Halo 3: Final Impression

November 20, 2007

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted. Big deal, right? Anyway, I’ll close out my past few Halo 3 posts with my final impressions.Halo 3 is a fine videogame franchise, but for me, thats the problem - it’s become a franchise. I’ll compare it to Mission Impossible as a movie, or maybe to Papa John’s as a pizza franchise. It’s what we’ve come to expect from a first-person-shooter video game. Backed by a huge development staff and a prototypical sci-fi story, the equation adds up to tons of marketing & sales. And for die-hard fans, it’s what they love.

I’m torn, since it could finally put Microsoft’s entertainment division in the black. (I’ll mention the Zune update, which could also put a dent in ipod sales in a later post) Good news for Microsoft, and Bungie (the makers of Halo 3), and Halo fans worldwide, but I’m going to go as far as giving the game a 7/10 rating. Why? Because several other games have surpassed Halo in innovation. Bioshock, Call of Duty 4, Assassin’s Creed, Zack and Wiki, Super Mario Galaxy to name a few. So I’m done with posting about Halo 3. I got sucked into the marketing blitzkreig, made some great friends and memories waiting in line at midnight, enjoyed playing with my friends in co-op mode, and finished the fight. Quite frankly, I don’t have much fight left in me for Halo, but I’ll probably pre-order Halo 4 when it hits now that Bungie is on it’s own.

Halo 3: Highlights:

Music & Sound: Incredible. One of the best soundtracks out there. Close runner up is the Bioshock soundtrack (available for download http://downloads.2kgames.com/bioshock/BioShock_Score.zip)

Multiplayer: I’m a huge fan of co-operative play, and Halo 3’s 4 player co-op mode is just perfect. I know the fan base is built on it’s multiplayer deathmatch, but I’m not a huge fan. It feels very run, jump, and gun to me.

Graphics: Again, incredible. Nothing truly groundbreaking, but what we’ve come to expect from Halo.

Gameplay: What can you say? Bungie perfected the FPS controls in console gaming. A+++ Great Seller.

Story: Above Average. It seems like a game needs much more depth than some cutscenes. Who didn’t think we’d be rescuing Cortana?

Overall: 7/10 flaming controllers

What did I forget? What are your thoughts? Comments?

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