I'm known among some to not like the Halo series, so on this review I'll try to be as professional and civilized as possible without having my head explode in fury. So let's get going.
The story in Halo 3 is another humans vs. alien affair. I haven't played 1 or 2, but I know the story so far: You take on the role of Master Chief, the last one of an extinct race of super soldiers called Spartans. He is known to be the most powerful soldier to exist, and has single-handedly killed several armies of aliens. The story continues form Halo 2, with him being in a spaceship that's crashed onto Africa, where his fellow soldiers are. And crashing into solid ground in high-speed won't stop this guy, so he's up and ready to go and kick some alien ass. The objective is to stop the Covenant, the aliens who have nearly conquered Earth, and has almost succeeded with their goal of making all humans their bitches, which the humans highly frown upon. This is basically the story through Halo, I won't uncover the next details, so let's focus on the colorful killing.
The gameplay is like any normal FPS nowadays, you run around with guns and shoot at everything that shoots at you. There's more to it than that, of course. Thanks to your green power armor, you have a regenerative shield that makes you survive purple bullets up the ass, a clever way to cover the fact that it's the same thing as every other game. It works very well as other games, but I wouldn't say that it's the basic gameplay that makes the game what it is.
You get a standard arsenal of weapons, only with different looks. You start off with normal human weapons, but here and there, you can find the alien equivalent, which is basically the same thing, except that they're green and purple instead of gray, and sound like a toy gun, while the human weapons sound like soft air guns. With this said, the sound effects are bad. They didn't put much of a staggering effort to the sound. It sounds sometimes that everything has an invisible silencer put on it, which gets dull after a while. Why didn't they keep the sound effects from Combat Evolved, at least there the assault rifle sounded real.
The graphics and terrains are one of the most noticeable things in Halo 3. The graphics are fairly realistic, and the colors are beautiful and will keep you glad instead of the depressing gray realism of today that most games have. The terrains differ from each other very much, which is great, but gives a small feeling of inconsistency. It's still beautiful graphics, but there needs to be more than good graphics to make a game, so let's look some more.
The enemies are interesting in a way. There are the small Covenant, which are rainbow-colored midgets with wimpy voices screaming in fear if you as much as sneeze. then there are the Brutes, which are basically the Boomers from Gears of War in golden armor. Then there's the Flood, a bunch of ugly monsters that feast on living creatures and give them the same horrible makeover they got. Good variation, and fairly hard AI, with emphasis on fairly. They aren't that hard in the end. Some points of the game called for a challenge, but for the rest of the game, the enemies were pretty weak, and just as silly as always. So, the only thing they get points for are the midgets, for their hilarious cowardness and small voices.
Finally, there's the part I liked the most, the multi-player. You get a load of different maps, mostly beautifully designed for that certain purpose, and the regenerative shield gives even begginers a chance to win a few kills, instead of being headshot at the first minute in games like Call of Duty. The damage system works pretty well online, even better than in the campaign.
All these aspects added up; Casual gameplay, weak sound effects, a tidbit cliché story, bad weapon design, and squeaky, underpowered enemies. The only things I liked was the multi-player (as mentioned above), and the graphics, which gave a nice impression, with their beautiful coloring and outdoor gameplay. But that's just letting a painter fill a coloring book, if you're in it just for the art, then why not just buy a scrap book or look on Google?
Together, it makes a beautiful game with few outstanding talents, with it's only possibility for money is to rely on it's predecessors fans. It's fun the first time or so, but loses it's charm after a while. I can see how this would be a good game for a fairly new gamer, but for those who've played a long while and can separate their Medal of Honor from their Call of Duty won't see anything new to the screen. So, if you're not a Halo fan, this game won't be as satisfying as other, more unique games, like Bioshock and Gears of War, and if you're already a Halo fan, you probably already bought it, and is about to saw this review in half with a dirty chainsaw. But if you're a casual gamer, that enjoy games more as an occasional hobby, it will serve for a certain amount of enjoyment. So to describe it simply, Halo 3 is casual. Not much outstanding and a competent shooter.
NOTIFICATION: I'll be re-playing the game, cause I'm thinking about re-writing this review for the sake of me having been a bit of a Halo-hater. I've been trying to re-think the experience I had playing this game, and I'll try to remember the fun I had through the first plow. Sorry I failed you to be professional.
The story in Halo 3 is another humans vs. alien affair. I haven't played 1 or 2, but I know the story so far: You take on the role of Master Chief, the last one of an extinct race of super soldiers called Spartans. He is known to be the most powerful soldier to exist, and has single-handedly killed several armies of aliens. The story continues form Halo 2, with him being in a spaceship that's crashed onto Africa, where his fellow soldiers are. And crashing into solid ground in high-speed won't stop this guy, so he's up and ready to go and kick some alien ass. The objective is to stop the Covenant, the aliens who have nearly conquered Earth, and has almost succeeded with their goal of making all humans their bitches, which the humans highly frown upon. This is basically the story through Halo, I won't uncover the next details, so let's focus on the colorful killing.
The gameplay is like any normal FPS nowadays, you run around with guns and shoot at everything that shoots at you. There's more to it than that, of course. Thanks to your green power armor, you have a regenerative shield that makes you survive purple bullets up the ass, a clever way to cover the fact that it's the same thing as every other game. It works very well as other games, but I wouldn't say that it's the basic gameplay that makes the game what it is.
You get a standard arsenal of weapons, only with different looks. You start off with normal human weapons, but here and there, you can find the alien equivalent, which is basically the same thing, except that they're green and purple instead of gray, and sound like a toy gun, while the human weapons sound like soft air guns. With this said, the sound effects are bad. They didn't put much of a staggering effort to the sound. It sounds sometimes that everything has an invisible silencer put on it, which gets dull after a while. Why didn't they keep the sound effects from Combat Evolved, at least there the assault rifle sounded real.
The graphics and terrains are one of the most noticeable things in Halo 3. The graphics are fairly realistic, and the colors are beautiful and will keep you glad instead of the depressing gray realism of today that most games have. The terrains differ from each other very much, which is great, but gives a small feeling of inconsistency. It's still beautiful graphics, but there needs to be more than good graphics to make a game, so let's look some more.
The enemies are interesting in a way. There are the small Covenant, which are rainbow-colored midgets with wimpy voices screaming in fear if you as much as sneeze. then there are the Brutes, which are basically the Boomers from Gears of War in golden armor. Then there's the Flood, a bunch of ugly monsters that feast on living creatures and give them the same horrible makeover they got. Good variation, and fairly hard AI, with emphasis on fairly. They aren't that hard in the end. Some points of the game called for a challenge, but for the rest of the game, the enemies were pretty weak, and just as silly as always. So, the only thing they get points for are the midgets, for their hilarious cowardness and small voices.
Finally, there's the part I liked the most, the multi-player. You get a load of different maps, mostly beautifully designed for that certain purpose, and the regenerative shield gives even begginers a chance to win a few kills, instead of being headshot at the first minute in games like Call of Duty. The damage system works pretty well online, even better than in the campaign.
All these aspects added up; Casual gameplay, weak sound effects, a tidbit cliché story, bad weapon design, and squeaky, underpowered enemies. The only things I liked was the multi-player (as mentioned above), and the graphics, which gave a nice impression, with their beautiful coloring and outdoor gameplay. But that's just letting a painter fill a coloring book, if you're in it just for the art, then why not just buy a scrap book or look on Google?
Together, it makes a beautiful game with few outstanding talents, with it's only possibility for money is to rely on it's predecessors fans. It's fun the first time or so, but loses it's charm after a while. I can see how this would be a good game for a fairly new gamer, but for those who've played a long while and can separate their Medal of Honor from their Call of Duty won't see anything new to the screen. So, if you're not a Halo fan, this game won't be as satisfying as other, more unique games, like Bioshock and Gears of War, and if you're already a Halo fan, you probably already bought it, and is about to saw this review in half with a dirty chainsaw. But if you're a casual gamer, that enjoy games more as an occasional hobby, it will serve for a certain amount of enjoyment. So to describe it simply, Halo 3 is casual. Not much outstanding and a competent shooter.
NOTIFICATION: I'll be re-playing the game, cause I'm thinking about re-writing this review for the sake of me having been a bit of a Halo-hater. I've been trying to re-think the experience I had playing this game, and I'll try to remember the fun I had through the first plow. Sorry I failed you to be professional.
