Halo 3 – Review

Note: This review is of the single player game. The greatest game, in the world, on any format… EVER. That’s pretty much what most reviews thus far published seem to be squealing, all of them that is, except this one. Those that know me know I am a die hard Halo fan, those that don’t know me, now know at least that little factoid. You would think that admission would lead to a 10 out of 10 review, but as it’s only looking at the solo campaign mode, you may be surprised by the overall score.

Halo 3 has been around 3 years in the making. It broke numerous records before it was even on retail sale, won awards, plaudits and more. With all of this hype it is difficult to not be swept along for the ride, however with a solo campaign lasting around seven to nine hours and the Legendary Edition coming in at $200 AUD, one has to weigh up whether Halo has become synonymous with multi-player gaming to the detriment of its solo campaign loving fans.

Gameplay in Halo hasn’t really changed, anyone who has played Halo or Halo 2 will be in their element with Halo 3, it is for all intents and purposes your standard FPS fayre. The game begins with our hero in armor ‘Master Chief’ having fallen to Earth from quite some distance and surviving, a miracle given a fall of any great height in game sees him die instantly. This isn’t the only thing that stands out and seems ill fitting within the game either, the addition of consoles in certain levels that give you back story in text format seemed to slow proceedings to a halt, completely going against the overall speedy nature of the tasks at hand. On the upside there are some sweet additions by way of new vehicles and a tightened vehicle control system (or so it felt). As well as the Warthog, you can now also drive the nippy little mongoose and various other machines. Though it’s nice to have these additions, there really isn’t anything so new here that your eyes will pop, which is a nice segway to the graphics which we’ll look at next.

You would think with titles as graphically resplendent as Gears of War and BioShock on the Xbox 360 platform that Halo 3 would be so amazing in the graphics department that your chin would be on the floor. Well, no fear of that happening sadly. Though Halo 3 is a very pretty title with some nice lighting effects, nice character models and nice environments, there’s nothing gobsmacking that you didn’t witness in Halo 2. And no it wasn’t a grammatical error to use ‘nice’ over and over, it’s just to point out that’s all there is really; it is ‘nice’, but it isn’t going to have you fall off your seat. Back to those environments though, it’s good to see the guys and gals at Bungie mixing things up a little with overall level design, but as with the rest of this review, I’m trying to remain deliberately vague, so as to not spoil anything for you.

Musical soundtrack in the Halo titles has always been astounding and it’s great to hear those beautiful tunes back again, you can’t help but smile when you first hear them, but there’s not much newness for some reason. Perhaps Bungie figured if it ain’t broke don’t fix it and that’s a good philosophy, unless you’re touting the greatest game in creation. Voice acting, as usual is really well done, with only a couple of slightly cringe-worthy moments brought on by over complicated diatribe within the overarching story. Kudos to Bungie however for including a few female marines in the mix, which brings us neatly onto our female gamer angle.

Female gamers may dream that under that helmet lurks a cool female character with voice changing software, but alas it wasn’t to be. Though Halo has always been a grunt fest with regards to playable characters, it is not without its very cool female characters within the stories framework. Within Halo 3 the characters of Cortana and Commander Miranda Keyes play important roles, but there are also female marines, which was a great touch, so kudos to Bungie for that at least. A recent Bungie update stated a female voice option will be available for multi-player, though as this is the single player review, that’s neither here nor there, nice of them to realize their large female gaming contingent though.

Overall Halo 3 is a lot of fun, though far too short in solo mode. Yes their is replayability by the bucket-load if you’re a fan of multi-player mayhem, but as a single player campaign it would be unfair to score Halo 3 through the roof, no matter how much one may want to. Add to this that it is essentially more run and gun, to the point where the Chief himself jokes about it in game, and there really isn’t anything here that is all that new or innovative, this isn’t going to redefine a genre. What is there is stylish, with the usual superlative voice acting and some very nice effects, so it’s still worthy of a good score. If you’re looking for an astounding single player experience that is truly innovative, stick Halo 3 on the back-burner and purchase BioShock. Or if you’re going to definitely purchase both, but have not as yet got either, perhaps get Halo 3 first, so that you have BioShock to look forward to. Guess we know which title gets this reviewers vote for Game of the Year.

Review by Angela

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