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I Finished the Fight
By bukkhead | October 4, 2007
VIDEO GAME REVIEW: ‘HALO 3′
Developed by Bungie
Distributed by Microsoft Game Studios
Platforms: Xbox 360
Genre: First Person Shooter
Oh, the hype. People have been talking about Halo 3 since 2001. Okay, that’s an exaggeration, but they have been talking about it at least since 2004, when Halo 2 hit the shelves. Seriously. Go to any web forum dedicated to a particular video game, and one of the first threads will be “what do you want to see in the sequel?”
Halo 3 day arrived a little over a week ago, and while I knew I would buy the game eventually, I didn’t plan on getting in on the early fun. I was in the middle of Bioshock, and drooling for Skate. But a trip to the local Blockbuster revealed 10 copies of the game—most checked out of course, but still. How could I not rent it?
I decided to play through the single player game, get it out of the way, score a few achievements, and leave the multiplayer for when I eventually purchase the game. And so I did. You want the story line? Good luck. I never finished Halo 1 or 2, because really, it’s all about the multiplayer. As far as I know, there was a war, and then a fifth column in our enemy’s camp, and then a new enemy we had to band together to fight… oh, and then you have to band with the new enemy to fight the old one, and then fight everyone again. I think.
The voice acting is okay, even if the dialog is sometimes misplaced or just downright confusing. So even though I played through all of the levels once straight through, and again to find hidden skulls, and again to find hidden terminals, I can’t tell you really what was going on. I don’t think it matters.
Because like I said, Halo is all about the multiplayer. And I am bad at multiplayer. I can hold my own again others new to first-person-perspective shooter death matches, and I can keep most of the really good ones from shutting me out completely. But win? No. Contribute to a win? Maybe, If I have really good teammates.
But I haven’t played the multiplayer yet, and let’s face it, other than telling you about stuff you can read in roughly 10000 other reviews, everyone’s experiences will be different anyway. Me, I like listening to little kids curse. Call it a guilty pleasure. You may want to play to watch your buddy’s head disappear in a cloud of exploding plasma. To each his own.
So, as far as the solo campaign is concerned: Fun, yes. Challenging, absolutely. Tedious? No, and short enough to get done in a few days, which is not too long to waste before going multiplayer. And the co-op option for the campaign means even the non death-match stuff can be about the multiplayer. Don’t know where they where in the development cycle when Gears of War came out, but that was a good lesson learned. Now, what do you want to see in Halo 4?
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