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Halo 3 (Xbox 360)

By: DriverHeaven Oct 19, 2007

Halo 2.5?

The way Microsoft has been advertising Halo 3 one might be led to believe the game will be nothing short of a gaming revolution. If you believed their claims be prepared to be sorely let down – Halo 3 is just a slightly tweaked Halo 2 running on next-gen technology. This will be enough for many, dare I say most and well it should be - Halo 2 was by far one of the most enjoyable console shooters with a single player campaign that was short, but very sweet. Today the game might not look like much (even the Vista exclusive PC port), but most of those who played it still have fond memories of various confrontations with the brutes (and flood if they happen to be masochistic).

But enough reminiscing, let's talk about how Halo 3 plays. Following the very successful formula of the predecessors the game puts the player in the middle of a full-blown war between humanity and the Covenant, pitting small groups of enemies against the player. These groups are mostly composed of grunts, which are relatively harmless on their own, but can be quite dangerous in greater numbers, jackals with their shields or sniper rifles and a few brutes which act as leaders and the main driving force behind the group. On normal difficulty (and easy for that matter) you’ll usually get away with a frontal assault, but on heroic and legendary a single ignored grunt is all it takes to kill you, so staying in cover is a must. I wouldn't go as far as to say that playing the game on normal is a waste of time, but the real challenge of all Halo games is the hit and run gameplay style that is forced on players at higher difficulties. Even on legendary there are still plenty of head on fights, but you'll usually feel like Han Solo did on the Death star when he and Chewie chased an entire squad of stormtroopers, hoping that they don't realize there are only two guys chasing them.

In line with the military changes within the Covenant there are several new weapons available to players. The most powerful (and spectacular) is by far the hammer the brute chieftains carry with them. It acts in a similar manner to the plasma swords, but deals tremendous damage to anything foolish enough to stand in front of it when it is used. The rest of the new weapons may not be as cool to wield, but they are just as powerful. Most of them are actually stationary turrets that can be ripped from their emplacements. So what's preventing you from just ripping every turret you see and dragging it along? For one you can't reload them, so once you run out of ammo you might as well grab a rock and carry that with you instead. They also slow you don't considerably (and the viewpoint changes to a behind the shoulder view), so enemies can flank you without trouble. Still, once you burn down an entire room of enemies with the flamethrower turret gun most of these shortcomings don't really matter that much anymore.

Which leads us to vehicles. With the brutes taking over most of the military it was inevitable that we'd encounter some of their vehicles as well (after all, most of the Covenant machines carry that unmistakable Elite design). Cue one of the most hardcore bike designs of all times, with a hover mechanism in place of the back wheel and a huge ripper instead of the front one. Riding it might not be the most comfortable experience ever, but it sure as hell beats standing in front of one. The other new Covenant vehicle is a troop transport, very similar to the Warthog in terms of functionality. A quad bike doesn't look like much on paper, but with an AV-gunner on the back seat this little thing can cause enormous damage. Finally, after years of being assaulted from the air by the Covenant, humans have brought flying units into the fray. This machine-gun equipped VTOL craft is able to stand on its own against most dangers, save perhaps for an AA-emplacement.

When all is said and done, what makes the Halo 3 single player truly great are not the individual components. It is the whole experience which is so tactfully orchestrated that it is sometimes hard to believe you are not just watching a movie but playing it. Thanks to the very good enemy AI (the friendly one is inferior, especially at harder difficulty settings) every single game encounter is unique, intense and most importantly fun. Your foes will flank you, seek cover, run away if unnumbered, suppress you with fire and scare the living sh** out of you should you forget to check behind you every once in a while. There is never much downtime in the game and the checkpoints are set around perfectly (I suspect the game skips a checkpoint should you be doing bad when you cross it, so you never end up replaying the whole level because of an inopportune save point). The vehicle levels are still well balanced and fun as hell, especially when you manage to pull of some insane stunts while mowing down enemies at the same time.