It was only recently that I played the original Halo; the game had come out in the generation I skipped and when I eventually rejoined gaming with the 360, I had all the shooters I needed with COD4 and anything I saw of Halo was of a multiplayer with big beasts that seemed to take a lot of hits to die – basically it never appealed to me. I loved the first game and due to a broken disk of Halo 2 which kept dying midway into the campaign, jumped right into Halo 3. The graphics were a nice change from the original Halo (even the updated version) and although I missed the final half of Halo 2, the story was not too hard to pick up since essentially the players are all the same.
The gameplay is a lot of fun – more than I expected. The world terrains are large with nice open areas where you have options in terms of the fight and where you can see others battling with you or alongside you. I started the game on Heroic and found the game to be perhaps a bit too challenging to be fun for a casual player such as myself. On Normal setting it is perhaps a bit too easy but it still has a challenge – you cannot hold the trigger while running forward. The flow of enemy and the structure of levels is really good and I continued to be forced to use all sorts of weapons since ammo is not always readily available for any one weapon. The use of music and the large cinematic landscapes produce great moments but also a real sense of excitement; the best example is the final level, which is a drive against the clock like the first game, however this time the clock is not real but a warning triggered by progress – so not a real heart-in-mouth race, but it is exciting and the urgency helped by the scale of the surroundings and the music. The cut- scenes are not overly used but when they are they add to the cinematic feel, being dramatic and looking very good – the only thing I think they did badly was the ending as it is misleading and doesn't make too much sense unless you sit through all the credits (which we all know we should but nobody does); it would have been better to deliver it all properly. Otherwise it is generally a very well put together game though.
The downside of it is that the game is not as long as I would have liked – it is plenty fun while I played but even for someone only grabbing a few hours every few evenings, it was done quite quickly. The reason for this I assume was the multiplayer experience being the bigger part of the sale. For me I don't pay for Gold to play online, so I cannot comment on that – but for the very low price I was able to pick this up for, I felt the solo campaign was more than good enough on its own – shortness aside.
A strong game then – even some 6 years later it stands up very well. Very glad I checked the franchise out at last and I'll probably carry on with the next game at some point.
