Halo 3. Prettier and more polished; you’ll still feel right at home if you’ve whiled away a chunk of your life playing Halo and its sequel. Graphically, the game is fantastic – the world of Halo in all its next-gen glory. The single player campaign delivers a satisfyingly epic end to the story, with full support for co-op play. Adversarial multiplayer is still top-notch, both in gameplay and matchmaking. But, you expected all of this…

What you didn’t expect were all the little features Bungie added to the package. Take Forge, for example: a tool for creating custom levels – you can’t change the actual map, but the type, number and locations of items can be varied. Along with the ability to create custom rule sets for games, Forge practically ensures that people will still be playing Halo 3 years from now.

Also new is video playback – gameplay videos are recorded, and snippets can be excised and shared from your bungie.net profile, be they images or video. Features like this aren’t things that sell games, but they do make you wonder how other developers get away with charging $60 for games that feel bare-bones by comparison. If you’ve ever wondered why Gears of War has such an inferior matchmaking system compared to Halo 2, you know exactly what I mean.

The game plays how you would expect: massive firefights with seemingly intelligent enemies, massive firefights with seemingly brain-dead enemies, and wild rides in a variety of locales on earth and elsewhere. The weapon balance has been improved, making multiplayer matches even more interesting. A new class of items, Equipment, has been added – this includes items such as the Bubble Shield, which is paradise when your shields are gone and enemies are still shooting – at least until they run inside the shield and then shoot you. Other equipment, such as Auto-Turrets, have more offensive roles.

In campaign mode, Halo 3 picks up right where Halo 2 left off. There’s no recap, so a quick review of wikipedia might be a good idea to refresh your memory.

Finally, this is a game that everyone with an Xbox 360 should own. It’s a top-notch game in every sense: graphics, sound, story, controls, single player, multiplayer, and overall presentation. None of the new features are truly new to gaming, but they’re so well implemented that the result is a game that truly raises the bar for everything that comes after it. Simply put, it’s worth every penny of the $60 price tag.

Filed under: Reviews | Guides,Video Games — Max @ 8:03 am