This is NOT how the world ends. This is NOT an answer to all of those convoluted questions raised in previous games.
This IS an amazing multiplayer experience. . . Nothing more.
The "Story"?
Basically, the Zerg. . I mean Tyranid. . .er, I mean Flood, come to Earth after the Covenant Separatists join the faltering human defenders in repelling the Prophet of Truth, who has launched a full-scale invasion of the planet in order to excavate a giant portal that leads to the distant Ark superstructure. As the Master Chief, the player must mount several assaults against the invading forces, fight against extra-terrestrial zombies and space apes, and follow the hole lot of them through the portal onto a giant disk, and confront a little robot sphere that looks like something out of Batteries Not Included, before it can activate the Halos and destroy all life in the galaxy.
Alright, for all you Halo enthusiasts out there, I know I fortune cookied the plot a little too much, but even you have to admit - this game’s story line sucks @$$. I’m sorry, but I can’t put it any more intelligently than that. Just be thankful that I didn’t expose the Sanghelli (Elites) for the Protoss wanna-bees they were. Or that I didn’t mention the suggested, pseudo-romance that had apparently developed between a sentient holographic A.I (Cortana), and a mindless cyborg super-commando that has probably killed more living things than Malaria. Yeah, I know, it was only hinted at, but even subtly suggesting such a wildly ludicrous idea is going way too far.
Action and Environment
Alright, here’s were things get better. Yeah, the story couldn't be anymore mired in pointless B.S, but the Halo 3 design team got something right - the environment and the action. At any given point during the single player campaign, one can glance up at the sky and see, in breathtaking detail, what the end of the world might look like if we were to be invaded by technologically superior aliens. Sleek Covenant vessel slice through the air, reigning hot plasma fire down from the skies against rag-tag marine squads, hiding amidst the rocks and ruins of a crumbling Earth. Ruined vehicles litter the blasted battlefields of Earth, of both alien and human design, as dagger-like crash-pods drop from the sky, only to loose more destruction on the already burning wilderness of the battered human home-world. Throw in some climactic confrontations against the massive Covenant Scarabs, and you have a truly epic experience, were the player is immersed deeply into the vivid environment of a pre-apocalyptic future. Yeah, play this game on a big-screen TV with the volume cranked, and you’d swear Earth was being invaded, and that the fate of man-kind did rest solely in your hands - which, at the moment, happen to be carrying two, overheated alien plasma rifles.
Multiplayer
What is it about running around in a fantasy setting full of guns, with fellow human-players to use those guns on, that catches our attention so fervently? We are in love with this new gaming tradition - the idea of using up to 30 to 40 some-odd weapons in a gladiator styled slug-fest full of carnage and death. Actually, I haven’t lately been the adamant video-gamer I was a few years ago. I don’t regularly par-take in console games (except for Guitar Hero and Rock Band : ), particularly time-consuming multiplayer games, but I did notice some excellent perks about Halo 3 multiplayer experience.
Variety.
My god, this game is crammed full of many, many different alien and human weapons with which to dispatch your opponent. You got all the basics - submachine guns, assault rifles, sniper rifles, rocket launchers, etc,., and then you have a large list of unique weapons - weapons that add diversity and strategy to an otherwise simple genre of constant shooting. Alien spike weapons, energy swords, sticky grenades, giant hammers, flamethrowers - there is even a weapon that fires heat-seeking crystal shards (the so-called “Needler”). And the variety doesn’t end there.
Vehicles. There are lots of them. Playing a Capture the Flag game, and fell like mounting a raid on an enemy base? Get some teammates, hop in the good-old Warthog (kind of like a well-armed Hummer), and blitz away. Warthog not durable enough? Then grab a Scorpion tank and level the opposition with 120mm tank-shells.
So you need some air-support to distract the enemy team? Grab an alien Banshee or human Hornet, and reign havoc from above. . .until you get blasted out of the sky by anti-aircraft fire! Yeah, most aspects of ground and air combat are covered by this comprehensive shooter, and that adds a whole new element that must be considered when wondering around aimlessly in the beautiful environments of Halo 3.
Personal equipment must also be mentioned. Halo 3's most progressive game-play feature is it’s equipment - tools that can be carried and swapped like weapons, and deployed by the press of a button if need be. Equipment provides a wide variety of advantages that can have drastic and unique influences on any armed confrontation, radically altering the scope of strategies that can or cannot be employed in any given situation. Bubble-shields to protect from enemy fire, EMP to disable vehicles and shields, radar scramblers to make stealth that much easier, portable gravity lifts to catapult people high into the air - this game truly has “it all.”
So why not five stars? Well, some of the programming can get glitchy. The game’s melee attack feature couldn’t be more faulty, sometimes registering and sometimes not. The damage range on some of the weapons seems a little too “skewed” - leading to the irritating situation of shooting an opponent point-blank with a deadly weapon, only to be defeated by an inferior weapon from the same opponent one moment later. That, and running people over with vehicles seems to be much more of a challenge on this release as opposed to previous Halo titles. I remember on more than one occasion slamming an ATV into an enemy going at least 70 mph, only to have that enemy fly-off to the side, unharmed by being slammed by a fast moving hunk of metal. Huh? WTF? Oh well, I’m willing to write a lot of these scenarios off to my lack of skill (admittedly, these kinds of games aren’t normally my area of expertise), but some situations were just too ridiculous for me to not suspect some kind of lack-luster programming.
And, of course, the story: That convoluted series of poorly pirated sci-fi ideas hog-poged into one, border-line contradictory story line of how Humanity, in the face of the un-winnable circumstances set forth in the previous two games, through a series of illogical miracles, escapes total destruction. . .
Well, the good guys always gotta win, right? (*Pssht*)
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