Games
Halo 3 for Xbox 360
So Halo 3, the most anticipated video game of all time has finally landed, and it’s landed with quite a bang. Microsoft raked in a cool $170m in the first 24 hours of it’s release in the US. And that’s just for the lucky few who managed to pre-order it, thousands of fans are waiting for stock to arrive in across the globe. The franchise began it’s life as an impressive launch title for the original Xbox back in 2002. Three years later Halo 2 was widely regarded as a very poor sequel that dragged on forever. But as we’ve seen on the show over the past few weeks, Gates’ people have put a phenomenal amount of work into final instalment, and quite a few dollars too. Can this possibly be the saviour of the franchise and somehow rise to such incredible expectations?
The answer is probably yes. The game is a monster. A hefty single player campaign is always welcome and halo 3 doesn’t disappoint. Again you step into the role of Master Chief the last remaining Spartan supersoldier. Cortana, the female Artificial Intelligence Chip which has become your friend and guide is in the hands of the covenants led by the prophet. The covenants are a race of aliens hell bent on opening the three halos, giant structures floating in space which they believe will rid the world of humans, but will actually destroy every living thing in the Universe. Which would be bad. Your job is to recover Cortana, defeat the prophets and destroy the halos before it’s all too late.
The first surprise is that the gameplay appears to be very similar to Halo 2 at first. The same characters and vehicles appear, the cutscenes are of a similar quality and the bulk of the time is spent exactly as before. But the devil is in the details and the game is certainly a lot more fun to play. The pace is good, the game is tough and much improved level design and new weapons like the cool bubble shield show this is the sequel Halo 2 should have been. Even if some the vehicles do still handle like they’re made of papier mache, they’re still very impressive. There’s a bunch of new additions here too like the brute chopper and hornet sting.
Of course you can play the game in campaign co-op mode with up to 16 players online. Considering it’s such a lengthy game, this element, still lacking in so many first person shooters is a great way to keep the story mode social. But Microsoft being who they are, the entire networking side of the game has been seriously amped up this time round.
Of course there are a load of maps available for online multiplayer. You start off with 10 set maps with more to be available later via xbox live marketplace, but you can also construct your own and share them online so other players can play on them in the new Forge mode. The maps are ideal, sized perfectly and shaped so you always need to keep checking your back, much like in gears of War. There’s also a big range of games to play on them, much more than just the usual capture the flag and deathmatch.
The other big addition to the game is the Film mode. In this mode players have access to the full video replay their last few games in either Forge or Multiplayer mode. The idea behind this is that it allows gamers to make their own videos of their crushing victories, and in fairness, it is really damn cool. As the editor, you can cut bits you don’t like, change which character the camer is following or disengage entirely and have a free roaming camera that turns you into a virtual James Cameron in minutes. It sounds gimmicky, but it’s a wise move from Microsoft who have winessed the huge amount of video uploading gamers are doing these days.
Once you’ve made your video, you can upload it to your fileshare on the Bungie Server which every gamer gets with their copy of the game. You can get more space by upgrading to bungie pro.
The graphics and texturing seems to vary every once in a while from being stunningly sharp to looking a bit fuzzy, but the sound and score are fantastic. So few minuses to the game and so many pluses, Halo 3 is a definite must have.
Jonathan McCrea
