The hype has settled, and Halo 3 has come to pass. I have here a list of things I enjoyed and some things that would make the Chief flip out.

Pros

Multiplayer
This is where Halo shines. This game was tailor-made for the online world. Whether you’re playing free-for-all, against others blasting every thing in sight, or partnering up with friends to retrieve the flag, it’s always fun to roam around and shoot each other. The excitement of knowing you’re never safe from behind because a nice whack on the back of your head means you’ll be be dining in hell with other Spartans, or Elites. 

Theatre Mode
This is easily one of the most coolest feature in the game. Having a hard time convincing someone that you sniped a dude from way across the map a mile away? No problem. With the replay mode, you can freeze frame to where you shot the bastard, move the camera to follow the smoke trails from the bullet, then see it as it enters your enemie’s head with blood splattering in slomo. 

Gameplay
The game is just plain fun to play. The controls are very responsive and moving around the Halo world is easy. It feels like an extension of your body. Shooting, dual wielding, jumping, melee attacking, and grenades are easy to pull off so you’re always in a frantic fight with everyone around you.

Sound
The game sounds excellent in surround sound.  Bullets whizzing by, the sound of your fellow marines fighting in the distance, the sound of the lil grunts running away and the needler in the distance coming towards you, sticking to your body, all adds to the immersion. The soundtrack is also excellent in this game.

And now for the cons:

Matchmaking
It still takes a long time to get a match going. You can’t join a game of your choice unless you know the person or create your own customized game. The matchmaking makes you play a game you might not like. Even though they added a veto option, you’re still forced to play a game picked out at random. All I really want to play is slayer with 15 other random players, but Bungie won’t let me do that…..Why!?!?! 

Graphics
The graphics is better than Halo 2, but just slightly.  It looks like it can still be run on the original Xbox.  Not only that, the resolution is around 640p which is lower than the lowest standard Hi-Def setting of 740p.  For a major AAA title from Bungie and Microsoft, and also going into the second year of the 360, I expected a lot more.  Character models are ugly as hell.  When you zoom in on textures, it looks flat.  The first Halo game, you can zoom in on the grass and see that it’s more detailed.

Story
I was expecting epic, but what we got here is a straightforward story with characters I don’t give a shit about. Master Chief is cool, but he’s very one dimensional. Master Chief passes the game with no struggle and single handedly saved the world from ultimate destruction. And yes, the Arbiter was useless.  The Arbiter was playing second fiddle and pretty much added nothing to the story other than to help out the humans (not really).

Final Thoughts 
Other than that, the game is still worth the purchase because of how much fun online really is. The ability to record your matches and have your own customized rules and then share it with the online community is a definite plus. My favorite thing to do in Halo? Sneaking up behind someone and whacking them on the head.

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