go from Normal to Heroic.

I don't know, maybe I played Halo 1 and 2 too much, but Halo 3 just felt like a lackluster experience. The AI, to me, seemed a little weaker; there were times where I was actually waiting before the enemy would shoot at me and he never did. And my favorite enemy character, the Elites weren't present (I guess they are on our side now). That Halo 2 character was awesome and would act like a predator and hunt you down. Most of the characters in three were just dummy targets waiting to get shot. I remember playing Halo 1 - 2 over and over and over again trying find a better strategy. It is Sep 27 (2 days after the release) and I have already beaten Halo on the Heroic; it would probably take me 5 hours to beat it on legendary.

On the multiplayer, so far it seems pretty good. Good maps, same Halo 2 like system.

In Summary:

+1. Great music, really set the tone
+2. Great continuation of story
+3. Great 360 graphics; you could see the bullets, blood, metallic shininess
+3b. So far, great multiplayer
-4. Horrible maps that were too linear and too easy
-5. AI lacked, I literally could stand there for a minute before some enemies would shoot me. Where were the Elites?
-6. New weapons and ships were cool but I was just fine using the older weapons like the assault rifle.
(-76b, pistol reaaaaaallly sucked this time)

In terms of the Xbox 360 games out now. I am not really a fan of Bioshock and think Halo 3 is way better. I might have to give Gears of War a better rating than Halo 3. Gears of War left you proud to have beat the game, especially on the hardest game setting.

I think Halo 3 will get a bunch of rave reviews and hold people's attention for a couple of months or a year, especially to new fans but I don't think it will satisfy the serious Halo junkie.

All around greatness

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 10 / 13
Date: September 26, 2007
Author: Amazon User

The original HALO is what caused me to trade in my Sony for an XBOX, HALO was that good. HALO 2 on the other hand was traded in on the same day it was released, the graphics were simply old and no good. However, I played HALO 3 yesterday for 3 hours on co-op, and the game is truly great. Are there better graphics in other games, yes, but overall they improved the graphics on this game to keep me happy. The action as always is intense and so far the game has not let me down. I'll be finished with the story by this evening, but this game is a keeper.

Single player snore

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 6 / 6
Date: October 01, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I am an owner of an Xbox and Halo 1 and 2, I do not own a 360. I have no interest in online multiplayer, and this review is of the single player / co-op campaign. I am not a hardcore gamer, but I do spend my money when games are good enough.

I had a chance to play this game at a friends place recently, we played through the entire campaign on heroic. I will not compare it to Halo 2 since that game was only good for online-muliplayer.

Maps: It was obvious they were trying to repeat some of the map success on Halo 1. Almost all the maps were extra long, with playtimes from 40 minutes to 2 hours. Re-use of architecture from Halo 1 was rampant, with elements from the map Silent Cartographer and Assault on the Control Room being the most identifiable.

Somehow though, they missed their mark. Perhaps it was the obsession on photo-unrealistic glossy surfaces with shadow effects, or perhaps it was the fact they spent more time fretting over how to make Halo 1 rooms *look* new (who knows why?), but for some reason I was considerably less exciting than just replaying Halo 1. The outdoor " dusty earth" style map was considerably better than Halo 2, though it still left me wanting for the stunning contrast that we saw in Halo 1.

There were no levels that I considered to have replay value, so if you're looking for another Silent Cartographer or Library, don't look to this game.

Music: Compared to Halo 1, they get a major F. The score was a pathetic rehash and rarely incited emotion.

Ambient Sound / Background Chatter: The grunts in Halo 3 had considerably funnier sayings, and were definitely better at responding to tactical situations. The sound effects were superb, as is to be expected from the Halo franchise, and generally left me impressed.

AI: The AI generally felt much easier than Halo 1, and a joke compared to Halo 2. Though to be honest, I've played through Halo 1 so many times it's pretty hard to tell if I'm just better at killing grunts now.

Brutes and their friends for some reason are much less exciting to kill than elites, and this did not change between Halo 2 and Halo 3. The only difference is there are more brutes, and that makes more of the game less interesting.

The flood were both more and less annoying. It is actually possible to fight flood with plasma now, though it's not advisable. However the mini-flood things got some armor, and teeth. If you just ignore them and let them die on your shield, they have the ability to kill you. However, once you adapt to the change in flood dynamics, they are quite easy to handle.

Graphics: I hate to say it, but if this is the best the 360 can produce, I'm unimpressed. I played the game on my friends large-screen HDTV at 720p, and even with good hardware it wasn't that great. There was constant environment clipping / culling. Fog was obviously being used in some areas to hide polygons. Grass doesn't show up until about 50 feet out. Everything was too shiny. Bump mapping was used to good effect. Character models, while more complex than before (armor falls off and other "interactive" model changes), seemed dull boring boring compared to the elites in Halo 1. Basically, it looks like Halo 1 with a better processor, worse map design, and all the contrast taken out of the skins.

With that said, if you're a hardcore gamer you probably already own Halo 3 and won't care about this review. If you're like me and the last games you bought were Halo 1 and Final Fantasy 10, don't jump on the Halo 3 bandwagon. While I don't regret my purchase of an Xbox for only Halo 1, I fear I would regret the purchase of a 360 for only Halo 3. Having rented all the other titles and played them at my friends house, I haven't seen any other titles to consider except Blue Dragon.

Summary: If you own a 360, you already have Halo 3. If you are considering buying a 360 for Halo 3, don't expect another Halo 1. It falls considerably short. It's key feature is online multiplayer, and if that's your thing great, but it's not mine.

Sean

Kind of disappointing...

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 8 / 10
Date: September 29, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Ah, crap... I've been waiting for this title for years, and all I got was a SHORT rehash of Halo 1 & 2. Not much new here. Gameplay was easy and repetitive and there wasn't a decent story arc.

My main problem is with the length of the single person campaign. I finished the thing in under 10 hours of gameplay. Come on, Microsoft! Not all of us want XBox live, and I don't appreciate getting pushed into getting it. Just give me a decent game that I can sit and play for a few hours.

Finished the Fight too Fast

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 16 / 30
Date: October 20, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I want to first point out that it is possible to objectively criticize something and still like it. With that in mind, I still waited before writing my review of Halo 3 until I had played through it a few times so I could get a better feel and grasp of the important elements of the game. Having done that I can see now that the game itself is deeply flawed in several ways- story, dialog, and game features and functions. That said I still enjoyed it, it was still a lot of fun to me. What startled me the most was just how short it was, I completed the main campaign in less than six hours, which is roughly 10-12 hours less than time spent playing the first two games. That strikes me as being unreasonable given what I paid for the it and three years Bungie supposedly spent developing the game- there simply is not enough to do.

What I noticed immediately was the dialog was very weak in several areas. I don't mean just the main thrust of the stories told in cut scenes, but everywhere- ancillary dialog of human soldiers who follow the Master Chief around on missions has most all of humor, the flowery dialog of the Sangeili Elites and the Prophets are gone, replaced instead with cliched lines we've all heard a dozen times before from other sources, as well they changed two of the voices who added so much to Halo 2, that of the Prophet of Truth and the Gravemind without changing the actors- Terrance Stamp still does Truth and Dee Bradley Barker is back as the Gravemind, yet they sound completely different. The way Halo told its story reminded me greatly of Soul Reaver 2 game- long cut scenes with tons of elocution that flows like poetry and a lot of that has been stripped out of Halo 3 leaving it almost lifeless. I thought for sure they had changed writers, but Joseph Staten is credited for Halo 3.

The inconsistencies that struck me were the weapons- yes, they added a ton of new toys to play with, but also changed some of the main stays. The M-41 assault rifle from Halo, missing from Halo 2, is back for Three, but somehow holds 28 less rounds in its magazine than before. The needler, probably one of my favorite weapons from the previous two games can no longer be dual-wielded, and they cut its ammo capacity back, the same goes for the shotgun. The original Magnum is also back, but appearances are deceiving- damage and ammo capacity have been reduced. If these are the same weapons, why have they been changed so drastically and no justification given? I can understand it being done for game balance, but it's just done with no explanation at all. I'll ignore the most overriding gripe of there is no possible way the UNSC could have fought the Covenant for 10 years given their vastly disparate technology levels. It is simply unrealistic that the human race, given how primitive their weapons, ships, and everything else is could have survived that long against the Covenant.

The story line is very simple, stop the Flood and stop the Prophet of Truth of activating the remaining Halo rings- a lot of work for basically one guy, but Spartan 117 is far from average. The game opens with the Master Chief crash landing on Earth after leaping from Truth's captured Forerunner ship and then hooking up with Sergent Major Johnson and the Arbiter in the jungles outside of what's left of New Mombassa. Your ultimate goal in the first half of the game is stop Truth from reaching the Ark- what the humans suspect is being dug out of a massive crater where New Mombassa used to be by the Covenant. It is instead a massive hyperspace gateway that takes Covenant forces to the true Ark- an enormous space station located outside of our galaxy and out of range of pulse radius of all the Halos. After failing to stop Truth and dealing with the Flood who crash a Covenant ship on Earth, the UNSC and their new allies, the Sangeili Elites, relocate to the Ark and go after Truth. All the while the Master Chief is plagued by visions of Cortana, held captive by the Gravemind.

On the Ark the mission break down is roughly the same as on Earth- take out Covenant anti-air defenses so UNSC forces can move in. Here you get to fly the new UNSC fighter, the Hornet and continues the UNSC fascination with hanging soldiers on the outsides of things. It makes me wonder if the Pillar of Autumn or In Amber Clad had hundreds of soldiers on the outside shooting at Covenant fighters with their rifles. In any event, it was fun to finally fly some human aircraft, yet absent from the entire game is the flyable Banshees. Bungie also changed which Wraith tanks you can take over, making it impossible to steal certain tanks on certain levels using melee attacks instead of grenades. This to me smacks of bad design because it makes things seem forced and artificial. Rumor has it that it is possible to take over the coppery anti-air Wraiths, but I have yet to do it.

Graphically, I'm torn. The game is very pretty, but it's not a quantum leap from Halo 2, certainly not `next generation' in my opinion, something the Xbox 360 has suffered from since day one with Perfect Dark Zero and other titles. One Bungie's curses is a lot of their textures look muddy, and they can't do metallic surfaces unless it's the Elite's armor, everything else looks like shiny lacquered concrete- the Forerunner structures especially suffer from this effect, and it was especially noticeable in Halo 2 and on human space stations which looked as though they were made form cement. Character models have been improved in some areas, but faces and uniforms on UNSC personnel look pretty much the same as they did in Halo 2. Lighting effects, weapons, and vehicles are first rate, the Flood infested levels are also quite excellent, especially the last one and everything has a nice creepy Cronenberg-esque look to it. They also updated the overall look of my favorite character, Cortana. I love how she appeared in Halo 2, but in Three she looks more human, with a different face and hair, she looks a little gothic with darker eyes.

Overall, Halo 3 gets a pass, because it is fun to play, it just doesn't last that long. I have no interest in player vs player matches, because they lack the precision offered by a mouse and keyboard. The story is weak, but passable- the preview videos of developers talking so much about they were doing so much with the Brutes and integrating them into the story turned out to be so much smoke and mirrors. If anything, they have a less a role in Halo 3 than they did in Two. The Brutes are barely anymore important than Grunts or Jackals, just thugs with big guns that you get to shoot at because the Elites are your allies now. So, I finished the fight- a little too quickly, and I will be very interested to see where they take it now, because nothing is every truly over. So maybe in two years we'll be asked again to `Continue the fight!' or `Finish the Fight, Again!'.

Return of the King

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 8 / 11
Date: September 25, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Halo 3 - Circa 2007

GOOD:
- Four-player online (or offline) co-op Gameplay allows two; three, or four players play through the game from start to end. A co-op player can come into the game at any time and leave at any time (note only one of you will play as the Master Chief, while another will play as the Arbiter, and the other two players will be Elites that work with humans)
- Great looking graphics and animation, that look even better then Halo 2, F.E.A.R. and just as good as Bioshock, while these graphics might not look as good as Gears of War do to some people these graphics still are some of the best seen to date.
- Intense multiplayer action online through Xbox Live with matches as small as one on one and as big as 16 players (and offline with out using Xbox Live using either spilt screen, or system link). Halo 3 is set up similar to Halo 2 in the sense that you're given a rank when you play multiplayer (this rank can go up or down at any time) this rank is representative of your skill and your matched with others of your skill type, that way new unskilled players and hardcore veterans will not often play against one another, unless they make a special match themselves that ignores rank.

BAD:
- Confusing plot to new players of this franchise - Playing Pervious games and read the Halo Novels will fill you in on the details, if you are incline to learn them.
- No Clan Support (like in Halo 2) - This might get fixed in a future patch
- Game is considered short to some (Campaign Story Mode).

IF IT FITS YOUR TASTE:
- A Sci-Fi First Person Shooter with quick pacing and vehicle combat.
- Co-op and online versus/team games is the big draw here.
- NEW MODE: Forge is a mode that lets you edit all the maps in Halo 3, while you cannot rebuild the maps themselves you can in this mode, add and take away any and all of the objects from vehicles and guns to spawning points and flag zones. This is all done in real time and you can invite friends to this mode while your customizing the map(s), they can play a multiplayer game while your doing this (instead of just waiting for you) and if you want you can forgo editing the map and join the game at hand as either a player or the map editor (who looks like 343 Guilty Spark), while playing as the map editor you can still add and take away any and all objects from vehicles and guns to spawning points and flag zones any time you want.
- NEW MODE: Theater Mode is a video editor that lets you record and play back any and all matches from Campaign, Multiplayer, and Forge modes from the point of view of any player either in first person or third person (even in a orbit-cam where the camera circles around the player) all in real time (you can also pause this at any time as well as fast forward and rewind), even use your camera to fly around the match and see the match from any angle you want, Don't forget you must save your videos before you turn off the game or you will lose said videos. Also you can take a picture at any time and save it to your Xbox 360 then download your picture at Bungie.com.

GAME ITS MOST ASSOCATED TOO:
- Halo 2 (Xbox)
- Halo (Xbox)
- Resistance: Fall of Man (PS3)
- Bioshock (360)
- Gears of War (360)

ADDITIONAL NOTES:
- There are bonus items scattered through the Campaign Story Mode called Skulls getting these "Skulls" will make the game harder (by doing things like turning off radar for the rest of the Campaign Mode your playing it) but will also greatly increase your meta game score for the Campaign Mode.
- There are two different limited collectors editions of this game. One is called the limited edition, which comes in a metal tin and has a bonus disc (with behind the scene videos and such) and also comes with an art book. While the other limited edition (called Legendary edition) you will find an art book a mini poster two bonus DVDs (with behind the scene videos and such as well as a collection of all the cut scenes form Halo and Halo 2 and themes you can download to your 360) And the it comes with a plastic Master Chief Helmet to keep your DVDs in (Helmet as big a volley ball).
- At Bungie.com you can sign up and pay a small fee to upgrade your Halo 3 account (default is free) to hold more space on their serves for your videos/pictures/clips that you made.

Fun

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 7
Date: September 26, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I am sad to see so much useless halo bashing on this page. A lot of these reviews do not specifically target anything and seem to only bring the rating down. My review however will be short and sweet as well and will cover only one thing. And that is how much fun I had playing the game. It was a blast, Bungie gave me the ability to finish the story of halo with three other friends, as well as switch over to multiplayer for an almost neverending online experience. The main thing was that I had fun and am glad I purchased a 360. So five stars it gets. I also recommend Bioshock for people who enjoy FPS as I recently got it and was shocked by its quality of gameplay. If you like Halo get this game, if you did not then dont worry about it.

P.S. Will someone please silence the PC fans who bash every console and console game, it is very annoying.

Save your Money!

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 7 / 10
Date: October 04, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Quite simply: This game sucks. I wasn't impressed with the beta version, but I let someone talk me into getting the full version when it came out. After a couple of days, I was done. I wasn't even that impressed with the graphics. The worst part about this game is the multiplayer modes. In other games like Gears of War or Ghost Recon, if your a casual player and don't like playing target practice to the people who have no lives and memorize every nuance of the game, you can start a campaign and play cooperatively with others on the network. With Halo 3, you can only play this type of game with people on your friends list. The only modes that you can play with strangers are the ones where you play against each other. In other words: if you don't know anyone else with this game, you're S.O.L. GRAW2 is still the best multiplayer game for the Xbox 360.

Expectations that fell short...

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 6 / 8
Date: September 28, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I've come to expect a lot with video game developers as a general rule. Especially when you consider the millions upon millions of dollars that are used for marketing, development, and distribution. I remember when gaming was more of a pastime then a cultural phenomena. So needless to say, I was curious to what Halo 3 brought to the table. My introduction didn't start off on the right foot...

Disc Not Readable...

Lovely. Lucky for me I rented the game and so I just got a replacement disc they had in stock. (Side note: I feel sorry for all of you who shelled out big bucks and got socked by the disc issues...honestly.) At any rate, I finally got to play through the campaign missions and also had some multiplayer time on Xbox Live.

Graphically, I was not blown away by the overall presentation. After playing the likes of Gears of War or Bioshock, this was not up to par. I've come to expect more. Especially when we are paying $60 STANDARD price for games. By no means am I hinting that this an ugly game...I just know that the Xbox 360 hardware can handle much more than what is given. I still found some of the character models a bit clumsy and stoic. I also thought some environments had more work put into them than others. One major turn-off of was the sound effects volume...namely the weapons and explosions. Is it me or did it sound dulled out? Turning the volume up made everything else obnoxiously loud (Dialog to be exact) and so I just settled for quiet guns and explosions. I don't know about you, but I love hearing the rattle of my bullets as they hit the ground and the roar of an explosion. However, the soundtrack is very immersing and beautiful throughout the game. A lot of hard work and commitment took place to create such astonishing music.

The real treat Halo 3 offers is multiplayer. You can easily spend hours upon hours playing over Xbox Live and honestly this portion alone could be sold separate from the campaign mission and still be a huge success. As a matter of fact, this is the shining star of the whole package.

Halo 3 comes to us with probably one of strongest marketing efforts to date...at times intrusive...but still delivers a solid gaming experience. At the same time, I can say without any hesitation that I've seen better looking and more immersing titles on the market. Basically I think this is a definitive example of what promotion can do to boost a title to the point where you think the Heaven's will part and God's angels will sound trumpets.

So in closing, happy gaming to all and enjoy the Halo 3 experience for what it's worth. Not a bad game...just not astounding.

Better than Halo 2...still disappointing

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 6 / 8
Date: October 08, 2007
Author: Amazon User

It took me just one week to finish this game! And I didn't play hours a day either.

Here's a quick summary review:

Cons:
1. Way too short
2. No dual needler this time around?
3. Only Master Chief play, no FPS with The Arbiter
4. Gameplay is dull(get there shoot everything, come back)
5. Music is lacking. Halo 1 and 2 had great scores. There's nothing new or good in this one.
6. Very linear. No ample spaces to run around in like the first Halo.

Pros:
1. It's pretty. Graphics are great.
2. New vehicles are cool.
3. New weaponry. That gravity hammer rocks!

I'll elaborate on point number 4 of the cons. The cool thing about Halo 1 is that in many parts it offered different strategies. It was big enough that you could do a variety of things in different sections of the game: you could choose to bop the grunts in the head while they're sleeping, you could grab a banshee and fly up to an unextended bridge and pick the enemy from down below or you could just charge with guns blazing.

This game and the last has only offered "charge with all guns blazing". That gets boring quicky. Replay value is low because of this. In many ways it seems like the last 2 games were built by very different people from the first game.

A lot of emphasis has been put in the graphics and they look great. But the game play is flat.

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