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| My HALO 3 campaign write-up - 8.5/10 *SP* | |
| Posted By: Avateur <avateur@gmail.com> | Date: 9/30/07 6:33 p.m. |
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From the 23rd to the 25th, I took the time to read most of the reviews and the reasons for their high scores. Post-release, I've revisited many and checked to see just what they thought about campaign. Through conversations over Xbox Live with HBOers/ABOers/friends-in-general, I'm getting a consensus that HALO 3's campaign wasn't as special as HALO: CE. I suppose HBO itself would be the best place to bring this since, well, there's thousands of us here. To note from the start, I personally rate the campaign itself with an 8.5, which also appears to be the consensus of those I've spoken with. Remember, this is not an over-all HALO 3 review, just campaign. Now, I played HALO 3 on Heroic first, just as Bungie said I should, and damn is this game beautiful. The graphics are definitely on Gears of Wars level (as IGN showed upon "darkening/muddying" a pic from Sierra 117), but there was some pop-in that I noticed on "Sierra 117" and "The Covenant." That's only a minor gripe that didn't really bother me much, and therefore doesn't much matter. The cinematics were excellent. I just have to repeat myself, HALO 3 is gorgeous! The graphics haters out there need to get their eyes checked. The game itself was extremely fun. I loved the combat dialogue, though I sometimes wish those Grunts didn't shoot at me and force me (yes, force me) to kill them. I enjoyed listening to them call names and make threats throughout the game. All but one of the levels (see below) were extremely well set-up and designed. HALO 3 definitely has more replayability than HALO 2. I think it's on the level of CE. Four-player-online-Co-Op is definitely a blast. There's nothing like adding your own dialogue to the mix with friends as you play, especially during some of the cinematics. It has a "Mystery Science Theater 3000" feel to it as you crack jokes or add your own serious lines to some of the dialogue. Add that to skull searching, dialogue hunting, and easter egg chases and you basically have endless permutations of how to play through the campaign again. The gameplay was definitely "HALO." Guns, grenades, and melees all the way. Sticky grenades seem to find their targets much easier than in HALO 2, and I love the clicking noise it makes when I get stuck. It's an "oh shit" feeling knowing that the stupid little Grunt got you. Speaking of Grunts... suicide bombers? Now, I know they have some suicidal cause to go on some Great Journey, but they have the suicide bombers to go with it? I was half expecting to see suicide Banshees flying out of the sky to blow up on me once I got to "The Covenant." Those crazy Covenants. Unfortunately, with the good there is some bad. It took me 4.5 hours (without trying to blaze through, aka actually exploring and admiring graphics) to get to "The Covenant." Maybe I'm just really good at the game, but that's ridiculous. The first two games took me much longer to get 3/4 of the way through, and HALO 2 was a pretty short game. HALO 3 felt even shorter. What was with "Cortana?" It's about 1000 times worse than "The Library." This level took me the longest to beat, if only because it was non-stop hiding, peeking out, shooting, and then repeating the process. The level was a chore, nothing else. At least in "The Library" I didn't have to deal with Flood that shoot needles or whatever from their bodies at me in unison from 3 different angles from across the map while other Flood charge me with no weapons or ammo in sight to assist me in taking them out. And where did half of these new Flood come from? What are they? At least in the previous games it was easy to understand where some of these forms came from. These new ones just sort of morphed into being from thin-air. There were way too many plotholes. This is the most agreed upon sentiment of everyone I've spoken to. What happened to all the other Covenant on Earth? People have told me that the Elites either wiped them all out, or that they all went to the Ark when it opened. I saw no proof of either beyond assumption, but alright. What about the Covenant in general? There's still Brutes, Drones, Grunts, Jackals, etc all over the galaxy, all aware of Earth's home location. I don't think the fight is finished. Or, wait, did all of them get to the Ark when it opened, too? What about the other Halo installations? Obviously they contain Flood, too. Any plans on going out and blowing those installations into oblivion? There's clearly other Prophets in the universe, too. Who's to say they won't continue their Great Journey attempts? We blew up one ring, they found another. There's still 5 others. Uh oh? This is tiny, but how did Master Chief's "gloves" change? Sheesh. And now my biggest gripe of all: What was with the music overpowering dialogue during some of the cinematics? It drove me insane. Maybe I have a short temper. I don't know. It was just so much nonsense that I still don't even know what some people said, and no one could tell me over Live because they had the same problems. Well, that's all for me. Like I said, I give campaign an 8.5. The game was brilliant, beautiful, the story was great, and the gameplay, as always, was excellent. I'm going to be playing HALO 3 for years and years to come!
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