Halo 3

It had been a few years since my last Halo experience, so I was pretty excited to see an advertisement for Halo3 in my local gamestore around January 2007. Upon spotting my interest the guy behind the counter became frantic, informing me that the store would only take pre-orders for the game for another month (despite a release date originally slated for the summer), and that if I failed to commit to buy right then and there I wouldn’t be likely to see my pal Master Chief before the next Presidential Election. In a panic I threw down my pre-order bucks and drove home happily expectant of my guaranteed Covenant-Flood bashing and Cortana Oggling.

First Impressionsby Tanx - Video Game Reviews by a Very Busy Math Teacher

It wasn’t a surprise when the release date was pushed forward to the Fall. It was a surprise when my 360 decided to display the red rings of death THE DAY BEFORE RELEASE and I spent the next month forlornly staring at the box while waiting for the console to be repaired by Microsoft and mailed back. Thus, when I was finally ready to sit down and play the Halo3 single player campaign, one month late, everyone on Earth had already put it past them and had no real interest in going back. Which, of course, brings up the question of who exactly I’m writing this review for. Nevertheless... I was in luck. My ever-reliable cousin recently agreed to play it through again with me so he could score a few more achievements… under the one condition, however, that we set the difficulty to Legendary.

You have to understand that Legendary difficulty in Halo3 had already acquired a reputation for impossibility. The popular web comic Penny Arcade described it as a chore, recommending achievement hunters should pay a teenager to play it for them as a summer job. My students, however, just kind of looked at me funny when I brought this up (they look at me funny for a lot of other reasons, but this time was particularly noticeable.) But what the heck, since my cousin and I had previously conquered the toughest difficulty setting of Gears of War, we figured we were ready for a little challenge like this. And at first it wasn’t really all that bad! We shot a few Covenenant grunts, spent some time trying to jump on top of each other’s heads ( both playable characters, the Master-Chief and the Arbiter, are bouncier than Spring-Heel Jack.) It was all good fun and laughs… until we ran into a nest of snipers and the frequent dying began.

I once read a science fiction story about a man who could perceive every version of himself across countless parallel worlds. By considering the many alternate branches that his life could take at any given decision, he could continue his consciousness through the most successful path. Watching the Master Chief and Arbiter confront their own mortality over and over again as we struggled to advance to each checkpoint made me think of this fortunate man. I can only hope that Master Chief also has this ability, and could thus avoid remembering the terrible multiplicity of his own demise. I must here take a moment to commend Bungie for giving us multiple “pity” checkpoints. After repeated evisceration by enemy troops extra save points in the midst of the more stupefyingly impossible sequences would crop up to help us press forward.

The action in Halo3 is a lot of fun, particularly when vehicles are involved. Warhogs and Wraiths, Scorpions, Ghosts and Pelicans, there is a veritable menagerie of animal appellations in this world’s vehicle technology. Tanks were particularly fun to pilot, and the giant robotic spider thingees you occasionally had to topple were a visual feast to behold. Halo3 is in every scene a very pretty game!

As to the plot, however… I’m a reasonably intelligent guy at times, but I had no real idea what was going on. Okay, so it has been a few years since my last Halo experience, and unlike some dedicated players I had not memorized events from previous games nor read the novel tie-ins. I also understand the massive pressure Bungie was under to cut down on unneccesary exposition in an action-blockbuster pitched at attention-deficit throngs. But a little too much was cut out, to the point that I generally didn’t care who the characters were or why we were doing what we were doing. Why was there another Halo out near the Super-Halo? From where and how did the Flood suddenly show up at the edge of the galaxy, and why was Cortana with them? And why does a computer program mumble and swoon anyway? I found none of these questions compelling.

I did like the whole idea of punishing cheats. In most games you uncover cheats to become invincible, gain infinite ammo, or otherwise explore your adolescent power fantasies. Not so in Halo3, where most of the cheats actually make things harder! Playing the game with double-strength enemies or with less ammo allows you to attain higher online player rankings and such, which adds a lot of replayability for the true Halo conniseur. Which I am not.

Halo3 was a good time with gorgeous scenes, but overall it didn’t make for a very memorable experience. Or at least I don’t think it did... I don’t really remember.