It doesn´t really matter where you look, Halo 3 has it perfect.
Halo 3 is the conclusion to one of the biggest stories ever created for a video game. If you read Fall of Rach, the Flood, First Strike, Ghost of Onix and the new Contact Harvest; you will agree with me about this. The Halo Universe is so complex that just really dedicated fans can understand the story as a whole. If you are the kind of person that goes: "Halo is just space zombies against humans", then you are either a fan of other franchise (which I totally respect), or you really haven´t played the game since it´s first iteration and haven´t read the books at all. But how well does Halo 3 concludes this amazing story? Well, perfectly. As I said I can´t get into details for the spoiler free sake of this review, safe to say though that the plot, climax and conclusion of the game are very satisfying. Note: many questions WILL remain unanswered for the book readers, but if you haven´t read the books and only know the story as far as the games go then everything will become clear to you, IF you pay attention. All that the talk during gameplay is rather important to fully understand the story of the game, not like other games where you only get important details during cinematics. And whats even cooler about the game is the drama: characters are sad, hopeless, facing the last breaths of humanity. As always, even if Halo 3 has a darker tone than Halo CE & Halo 2, the game remains funny. Grunts will yell extremely hilarious stuff at you, your fellow marines will adore you if you safe them from an almost inevitable death or they will really get mad if your driving sucks. This irony is just comfortable to the view and ears, the contrast of having fun and feeling kind of sad from time to time is just incredibly satisfying.
Gameplay, well I mean come on: it´s Halo! The control scheme is perfect, specially knowing the fact that shooters don´t usually translate to well on concoles. The game brings back the basic layouts with some minior changes, but nothing that will make you forget that this is Halo. Dual Wielding is now fully featured and fully controlled (you reload the right weapon with the right bumper and the opposite for the left weapon). Halo 3´s gameplay really evolves even more with the addition on new vehicles and weapons. For example the new support weapons are great for making extreme damage to a certain point, and other all the other weapons have the perfect balance. Trust me, after so many matchmaking, social and custom games (including some ofline Lan fest in my house) I can tell you: no weapon in Halo 3 feels cheap or overpowered.
Equipment is the only 100% new feature in Halo 3 gameplay. With the button "X" you will throw a device. This device can be so many different thing: a bubble shield for instance, will protect you of any damage if you are inside, but enemies can come in to kill you any day. Equipment is cool because you can never have a total advantage over the enemy with it, as they can turn the equipment to your disadvantage fairly easy. Mission desing is perfect: no more cheap snipers, or unbalanced rain of plasma grenades, or enemies with infinite shield. Bungie out done themselves with this, because the game actually requieres skill: if you loose you feel that if you do it better you can achieve it. The levels will be perfectly arranged. I foyu just had a really big and hard fight, the next segment will be rather easy for you to rest, and so on. AI is impressive as ever. Halo is known for having really smart AI, but Halo 3 is not only smart, they are agressive, the look for you, and get mad at you if you come in overconfident. The brute pack mentality gets you into the feeling of the covenant being overran by this barbarians, destroying the elitism and high standarts of it´s army. They are rampant, unorganized but vicious. Also, it´s important to know that the Covenant species and classifications are now much more detailed, Grunts have different colors and armor depending on their tasks, Brutes have different armor depending on their ranks, etc...
Halo 3 has impressive graphics. Bungie used a double layer buffer, one for lighting, and one for texturing and mapping. Granted, the game runs natively in 640p, which may cause alising in some spots, but the lighting is worth it. Geometry in the game is just breath taking, huge landscapes of destruction or just plain beuty, mountains covered with snow or dead deserts. Character desing is not bad. For example Covenant are awsome to look at. Elites shine their splendid armors if you piont your flash light at them, grunts will look outstanding in the deep jungle of the first level. Humans are just cool, their fighting animations and believable texturing made me fall in love of this characters. Yes, the Master Chief and the Arbiter are not as cool looking as the rest of the pack, but I think it´s for memory saving. Weather effects are also beutiful. Halo 3 water is the best water ever created (better than real life water for sure), as it will react realisticly to whatever action taked by the user. If something explodes, waves will appear and expand agains the already exisiting waves that the sea has. Objects will float up to land and will animate according how strong the water is moving. Music is what you will expect for Martin O´donnel. And the detail put on sound effects is just shocking. I can´t believe that each shell that hits the floor will sound with presicion depending on the surface on 5.1 audio. God, I have played so many games in my life: Marios, Resident Evils, Elder Scrolls, KOTOR, Half Life, Bioshick, Fable, Zeldas, GoldenEye, and non has ever satisfy me more than Halo 3. And details like this is what makes a game just cool and awsome. Finally there's the Multiplayer. I don´t play Halo for it´s multiplayer. Yes I do play it, but the storyline of Halo is what drives me. Still, this part of the game is considered by many (IMO not the mayority) the best part of Halo. Halo 3 introduces many new things but mainly FORGE and Saved Films. Imagine having a map builder that cannot change geometry, but can add anything, from scenery to weapons and vehicles. Now play that with you palls, yes, edit a map with you pals online. And have the most funny multiplayer match ever. That is FORGE. Saved Films is what it sounds like: you get to save your film. But, it wil totally free: you can detach the camara for different angles, look to the enemies camera, third person views, and you can even take a screenshot of the film. In a whole this may not sound so great, but as soon as you get the game you will know the potential this tools have in the community. Making a map, deeply customize a game type, save a film, take a screenshot, and all this upload it to Bungie.net, show it to the community, let them play your creation, let the see how kick ass you are, ot even report a bug. Halo 3 is only going to get better with the time...
I have played games for more than 12 years now, think of a great franchise and yes I have played it. And still Halo is better than all of them. The single player, the multiplayer, the books, the graphics, the sound, all of it is just what keeps me alive in this terrble world. (Hey, if you think I only play Halo look at my gamerscore)