Note: As anyone who's read this blog will know, I'm not a big multiplayer guy. This review is therefore centred only on Halo 3's qualities as a singleplayer experience, with no multiplayer discussion or judgement.
Visually at least, the answer is 'not too bad'. Technically it's clearly outshone by more recent titles, and the graphics can look a touch jaggy (remember the game is only rendered at 640p) with texture work often coming across as flat. But this is compensated for by the strong design, the Covenant particularly remaining an aesthetic highpoint with their brightly coloured technology and sleekly organic design. Sound too remains excellent, with some good voiceover work and plentiful explosions.
It's when we get to the gameplay that gaps begin to appear. Halo's mantra has always been '30 seconds of fun' and that's still applicable here. Combat remains satisfying, with enemies treading the fine line between smart and stupid well, and the weapons give satisfying feedback, with the option to dual-wield at the expense of grenades and melee returning from Halo 2 for a nice touch. But why so many weapons? There are 20 different weapons in the game, and many are duplicates of each other, such as the human SMG and the covenant Spiker, both of which are standard machine pistols. My opinion is that there's too many different varieties here, and a slimming down of the arsenal would have better balanced the various weapons. As it is some are practically useless while others (most notably the energy sword) are god weapons. To be fair, there are some standout additions here, most notably the scenery-wrecking gravity hammer.
Level design is something of an issue as well. With an upgrade to a next gen platform you'd expect a vast leap in scope, and while the game occasionally wows you, most notably in the battles against the colossal Scarab walking tanks, the truth is an awful lot of it feels underwhelming. Haven't I seen this underground base before? Haven't I driven along this beach before? Haven't I attacked this control room down these corridors before? Deja vu sets in quite early, and there's little real spectacle for the eye to feast on. Some might argue that this isn't the point of a Halo game, but considering that one of the draws of the original was its sense of scale and outstanding art design, this falls a little flat. The same goes for the story, so taut and well paced in Halo 1 but now expanded to a confusing mess of alliances and betrayals. One of the game's main villains never actually appears onscreen, the other is killed well before the end of the game, and the strange pseudo love story between Cortana and practically every other character is laughable. There's little sense of pacing and although there is a clever twist near the finish the finale ends up being another lame retread, lacking the intensity of its celebrated forebear (though it's better than the non-ending of Halo 2). The game feels rushed, not helped by the fact that this is a very very short experience. I finished it in a day, and I'm very bad at console FPS's.
And that's when it struck me - this entire singleplayer campaign feels phoned in, like it was very much a secondary concern. It lacks polish, pacing and the major setpieces needed for a truly Triple-A game and compared to efforts like Bioshock and the masterful Half-Life 2 feels very immature and inconsequential. The core strengths of Halo are as good as they have always been, the great feel of the weapons, the smart enemies and clever combat design. They should have been the bones on which a much greater experience could have been fleshed out. Instead, they're the bright sparks in a sea of average. This is not a bad game, in fact, it's a good game. But, crucially, it is not a great game. Which is a shame.
[7]
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