Halo 3: Finish the fight.

When Halo 3 was announce i like everyone else pictured a cross breed between the Rambo fest of Halo 1 and the women's shoe's weapon collection of Halo 2, with its overly sized levels ad complicated story. The best case scenario i could imagine was a child with two arms, two legs, an assault rifle in hand and A.D.D. What i got was finally a well balanced weapon selection, a compelling story and 343 Guilty spark (well it couldn't all be perfect).

Take the fight home for a little longer this time

I was a fan of this concept when it was announced for the second game but i was also disappointing when they didn't really deliver it. Halo 2 left you with one level of earth of which was an enclosed city that gave you no real idea of what earth was like, which is truly a disappointment when you've been looking for to it since the end of the first game. So when in this installment it was made clear id be leaving earth again i moaned and complained. but then it dawned on how good those bits on earth were. the expansive, wide, cavernous levels and the small, tight, jungle levels all gave the sense of earth not only being big but alive, and that made the fighting more worth while.

Combat evolved-weapons Devolved

Speaking of fighting. The weapons are worse. But this is a good thing, where in the last game a couple of needlers and a rocket launcher could solve any problem thrown at you this game has put some serious limitations on the weapons. The rocket launcher cant lock on and the needler can no longer be duel wielded to name but a few. I got a larger sense of challenge knowing that some of the weapons i had would be useless in a situation and it makes you feel like the super soldier you are when you run into a situation and fluently pick up, discard and use weapons on the fly. And that is what this game does well, it plays on the go. The sections where your stuck pressing buttons to form bridges and yadda yadda yadda are few and far between. But when they do happen your usually compensated with the Joy of taking down a scarab from the feet up. Which anyone who played the second game will know was tedious and hard to do from the top down.

Get by with a little help from my friends

Now onto one of the most anticipated parts of Halo 3 the multi player. Which surpasses it meager lowly older brothers. With the introduction of the map editing game Forge and the ability to play 4 player cooperative online. Which is a god send to anyone planning on playing above the normal difficulty level, who isn't directly plugged into the game ala matrix, or Chuck Norris. The whole cooperative experience does flow fantastically. Pairing up the right power ups and weapons to be more effective is a fun bit of trial and error and can end in some great technical uses of grav-lifts and grenades.

To sum up. this is a good game, a game any self respecting first person shooter fan will buy. But its nothing truly new. it is the logical step from Halo 1 & 2 but that doesn't make it a bad game it makes it a good solid game but with very few surprises or new features. That wont stop me playing it for months in the future with the live multi player extending it another half a year. Its a 4/5 from me. and without trying to give too much away, here's some advice to new Halo 3 owners. Watch the dead they don't like staying down.

Haraphen signing off

MasterChippy signing on