Zero Punctuation: Halo 3

[Drag00n2019]

Figured I might as well post.
Played Halo 1 & 2. Thought both were fun but now I'm really leaning on renting this rather than owning it. Yeah, it's almost or it's been over a year since its release but I don't care.
Really wondering if Yahtzee will occasionally do a retro style episode. I'd love to hear/see a review for Dead Rising. The game is barely playable to its full potential while Frank is a very low level but is a practical cakewalk once you, the player, hit Max level.

 

[bittman]

Drag00n, I recommend renting, especially if you've played 1 and 2. It's just as good/average/bad as the other two and there really is no difference between them other than a new story and one new weapon...oh I think there are more, but all I need/want was the gravity axe (which looks like a spear?).

 

[Saladfax]

Simple statements:

Just because you don't like and/or understand a story does not make it bad.

There are certain, very simple elements that can make a story bad. Like dialogue that could have been written by a drunk George Lucas and characters that make the full cast of Cube look like Oscar winners. Helloooooooooo Gears of War! Conceptually nothing really wrong with an invasion-style plotline but just plain awful characters and dialogue that can only appeal to the drunk or juvenile (Xbox's core demographic).

The problem is that the pretentious crowd decides to dislike what is popular simply for its own sake. There is really nothing bad about the Halo series at all; in fact there are many many things that are quite good. As depressed as I am that Microsoft is who benefits from the success and popularity of the series, that doesn't change the fact that it remains a solid, fun gaming experience.

 

[Chickenlittle]

Hahah. I'm a huge fan of the series, and I completely agree with this review.

Not to mention a few things that he missed because he's not familiar with the series.

As a whole, the game a was a big letdown. Having bought the Legendary Edition, I was disappointed with the scope of the Campaign, which should normally be the primary focus on games, IMO. Pretty graphics don't keep a game fun after the 10th run through. Like the first Halo, CE, does, with superior gameplay that changes every time.

 

[Drag00n2019]

Bittman:
Figures. Might as well rent this when I get my full-on XBOX Live Gold account instead of being Silver. Of course going to be playing the Single Player first then Multi.
Here're the six 360 games I own: BioShock; Call of Duty 2 (going to play the CoD series in succesive order); Dead Rising; The Orange Box; Stranglehold (Hard-Boiled II); TimeShift. I own alot more XBOX (BC) games though. Next game I'm considering purchasing is Grand Theft Auto IV. I already rented it and got around to 26+% completion on it. Found it fun.
My username is the same as my XBOX id thing.

 

[crazy-j]

i like halo's story line and i think it is an okay game(s)


but way to fucking overrated

 

[killerap85]

And bodiddly makes all Halo fans look bad, good thing he's banned.

bo is teh l337 hax your mom should be banned

 

[farrk]

the only reason people buy this game is to enjoy the fast round based play of a shooter such as counterstrike when playing online. either that or so they can gloat about their owning of the entire halo series / or so they can gloat about how them and their gamer girlfriend got time off school to finish it together.
this game was effectively an expansion pack and should have been treated in that way. halo was an enjoyable game and this is yet another example of more of the same with better and bettr graphics.

 

[Gormers1]

SNIP*

Well said. There are a few other reasons why I like halo too, but Im not going to mention them all now.

 

[Ann-Marie]

Meh.. Its really fun to play multiplayer, but that's not really enough is it? I mean, you've got people running around claiming it's the best game EVAR, but it really isn't. How could it be if its only marginally entertaining if you don't have online capabilities?

While we're on the subject, Halo was pretty crappy too.

 

[WILLTHEALMIGHTY]

I liked Halo. And its sequels.


But yeah, it's average. A lot of fun, but there are better games.

 

[hippo24]

Overall halo has been good to me, and its appeal doesn't lie in its gameplay but its popularity. One may ask, "how is popularity a plus for any game" I would reply because if I play halo ,and am at least decent at it, then whenever i go to someones house, want to play with a friend, or just screw around, i pick halo. This is because almost everyone who has an xbox, has a halo game therefor making it the common ground at which to socialize and have fun.

and in my opinion that's why its a great game.

 

[Felixx7]

Overall a great review, however, there is something I noticed that i didn't like.

Yahtzee says during the review that it is the first Halo game that he has played and that he knew almost nothing of the first two games. I myself did not join into the Halo craze until Halo 2, and would argue that I am not another one of the mindless zombies who plays Halo because everyone else does. When I first played, I knew absolutely nothing of the game. Not even that there where aliens or that the main character is called Master Chief. I was quickly drawn into the flashy, if somewhat corny, graphics of the game.

What truly brought me to enjoy the game, however, is the story. Though I am a fan of Halo, i will admit that the Halo 3 sp quite frankly sucks. The gameplay, challenge, fun, even the AI seems to have dropped off a cliff between the Halo 2 and Halo 3. Additionally, the story is not shown as well in Halo 3 as it was in the first two games. There is a lot more to Halo than there appears however.

For those of you who condem Halo and label it just another generic FPS game, i challenge you to look deeper into the story. I have read the Halo books, and was deligtfully surpised at the quality of the story. The content of these books gives a player a new perspective on the games, giving a bacdground to Master Chief and a better view of the Covenant. What you will find is a very deep and contraversial storyline that threatens the credibility of faith and religion.

 

[Easykill]

I blame the Escapist for ruining most of the enjoyment I got from the game. Really. Ignorance is bliss and all that.

Also, this thread amazes me, I'd almost forgotten what it was like back in the day. Didn't we consider this troll-infested back then? Now I look at it and see a huge collection of well-put together, reasoned, well sized posts. Why is it that as hanging around here made me less of an idiot, the site itself has declined so much in it's poster quality? I encourage everyone to put more work into all your posts from now on to fight this trend, and I will do the same. Let us raise the bar for the new posters, for their own sake as well as our own.

 

[IrrelevantTangent]

I personally think Yahtzee was a bit harsh on Halo 3 and the series in general. I very much liked the Halo series, and they shouldn't be written off so quickly just because Ben Croshaw doesn't like it. Ben Croshaw doesn't like a LOT of things.

 

[FarcusMenix]

halo 3 was a good game, not average. but i do have to agree that it certainly doesn't desereve all the fanboy 10's and 100%'s that it keeps recieving for some goddamn reason from dumb, biased reviewers. the campaign was pretty good, but yes, short. the multiplayer is very addictive, but it gets rather old after about a week of playing it every now and then, but it for some reason is still addictive despite its gradually dropping enjoyment level with each match. i believe that the underrated half-life 2 and portal games should be recieving all these 10's and 100%'s, because they are fucking amazing...'nuff said! oh and btw, halo 3 deserves a 8.5 at the highest and it shouldn't be the second highest rated game on GT next to for some unknown reason GRAW 2, which got a 9.9 for some ungodly reason. that game sucked a chode!

 

[cuddly_tomato]

I personally think he wasn't harsh enough on this game. I am a true Halo lover. I enjoyed the entire concept, and thought the series would do great things. I rank Halo 1 up there with the best games I have ever played. Halo 2 I thought was very good. Not quite as impressive but still pretty damn excellent. Halo 3 was a dreadful let-down. Not bad, just not good. The story was stripped out, the difficulty levels of the game were all over the place (the bugs near the start were the hardest thing in the game), and the dual story telling mechanic of Halo 2 was glossed over. I liked the Arbiter. He basically made Halo 2 worth playing for me.

With each new Halo title bungie focused less and less on the actual game and more and more on multiplayer. This is what killed it for me.

 

[beddo]

I don't get how Yahtzee complain about not knowing the back story and complains about it suggesting it's somehow inconsistent.

Yet when talking about Half-Life 2 he makes no such complaint about the fact the back story is involved. Neither does he mention the wild inconsistencies between this supposedly mass infiltrated world of oppressive and intelligent aliens which somehow the player manages to escape only to end up in some bizarre zombie infested town before going on to rule over a colony of giant insects.

Then Yahtzee proceeds to complain about not caring about multiplayer, something he did seem to care about in:

Left 4 Dead
Eve Online
Age of Conan
Army of Two
Team Fortress 2
Tabula Rasa


Not everything Halo 3 did has been done before and not all of it has been done better. I thought Halo 3 was quite good. Not great, it had a lot of flaws but everyone just seems to be jumping on the hate bandwagon and I don't know why.

 

[trackenstorm]

no it mo likely microsoft is going to take over than EA becase some people dont know what a good shooters game is like metriod which master cheafs based off of and if it was a fight betwen master cheaf and samus it samus beucese the humans in the halo seres are still using bullets and the humans in metriod are useing quantum could super lazers

 

[trackenstorm]

Yahtzee your being way too nice to the Halo fanboys. HALO IS JUST A BIG FAT PILE OF SHIT AND WASTE OF TIME. I GET MORE FUN OUT OF SONIC ADVENTURE, POKEMON, STAR FOX, AC4A, BOTS AND THE ENTIRE KIRBY SERIES.