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Halo 3—Microsoft
The end of the line for Master Chief.
Video: 4
Frankly, no on both counts. Gamers may have lined up at midnight, and Halo 3 may have scored five stars, 99 percent, and huge thumbs-up on various sites, but instant classic it is not. Likely, once the hype cools down, this will be remembered as a good game but not a great game. The graphics are good but not great. The gameplay is good but really, at its core, is just more of the same. It is a worthy conclusion, but it is hardly worth the hype or comparisons.
While it does resolve the cliffhanger ending of Halo 2—a cue taken from The Empire Strikes Back (and since used with The Matrix and Pirates of the Caribbean trilogies), the story is just far too short to be completely rewarding. Without spoiling the basic plot, it once again involves straightforward—and far too much—linear, run-and-gun gameplay. It has been nearly six years since the original Halo came out, yet the innovation in the single-player campaign just isn’t there. This time, instead of running around narrow corridors or tight winding streets, you get into some more wide-open locales, but everything is just as linear with mostly a single path.
Worse is that Halo 3 is really following the all too common trend with first-person shooters that requires a great amount of attention to the multiplayer modes at the expense of the single-player campaign. This is probably the most disappointing aspect, because a little more attention to the campaign could have made it that much better. There is nothing wrong with multiplayer—in fact, for many games, the multiplayer mode is often what really makes for the best gameplay—but it shouldn’t result in a shorter campaign. In Halo 3, this does seem to be the case at times.
On the upside, those aforementioned environments are a little more varied, and the series has gotten quite the expected graphical bump, as Halo 3 marks the franchise’s arrival on the Xbox 360. Any less than a mighty fine-looking game would have been a major disappointment. But the expectations had set the bar very high, and frankly, after last month’s BioShock and last year’s Gears of War, Halo 3 doesn’t quite deliver the full visual experience that we’ve waited so long to see in action. The game supports HD 720p/1080i/1080p, but this is still far from the most impressive game I’ve seen this year. It is very good, and I’m not complaining, but Halo 3 isn’t going to be the reference title for HD gaming—not by a long shot.
One feature I did like was the inclusion of the theater mode, which isn’t some fancy, deluxe wider-widescreen aspect or enhanced graphics. Rather, it is the ability to rewind the game and watch it as a movie. If you’re able to make seamless movements, pull off exceptional headshots, and overcome the enemy, then this is probably a great bonus. If you’re like me and bob around, run into walls a lot, or just take the one clip, one kill approach, you’re probably glad to have gotten through it and won’t need the saved replay. The sound is a little better and certainly a step up from the somewhat lackluster audio that accompanied Halo 2. The in-game dialogue was improved greatly, and the voice acting is just a lot better. It is a shame it took until the final act for the developers to hit their mark, but, combined with the sound effects, the dialogue actually works to make for a more immersing experience. Likewise, the surround sound effects are a tad better. As with the visuals, this doesn’t move the bar to new heights, and there are games with much better audio. However, Halo 3 sounds about as good as it looks. That is to say very good; just not exceptional or revolutionary.
What can be said about Halo 3 is that it has taken marketing of games to a new level, with numerous special editions and accessories. None of these packages or add-ons offers the home theater gamer much, but one aspect that we did like is that Halo 3 has been optimized for hard drives. This is really an important step forward, especially after the step back with the system by offering a model without the drive. And, in that regard, Halo 3 could be the game that gets gamers to upgrade their systems and actually enjoy an improved experience.
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It’s hard to avoid the constant comparison of games and movies, and, in fairness, I’m probably as guilty as anyone. Regardless of whether you agree or not with the comparison, one fact remains—games age much like movies. Some age well, like a vintage of fine wine, and others are remembered badly, like notorious fashion statements from yesteryear. This is worth mentioning because the Halo franchise had been called the Star Wars of this generation by former Microsoft Game Studios head Peter Moore. So with the conclusion of the epic trilogy finally here, has the game lived up to the hype? And will it really be remembered as fondly as Star Wars in a decade or more?
