Halo 3 Review

Halo 3 - arguably the best Halo in the franchise. It combines the story with gunfights whilst picking up from where it left off in Halo 2. Nothing gets in your way unless you let it get in your way, honestly. The fun is near endless in this great, genre-defining hell of a game.

Let's start with the story of Halo. It's a really great and detailed story, but I'll shorten it down: in the past, a race called the Forerunners fought against the Flood, yet the Flood overran a ton of the Milky Way. One of the affected races, aka humanity, started to fight against the Forerunner... idk why, they fought against the Flood for God sake. That's the basic story, and there's something about Cortana yet I won't spoil it (I just got it ruined, so thanks Wikipedia, you morons). Here's the Wikipedia page on Halo, if you really wanna know the whole thing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_(series).

One of the unique things about Halo is that you get to decide some of the controls. When you are instructed to look up, just as in Halo 2, whatever control you use then is automatically chosen as your control to look down (it has to be an analogue stick, and that analogue stick will then be used as the one to look around with). Controls are pretty simple, with the general A scheme. One thing that bugs me, however, is that the control to scope in is to push in the bottom analogue stick. Now, maybe I'm being dumb, but usually I use that for throwing grenades, crouching, etc in other games. The one I generally use for aiming is LT, but that throws a grenade. Unless you're used to it and a fan of Halo (first Halo I played was Halo 4 and that put me off), it can be kinda annoying when you accidentally throw a grenade and kill a friendly.

Weapons are fun. There are three types of weapons, which are the UNSC weaponry (the one you start out with), the Covenant weaponry, and the Forerunner weaponry. Starting with the UNSC weapons, there are a ton of weapons, and they're generally good guns. Snipers like the BR55HB SR Battle Rifle (it doesn't have to be used a sniper but I find it best to use it that way) deal heavy damage from long distances with great balance for when you have to face an enemy up close via it's burst fire feature. The gun you start with, the MA5C, is a machine gun that deals expected damage with plenty of ammo. The MG6 pistol is what you would expect from a pistol, and the rest are balanced and enjoyable to use weapons. Forerunner weapons are alright too, but the Covenant weapons aren't my favorite since the bullets don't instantly hit, and instead slowly fly through the air. It does good damage, but is annoying to hit enemies with.

Characters all stand out. Master Chief, the face of Xbox, is still an awesome character and they don't shove it right in your face, saying "LOOK, HE IS SO AWESOME, WOO!" No game that wants you to like a character does that. Instead, Halo builds up your respect for him, and in Halo 3 (despite faking to be dead) is still the respectable guy you saw in the other games. Take that, Max Payne 3, trying to make me respect a guy by using an hour long cut-scene to start with that I COULDN'T SKIP! I still like Max Payne 3 though... anyway, moving on. Johnson is a character I never really liked, but he's okay in Halo 3, even though he still shouts a ton when he's trying to just talk normal. Thel 'Vadam is useful in combat, but for the first part of the game his personality isn't really shown.

Now to the part I really don't give a damn about - sound and graphics. Graphics are really great, but the lighting on the weapon can sometimes be off. Despite that fact, the graphics are still well done, from the bullet dust when a bullet hits a wall right to the laser bullets flying through the air. Sound is sweet too, with no audio spikes so far (for those that don't know, audio spikes is when the sound suddenly blasts), as well as the audio not going suddenly quiet. My only issue is when Cortana appears for the first time with sudden audio, as it gave me a mini heart attack. I thought the G-Man in Half Life 2 was the end of that, and even he wasn't that startling!

Enemies are mostly great. Shields, Brutes, and so on are unique, each facing you with different ways to kill them and different amounts of health. The only enemy that I have a problem with is the Unggoy... wtf? They're annoying little weak enemies that appear in packs along with a few strong enemies, them distracting you and getting in the way. They run away like morons when you fire at them, and their dialogue is so, SO annoying. Maybe they were designed to be annoying, I dunno.

So yeah, that's Halo 3. An amazing, great game with fun around every corner, and deserves the title "Game of the decade".

Fun: 9.5. Seriously, I really love it.
Characters: 9. Love them or hate them, they all stand out.
Controls: 7. Easy enough, but that grenade thing is annoying.
Story: 10. Halo's story is one of the best stories in video games.
Graphics and Sound: 8. Great, but lighting can be a bit off on weapons.
Writing: 9.5. Sometimes cheesy, but overall very good.
Tea-bagging Allowance: 9.5. Teabagging just got bigger and better.

OVERALL SCORE: 9.5/10, aka 4.75 stars.