I feel Halo 3 has 3 main aspects to it; campaign, multiplayer and extras. Each has its strong aspects and its flaws. Campaign: The campaign is brilliant to put it in simple terms. It has great, action packed, all guns blazing battles on normal difficulty which can be one through shear force. On heroic a mixture of run and gunning and tactics are needed in order to survive. Legendary however needs a lot more tactical thinking. At some points you need to have planned out your next skirmish before the enemies even appear on screen. although the campaign is criticised for being short (which I agree for it is) it is the perfect length to play through in a sitting with your friends online and keeps you coming back for more. however, if you don’t have Xbox live or anyone to play through the campaign with you will find the campaign a disappointment (unless you enjoy earning achievements. 4 player co-op is a blast. even when you are being utterly destroyed in legendary and having 3 other people laugh at you, its great to be able to laugh right back at them when you see them get killed by a grunt through the death cam. Multiplayer: The multiplayer in halo games has always been great. from 4 player split screen to 16 player online or LAN party matches, it’s always been great. as luck would have it, halo 3's multiplayer is incredible. whether playing with friends or a bunch of randomers it’s always fun to play aside from the odd game in which either a: someone doesn’t shut up with death threats, gloating, whining, your mom jokes, etc. b: cheaters who use various methods to gain an advantage and ultimately ruin the match. one other problem with the multiplayer is that several maps I’ve yet to play on in matchmaking, which is unfortunate as Sandtrap is one of them which I find to be a brilliant map. the last problem is the tool everyone in the halo community wants; a custom game search tool for co-op, matches and forge. although these issues are annoying they are soon forgotten when you play the multiplayer and realise its shear brilliance. Extras: Halo 3 includes many things I consider extras (but in no way meaning them to be small or unnecessary). Forge: the best extra in my opinion is the forge. immediately after beating the campaign my co-op sidekick and I rushed straight into the forge and played for a few hours. we would have played for longer if it weren’t for the fact that it was already 2a.m. the sheer brilliance of being able to load yourself up with whatever set up you want and then spawning whatever vehicle you want (we were playing on sandtrap) and hunting your enemy down is great. after some great fighting, came the experimenting. we flipped the elephant (which seemed special at the time), created huge jumps for the mongoose, created giant chain reaction explosions, customized and elephant each with weapons and vehicles and parked them a few meters away from each other and had Pirates Of The Caribbean style ship-ship warfare. it was brilliant. Films: Films are great. although not a huge piece of Halo 3, the piece it is brilliant (aside from a few niggling controls). the ability to be able to make clips of you embarrassing your friend or showing off your skilful kills is great. Co-op: Co-op is the second best extra in my opinion as it brings the campaign into a whole new field of brilliance. playing alongside your close friends or a few randomers who added your to their party, either is great fun and adds much enjoyment, taunting, scheming, planning and laughing to the already great campaign. Skulls: skull hunting was one of my favourite and most enjoyable parts of Halo 3. my only regret is that I've found them all. however, with the finding of skulls opens up the Campaigns meta-game's full potential. Meta-game: the meta-game brings even more depth to the campaign as it challenges you in many different ways. if you are reaching for the meta-game related achievements the harder difficulties and the activation of skulls can and will make a more challenging and different experience; and each experience varies greatly by which difficulty you play on and which skulls you activate in order to gain the achievements Armour: although not a vital piece of Halo 3, customisable armour is a very nice addition to the Halo franchise. there is a lot of pieces to unlock for both Spartan and elite player models. unlocking armour gives another set of challenges for the player to conquer and gives the game more to unlock than just achievements like in most other games. Although Halo 3 is a well crafted, beautiful, challenging and brilliant game it does has several annoying flaws. the lack of a custom game search tool, flaws in unlocking some armour pieces and some annoying controls in forge and saved films are the main ones which come to mind. however, the good greatly outshines the bad as these problems can easily be fixed with an update via Xbox live (which is unfortunate for players without Xbox live). In conclusion Halo 3 is, in my opinion, amazing in all ways but not perfect. I do believe however that its hype was well deserved, its graphics are great, and its gameplay is spot on with run and gunning and tactics. I believe that Halo 3 is a must own for anyone with a 360 and a must own for anyone with enough money to go out and buy a 360 just for it. Halo 3 is the greatest game I have ever played (I will not say it’s the greatest game ever made, and no one can say that about any game because they haven’t played every game).
Positives + Loads of fun multiplayer features + Wide variety of futuristic weapons + Graphics look great + Epic soundtrack + Variety of fun to drive vechiles Negatives - Without LIVE you won't get nearly as mu... Read Full Review
Not quite as good as it was hyped up to be, but a good waste of 60 bucks. It is definitely a good game, so all you people that are calling it perfect don't get mad, but based on all the hype and CONSTANT advertisements, ... Read Full Review
