Halo 3

"Almost extremely bad..."

I never played any of the original Halo games before. After playing this game, I don't intend to any time soon. Halo 3 is not even a decent playing experience for hardcore Halo fanatics, let alone newcomers. This is a review from a guy who has never played any Halo games before, until this one came along.

GRAPHICS: 6/10

The graphics are okay at some points, but for the 360 the graphics are extremely average. Most of the time all you will see are the same basic enemies: Brutes and Flood. The monster and character designs are not that bad, but when forty or so flood swarm the screen, it just look like a chocolate bar melted all over the place. That's not to say the flood look like chocolate, but it just means that you can't concentrate with so many of the same exact enemy all over the screen. But the cutscenes are decent as well as all the major characters, not including Cortana, who looks like blue static.

SOUND: 7/10

The theme song for Halo is amazing and fits the mood of the game splendidly. That's not to say all the other music in the game is as good, because they're not. Plus, the theme song is recycled in every single level which unfortunately makes it irritating to listen to at some times.

The sound effects in Halo are average. The gun shots sound the same as you would expect from other shooters with the exception of plasma guns ans other covenant weapons, which sound like electricity crackling and charging noises. The little grunts sound like little four year olds shouting "Yeah!", it just doesn't sound right. Voice acting is great as well as lip syncing, except for Master Chief: Who hardly speaks and you can't even see his real face.

STORY: 3/10

This is where the game hit a sharp rock at the bottom of an ocean trench. The story is supposed to pick up where Halo 2 left off. Master Chief must once again save the day from the evil and endlessly spawning Flood. That's as good as it gets. You'll forget the story so quickly as it not interesting one bit. For the first half of the game, you'll have no idea what is going on. You just fight through random areas all the way to get to the convenant, which is where you'll finally understand the story. But to get to the convenant you'll have to play the game for about 6 hours. By then, you won't be caring much for the story. The only reason to play this game is just for the joy of killing bad guys.

GAMEPLAY + LEVELS: 2/10

First up is gameplay.

It's a basic first person shooter with some cool looking weapons. It's not innovative at all. There's some cool vehicles to commandeer like a Tank and the classic Warthog. Each vehicle is frustrating to drive, so you might want to let your A.I. partners drive. But that is a bad decision as the A.I. is incredibly stupid and will crash every vehicle into walls. If they don't crash, they'll take you in the opposite direction you intend on going to. So rule #1, don't let the A.I. drive. Some weapons are dual-wieldable in this game like the SMG. But the only reason they are dual-wieldable is because they suck on their own. Don't ever use spiker by itself, it is completely useless. Even the new super weapon, the Gravity Hammer, is average because it is not accurate at all. It is a close counter weapon. If you go into a close counter mode, just use the sword as it is stronger and more accurate than the gravity hammer.

Next are the levels. *cough* Cortana *cough*

Each level is bad in it's own special way. In the first level, you can easily get lost. In the second level, you do a lot of backtracking. In the third level, you get to experience what great vehicles the game has to offer. The fourth level introduces you to the first annoying boss of the game. The fifth level is the second most annoying level because it throws like a million Flood at you. The sixth level is okay, but too long with awkwardly positioned checkpoints. The seventh level throws the story at you all at once making you think "What the heck?". The eighth level...uh...I'll get to that next. The ninth and final level is a tower climbing mission with every enemy you can possibly imagine along with an annoying escape mission at the end.

The eighth level I had to separate because it is the one I can give the most detail on. This level is called Cortana, because you have to rescue Cortana. What this level is, is a rescue mission with an infinite amount of Flood. You fight in confined areas with no map to guide you and everything looks the same. You constantly run into dead ends and have to backtrack all the time to get on the right path. If the level layout wasn't ba enough, add Flood. It's not bad for the big and strong Flood, but rather the billions of little Flood. Every time you kill a big Flood, a little flood will appear out of nowhere and possess the dead Flood. Kill him again, and he gets possessed again. Try to kill all the little flood so they can't possess anyone, and they come out of nowhere again. Plus, there are little bubbles on the walls that vibrate. Do not pop these bubbles, because if you do, hundreds of Flood start pouring out of it. Using the needler in this level means instant death, because the shots will rebound and pop every bubble in sight. To top it off, you constantly get interrupted by a voice which cause the screen to go slow-motion so you can't shoot. Once you find Cortana, you have to backtrack the entire path you just wnt through to get to the exit. Plus, all the enemies respawned. This level is not fun to play at all.

MULTIPLAYER: 3/10

The ony reason to ever buy this game is for the Multiplayer. While enjoyable some times, it is an overall disappointment. You level up in this game to increase your rank. The higher your rank, the stronger opponents you'll face. But no matter what level you're at, the game will always place you on the bad unexperienced team. Everyone starts out with the same ultra weak weapon and is forced to find good ones to survive. There is friendly fire, so noobs always shoot you and kill you by accident. Plus you lose experience if you drop out of matches. What is that!?!! Is that necessary? Almost all the time there will be a ten year old on your team who will gloat on how good he is. So if you want to drop out because of that little annoying kid, you lose experience. So the multiplayer feature is not as good as it should be.

OVERALL: 4/10

This game was the absolute most overhyped game ever. It is not good, no matter what people tell you. So rent or buy? You should rent it to see how the experience will be for you. But if you don't have Xbox Live or don't intend on getting it, then don't even rent this game. It's not that bad, but it is definitely not good either.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 08/28/08

Game Release: Halo 3 (US, 09/25/07)