One of the Greatest Games of all time? or Just over hyped?

Halo has been a huge hit franchise with fans all over the world. People have made websites especially for master chief, they have written their own songs, they have created their own armor and it spawned a comedy series called red VS blue. Halo was a huge success because of the music, game play, multiplayer and graphics. It was a killer APP for the Xbox. Halo 2 took things a step further with online play and a continuation to the story as well as introducing an old but playable character. Even though it wasn’t as good as the first game it still sold millions of copies because of its multiplayer. Now with Halo 3 in our hands does it live up to all the hype and waiting? Read on and Find out.

                Halo 3 starts off with Johnson finding the chief where you start off in a forest level. The story seems to take off where halo 2 left off however because of a couple of sources(Wikipedia.org) they say that the game does not take off where Halo 2 left off and in order to catch up you must read the novels in order to know what is going on.

                One huge difference that you will notice is how long the levels are. In halo 1 and 2 the levels where long enough to play through them and feel like if you accomplished something. In Halo 3 the levels are so short you will be done with the game before you brush your teeth in the morning. Just because the levels are short doesn’t mean that they aren’t challenging at all right? Wrong the only real challenge is within the heroic and legendary missions as always. If you play through normal and easy its just like playing in easy mode. This isn’t really a bad thing because most people will play through legendary for fun and will only play normal and easy if they want to beat the game and see how it all ends, which of course leads me to my next subject, the story.

                What made Halo one of the greatest games of all is the Story. Bungie focused on the story so much that everything made perfect sense. Halo 2 was a huge let down but the story still managed to fit the story line and explain what is going on. Halo 3 you would be lucky if you can understand half of it. The story is so out of placed that most of the time you will be asking yourself what the hell is going on and where are they? Even though they are on earth it doesn’t seem like they are. The story has so many holes that the story suffers because of it. Whenever someone dies you don’t feel it because they didn’t make it important enough. I will not tell you who dies because I don’t want to spoil the ending. All I would say is they could have done a lot better with the story.

                Game Play is still there and greater than ever. The game handles just like Halo 1 and 2 with a redesign system. From time to time the game will slow down to load but if will only set you back about half a second. Weapons from Halo 1 and Halo 2 are in this game as well as a few new ones. With these weapons you will spend most of your time fighting Brutes and Grunts. Jackals, Drones and Hunters make an appearance from time to time but only until you kill them. The enemy variety really suffers because it keeps repeating itself over and over again. Fighting brutes gets really boring that after only minutes of playing you should be able to predict all their moves.

                Halo 3 uses a tweaked version of the Halo 2 engine. The graphics aren’t all that great either but they aren’t bad. You can still see where the terrain cuts off on a few mountains just like Halo 1 and 2. In a few levels the graphics are really bad you would think that you are looking at an image with no debt and some characters flying through them. What Halo 3 lacks in graphics it makes up for in power. The game has faster loading now. However just like Halo 1 and 2 I wouldn’t mind better graphics and slow loading. This is a next generation system after all but when you play through it you would think that you are playing through Halo 2 and not Halo 3. The characters have been updated and do look a lot different. This much I will give bungie credit because the characters do look a little bit life like. However the aliens still look the same as well as master chief.

                The soundtrack and the sound effects are as phenomenal as ever. All of the original Voice over characters are back and even if they replace someone you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. One thing that bungie did say is that the dialog was longer while playing the game. Yes there are plenty of cut scenes with great dialog but they also said that if you stare at someone long enough they will eventually say something back to you because you will make them feel uncomfortable. As for me I don’t have time to just stand there looking at someone just to hear a quote from them.  Also when attacking the aliens you can barely make out what they are saying that sometimes, heck most of the times you will not be able to pay attention to what they are saying. The Music is still as great as ever and no matter how many times they use the Halo main theme I will never get tired of it.

                The online multiplayer is still as great as ever. Now they have added new features to where you can upload a clip through the bungie website and show it to all your friends. It also has a picture of your Spartan and what he looks like where everyone who is your friend can see as well. You can customize your character with different body armor and helmets. There is not much of a variety of colors but all the basics are there. You can rise through the ranks and unlock even more things.  Just like Halo 2 there’s even more potential to offer more maps via market place. However now you will be forced to pay for the maps instead of just waiting a certain amount of weeks before getting them for free. 4 player co-op mode offers even more fun. You can play through the whole story with up to 4 players. The story mode will only take a few hours and then its off to play online.

 

Conclusion:

Halo 3 is really just an online game. Halo 1 was more focused on story. Halo 2 was focused on story and online play. Halo 3 is now really just an online game. Even though it seems that Bugnie put a lot of work into multiplayer mode and maybe graphics it really did a bad job with the story line. I was so disappointed with this game that I regret buying the legendary edition. Yes the helmet is really cool but the Bonus discs are crap, the game is crap and the helmet is really only worth no more than 30 bucks. 3 years of waiting and this is all bungie can give us. This was the most highly anticipated game and now that we played it, its nothing but a huge disappointment.

Story: Most of the time you don’t know what is going on. You don’t feel for the characters that die and a terrible ending to one of the best games of all time. 3/10

Game Play: classic Halo game play nothing really changed except for a few short levels and solid controls. 9/10

Graphics: Graphics are great but they could have been even better. 7/10

Sound: Great sound effects, Sound track and voice over. No matter how many times you hear the theme you will never get tired. 10/10

Life Span: really short story line however multiplayer will make you keep coming back for years and years.  10/10

Total Score: 78% = C

Why such low score when other websites give it a higher score. Simple they are basing all of their reviews on just the multiplayer alone. They truth is that Halo 3 doesn’t deserve a high score but because it has such a huge fan base that no matter how bad the game is the fan boys will always give it a high score. I’m a Halo fan I spent 130 bucks on the legendary edition and got the helmet and the game case signed by bungie. But it wasn’t really worth it. I didn’t get my money’s worth on this purchase. Yes I will play Halo 3 for the multiplayer but the fact is that Multiplayer really isn’t enough to carry this game. This game is supposed to be about the story behind master chief and bungie should have really made an effort to make the game better. In my opinion as well as other who side with me this game is a huge let down. If you feel different please feel free to comment on the forum and make sure to make a great point to why I am wrong besides just saying “Oh it has great multiplayer”. This is just like Gears of War where people bought it just because it has great graphics but no story line.