A not so long time ago there was Halo, and Halo was a game that I rather enjoyed. Soon after there was Halo 2, and then I decided that the Halo series was just one loop-the-loop only with half of the story in around half of the time. When Halo 3 came out I expected it just to finish the loop-the-loop and leave you hanging dead in space, and it pretty much did just that.
Halo took me seven or eight hours to complete the first time around, whereas Halo 2 and 3 combined took me eight, maybe nine hours to complete.
The problem that Halo 3 has is that it's trying too much, in my opinion, and that it was overhyped. Sure, it's better than Halo 2 but it falls short of being as fun as Halo ever was for me.
Halo 3, being as overhyped as it was and being called "the game" to get for the 360 put me off of it completely, and I went in with bad expectations and came out with a bad experience. I tried some multiplayer, but I avoid the game whenever possible because of the amount of weapons.
The only weapons I like in the game are the assault rifle, spikers and small machine guns, however it doesn't seem to matter how much I fire my opponents never die, and my shield drops quicker than your toast going butter-side down. I'm not exactly sure what happens about it all, but whenever I come across another player I'm the one who dies unless I have a player-dubbed "Power Weapon".
That said I am a PC gamer, not a console gamer and I find shooters on a console much harder than I do on the computer, so maybe that's just it.
The vehicles in Halo 3 are also, in general, rubbish. The Warthog still responds to your controls like an overly hyperactive and overly excitable puppy, the Mongoose is a smaller version of the Warthog without the turret on top, the Banshee is still as hard to fly as it was in Halo 2 and the Chopper has a mind of its own half of the time.
Then there's also the campaign which, quite frankly, annoyed me because it could have been better if it was just added on to Halo 2. There were no surprises there other than perhaps Johnson, the only character who seemed to be liked by his voice actor, was killed. Thanks, Bungie. The one character I liked in Halo...
There was also no apparent incentive for the Elites to join with the humans for any reason than that they can kill the other aliens, which to me said "we can't figure out why so we're going to go with this. It's cool. You'll like it. It's got aliens to kill! And it's cool!"
In general, Halo 3 felt like a game that was appealing to the people who liked Halo 2 rather than trying to actually be a good game. There were far too many things in Halo 3 that made me think of it as a fan game rather than anything else, such as Guilty Spark and the Hornets, the last level where you were forced to drive another Warthog through terrain that wasn't designed to have a Warthog drive through it and the Gravemind.
There were also issues with level design. In Halo the level design was rather straight forwards, and its almost kept the same in Halo 3, the only difference being that I've been blinded by all the lights in the game and I can't tell backwards from forwards on the game. At one point I was going the wrong way for a minute before I realised that I was following a trail of dead bodies that I'd left. That, and I couldn't honestly read the motion sensor.
Personally, I didn't like Halo 3 and I'd honestly urge people to stay away from it. Then again I can see why some people might like Halo 3. As far as it goes some of the weapons are actually good, I just can't use them (read, I can't snipe and I hate semi-automatic/manual weaponry without the use of a mouse), and the graphics are good if only you didn't have all that dynamic lighting blinding you. If you haven't played any of the Halo games and you're interested, then rent it out first. The Halo story isn't that hard to get into and you might find yourself amused enough to consider buying the full game, as well as renting/buying Halo and Halo 2, but I would say don't go into it without high expectations.
Halo took me seven or eight hours to complete the first time around, whereas Halo 2 and 3 combined took me eight, maybe nine hours to complete.
The problem that Halo 3 has is that it's trying too much, in my opinion, and that it was overhyped. Sure, it's better than Halo 2 but it falls short of being as fun as Halo ever was for me.
Halo 3, being as overhyped as it was and being called "the game" to get for the 360 put me off of it completely, and I went in with bad expectations and came out with a bad experience. I tried some multiplayer, but I avoid the game whenever possible because of the amount of weapons.
The only weapons I like in the game are the assault rifle, spikers and small machine guns, however it doesn't seem to matter how much I fire my opponents never die, and my shield drops quicker than your toast going butter-side down. I'm not exactly sure what happens about it all, but whenever I come across another player I'm the one who dies unless I have a player-dubbed "Power Weapon".
That said I am a PC gamer, not a console gamer and I find shooters on a console much harder than I do on the computer, so maybe that's just it.
The vehicles in Halo 3 are also, in general, rubbish. The Warthog still responds to your controls like an overly hyperactive and overly excitable puppy, the Mongoose is a smaller version of the Warthog without the turret on top, the Banshee is still as hard to fly as it was in Halo 2 and the Chopper has a mind of its own half of the time.
Then there's also the campaign which, quite frankly, annoyed me because it could have been better if it was just added on to Halo 2. There were no surprises there other than perhaps Johnson, the only character who seemed to be liked by his voice actor, was killed. Thanks, Bungie. The one character I liked in Halo...
There was also no apparent incentive for the Elites to join with the humans for any reason than that they can kill the other aliens, which to me said "we can't figure out why so we're going to go with this. It's cool. You'll like it. It's got aliens to kill! And it's cool!"
In general, Halo 3 felt like a game that was appealing to the people who liked Halo 2 rather than trying to actually be a good game. There were far too many things in Halo 3 that made me think of it as a fan game rather than anything else, such as Guilty Spark and the Hornets, the last level where you were forced to drive another Warthog through terrain that wasn't designed to have a Warthog drive through it and the Gravemind.
There were also issues with level design. In Halo the level design was rather straight forwards, and its almost kept the same in Halo 3, the only difference being that I've been blinded by all the lights in the game and I can't tell backwards from forwards on the game. At one point I was going the wrong way for a minute before I realised that I was following a trail of dead bodies that I'd left. That, and I couldn't honestly read the motion sensor.
Personally, I didn't like Halo 3 and I'd honestly urge people to stay away from it. Then again I can see why some people might like Halo 3. As far as it goes some of the weapons are actually good, I just can't use them (read, I can't snipe and I hate semi-automatic/manual weaponry without the use of a mouse), and the graphics are good if only you didn't have all that dynamic lighting blinding you. If you haven't played any of the Halo games and you're interested, then rent it out first. The Halo story isn't that hard to get into and you might find yourself amused enough to consider buying the full game, as well as renting/buying Halo and Halo 2, but I would say don't go into it without high expectations.
