"Master Chief? Do you mind telling me what the hell you're doing on that ship?" - Admiral Lord Hood.
"Sir. Finishing this Fight" - John 117, The Master Chief.
The Halo series was at an end. Ironic that such a great series would end with the birth of the Xbox 360. 2007 saw the release of arguably Bungies best game since Halo: Combat evolved. Halo 3 was the game that fans had been waiting for since the Chief put them on the cliffhanger at the end of Halo 2. Such a popular series launching its "final" game with the launch of Microsoft's new console was a great combination, allowing the Xbox 360 to score huge sales numbers across the world, but these were still only half of what Nintendo sold with their Wii when that was released.
While Halo 3 would not be the absolute final game in the franchise what followed was two prequels and a midquel. Namely Halo: Reach, Halo Wars and Halo 3: ODST. All of which will be reviewed in this recap in the next segments.
Halo 3 had already been confirmed ever since the ending of Halo 2. Pretty much the only thing that could stop it would have been Bungie folding, and even then Microsoft would probably have never let such a huge cash cow go without milking it a few more times anyway. Halo 3 would launch at the same time as the Xbox 360, most often bundled with and stated as being its premiere launch title along with other games such as Gears of War and Mass Effect. All of which have had at least two new games released since their first launch back in 2007.
Halo 3 was quoted as being "the game of the century" by several UK magazines and it did live up to the title. The vastly improved graphics allowed more and more detail to be added to character faces and the power of the 360 was conveyed through one of its first games.
Personally i'd call Halo 3 one of the most beautiful games of its time but others argue it was too light.
The Chief reprises his role yet again as the savior of the universe and once again returns to it solo. The Arbiter did return but his part was mostly as an NPC to accompany the Chief through certain parts of the campaign or as a second player in co-operative. Right from the start you can enjoy smashing through the covenant with your favorite weapons from the previous games along with the newly added Gravity Hammer, spiker and the returning Assault Rifle. The player also has a variety of equipment at their disposal such as temporary power-ups, trip mines and shields. While the dual wielding feature returned it was heavily powered down with some weapons like the needler being reduced to single wielding as Bungie felt that the improved fire rate of the weapon would make it too over-powered to dual wield.
The story in this final chapter was compelling and innovative as is what players have come to expect from the series. The Covenant and The Flood return as primary antagonists however humanity is now assisted by the revolting Elites who join the human fleet in their assault on The Covenant controlled "Ark" the structure said to control all the Halo rings, mentioned at the end of Halo 2. The varied environments the player navigates through is complimented by the many ways to get across these environments. Walking is always good but when you have a Scorpion Tank, an old favorite from the series or the newly added Hornet Aircraft to blast through the enemy with it makes your feet seem a little slow. Why be a walking tank when you can just get in one?
The mutiplayer experience returns strong as ever. The newest feature added in was the "forge" mode. This mode allowed players to add objects such as structures or weapons into ready made maps and create their own maps with their own game modes to share with the community. This ability and focus on community content allowed a much larger variety of game modes and maps all created by the community for the community. Game types such as"Ice Cream Man" and "Cat and Mouse" were downloaded and played many times by the players in offline custom games with their friends. The experience gaining system in Halo 3 with regard to multiplayer was odd however. Rather than gain experience per kill it was judged that only the winning team or individual in a ranked game could gain experience and therefore progress to level up. This system was widely criticized by the community but would not be changed until Halo: Reach.
Halo 3 was definitly one of the best selling and most beautiful games on the Xbox 360 and would have been a great ending for Bungie to go out on, if they hadn't decided to milk the cash cow further.
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