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Halo 3 - Finishing the Fight

So i picked up Halo last week. I finished it 6 days later. As expected I got totally freaked out by the Flood (again). The Brutes were, well, brutal and the new weapons are great. The gameplay was outstanding and totally solid. There wasn’t a moment in the game where i didn’t feel totally in control of Master Chief (except those time when i drove him off a cliff).

To begin with i will admit to being under-whelmed. There was so much hype surrounding this that i’m sure i had some totally unreal ideas floating around in the back of my mind. As a result i played the first half hour or so with a sense of duty as opposed to any real desire. I felt that i should keep playing as opposed to wanting to keep playing.

Then the story grabbed me again. Arbiter chatting during the battle about the lies of the Prophet bring to mind the split between the Covenant and the Elites. Then Commander Keyes shows up and you remember her role in Halo 2. The world is so immersive that by the time i’d (reluctantly) finished my first session two hours had passed in the blink of an eye.

This is where the strength of Halo lies, in its story. Sure, there are better looking games out there (Gears of War being an oft cited example of the shooter genre) but none can match the sheer awesomeness of this trilogy. It’s as fully immersive as a non-MMO can get.

This is also a bit of a curse though.

People buying Halo 3 without having played the first two games will probably find the narrative lost on them. They won’t understand half of what’s going on around them. This will sadly render Halo 3 just another shooter, and in their eyes, probably not a very good one. Basically there isn’t much effort placed on bringing new people to the game. Bungie and Microsoft are relying on the pre-existing audience for their sales. That’s not going to hurt their pockets at all though. Halo 3 has now become the biggest entertainment release of all time so the coffers at Bungie and Microsoft are going to be nicely swelled by this.

Marketing cynicism aside, these guys did a really good job of this game. They could have just slapped something together and thrown it out knowing it would sell phenomenally well anyway. They didn’t though. They took the time and effort to finely craft this game into one of the most fantastic experiences ever on a console. After you’ve finished this game you will feel a sense of achievement.

Have fun finishing the fight.