The King of FPS has shown that his formula isn't going to last
Halo 3's kicks off with a bang when you land and have to rescue Johnson from the Brutes on Sierra; the initial game mechanics surprised me. After about an hour of playing though, I was beginning to become unimpressed. The game still plays like a charm, not one bit of slowdown and I didn't hint at any major glitches in the game. The weapon balance in Halo 3 is absolutely amazing but there were a few things that could have been toned. Every gun in the game feels solid and every shot feels like it's actually going where you want it to. The only problem is that some of the guns feel like the clip is too small or the clip is too large. I think that the only really well balanced guns in the game are the Assault Rifle and the Battle Rifle.
The graphics is the only place in the game that Halo didn't fail me. The game is absolutely beautiful and the environments look stunning. The lighting in the game is just brilliant, the guns that you wield will shine in the sun and the Carbine is more a joy of reloading than actually using it. The only issue that I have here is that the facial expressions of most of the characters look the same as they did in Halo 2. They look like they threw a latex mask over a robotic face and then put it in a game. I know that Bungie could have definately done better than that.
The Campaign is underwhelming, and this is the low point to me. It just feels like Halo 2, which in turn felt like Halo 1. There hasn't been too much difference in the games since 2001. The weapons look better and the game plays smoother, but there just isn't that sense of aw that there was with the first Halo. The story this time is the only thing that actually kept me slightly captivated, and I won't ruin the ending but it wasn't what I had expected. Another annoying thing about the Campaign is ranomly Cortana appears out of nowhere and you can hardly move while she talks random gibberish to you. This actually made me stop playing the game after it happened a few times.
The multi-player is still the best peice of the Halo universe. The game is the best in multiplayer even when it's just a LAN battle in your living room. The maps that are given to you are already awesome but then Bungie threw us a loophole: The Forge. The Forge is a type of game where you can edit the placement of weapons, grenades, scenery, spawn points, and vehicles throughout the levels. You can place weapons anywhere and choose how many clips they come with, how long it takes for them to respawn, and whether they're even in the level at the beginning of the match. This is great for toning down the snipers or shotgun hogs in the levels. The options are transferred over even to the actual scenery of the game and the vehicles. I can't wait to download more maps later to mess with them.
Xbox Live is just redone again with Halo 3; the ranking system is now based on actual ranks rather than levels. I found out that you can play with whatever ranks OR you can choose to play more to your own rank. The higher the rank the more you can cusomize your online soldier. The introduction of call signs is a lot nicer for big team battles so you can better control whats going on on the battlefield. The only thing that really sucks is that for the first time I experienced someone hacking Halo 3 and apparently Bungie didn't have a way to prevent it.
As many know you can also share video clips now as well. You record everything without you even knowing it. You can send, delete, and manipulate the videos in any way to figure out how other teams work if you want the upper hand in the next rounds. This is also a good way to get bragging rights, by keeping the videos of the good kills and the pwnage that you can inflict on other people.
All in all Halo 3 is a decent game with an awesome multi-player aspect. Seriously, this game could have stood out on it's own as an online multiplayer shooter. The only thing that would have been nice is a bot system so you could play multi-player for those who can't afford Xbox Live or can't get to others houses to play. So in final, Halo 3 is almost worth the hype that it creates. There are serious low-points but Halo 3 has a way of getting through them alive. It's still the best multi-player FPS out there so do it, join the multi-player world.