The definitive review of Halo 3
...it wasn't until 3 days after it was released before I got my hands on it. It failed in living up to my wildest imagination, it didnt live up to the hype, it didn't satifsy me. The problem is, nothing would fulfil my halo needs anymore, after 2 years of thinking how good the game would be, no game could ever be that good - even if the game was perfect it still wouldnt be good enough. However this game has had a bloody good go at the impossible and as I play it more and more, it is actually becoming better.
Lets talk campaign, at 8 hours (in what it took me), it is quite shorter than the previous two games. This is nowhere near good enough - i wanted at least a 100 hour campaign (told you nothing would match up to my dream!), however given the choice, i would pick those 8 hours over the 12 hours it took for halo1 or halo2! The campaign is pretty much action packed the whole way through - the vehicle levels break up the action quite nicely and playing co-op really makes things fun. The ability to play the campaign online is nothing new in terms of video games, but it works really well with halo and this is one of my favourite new features, it gets really fun and competitive when you play with 3 other players.
The story line that accompanies the game is well thought out and quite good. The first time I played through, i literally just played through till the end, not really taking in the story. The second time I played through, I realized what was happened, and its quite clever. Theres no real twists or turns, there never was with any of the Halo's, it just delivers the ending of what is an epic story and it does a good job. I can imagine there are players out there who did the same as me the first time, all I can say is play it again, it is a good story!
The sound effects and music in Halo3, truly are spectular, many a time have I found myself "oohing and ahhing" to the different scores of the main theme. The sound effects are really good from sticking something with a spiker grenade to a grunt shouting out something funny - it never seems repetitive either.
The graphics took me by suprise at first, I had imagined them to be the best ever graphics for any game in the whole world and they had fallen short. Of course I had hyped myself up again but they dont meet the superior quality shown by Gears of War, however they do look nice and there are some jaw-dropping points in the game, especially in HD. Soon after I finished the campaign I started on the multiplayer aspect and it is a lot different to Halo2, the maps seem more thought out, they seem more mature and are a lot better to play on than Halo2 maps. There is one slight niggle with multiplayer which I think is that there is not enough variety in playlists and maps between gametypes, so you end up playing a lot of the same, so its better to switch gametypes from time to time to stop playing the same maps. However knowing Bungie already have updates and new maps in mind, softens the disappointment.
Overall this game is a worthy addition to an epic trilogy - you must play it.