It’s very fitting that the conclusion to the story also happens to be the best game in the trilogy by a country mile. Everything the first two games set up has been nearly perfected here, and somehow they managed to greatly increase the variety of weapons – even to the point of doubling the amount of grenade types – without making any of them feel redundant, overpowered or underpowered, or undesirable. Many weapons also have smaller magazines and less total ammo capacity now, more effectively encouraging the player to really utilize everything at their disposal than the previous games did. All the vehicles feel better, and there are more of them too. Every single level is impeccably designed and contains at least one huge setpiece, and the world design is truly like nothing else. The graphics are pure eye candy compared to before, the art direction is more beautiful than it’s ever been – even if I do hate bloom and think it’s excessive here – and the music reaches a new peak with especially delectable utilization of the main theme’s hook.
The only thing I can complain about is two specific aspects of the sound; One being that the overall volume is quite low, and for no good reason since I can clearly hear things ramming against a limiter when stuff gets loud enough, so it could have been louder not only without issue, but making it louder might have even improved the overall mix a bit. The previous games could be a bit too loud at times, but this is quite an overcorrection. The other sound issue is that voices are way too quiet in the mix, to the point that words are almost entirely inaudible at times, let alone understandable, making subtitles effectively mandatory… and the subtitles don’t even update to show a new line sometimes.
In terms of story, it’s in another league. Still nothing monumental, but the storytelling is so much more compelling here than in the predecessors, and so much more substantial. The cutscenes are all a thrill to watch now too, rather than simply moderately interesting, and they do some heavy lifting to create a much stronger sense of heroism and grandeur than before… even if there are some real dumb lines here and there. I kind of wish the Arbiter and the Elites got more than they did from the story, but knowing that this is a story of humanity, I can accept their relative sidelining and simply enjoy how cool it was to see them cooperate. The pacing of the campaign is also nothing short of perfection this time around, never moving too fast or wasting any time, from opening to conclusion… though I did get lost once or twice and waste a lot of time, but that was on me, not the game. On that topic, the opening gets the action started so fast that it’s – rather amusingly – a nearly seamless continuation from Halo 2’s cliffhanger, and the conclusion is simultaneously powerful and hilarious.
Once I got to the end of the game, I realized that I actually did complete this game on Xbox 360 when I was younger. I have a distinct memory of driving the warthog along that massive field of floating panels and thinking that it was stupid, and… yeah, it’s still kinda stupid, but in a cool and fun way. Oddly, that and the very beginning of the game are the only memories I retained, because every other moment felt completely fresh to me. After finishing the game, I was left with a strange feeling, knowing that I’m about 20 years late to this series and being sure I would have loved it at the time, yet also knowing that I apparently completed at least one of these three titles myself and didn’t remember a thing of value. That said, my memory is infamously full of holes, so maybe I did love it and simply forgot.
I have also well and truly run out of things to say about the game itself, because it’s the third of a trilogy where nothing really changes, it’s just great iteration on the same recipe. That leaves only my feelings to talk about, so I will say this: While playing CE, I was having some fun and loving the atmosphere. While playing 2, I was fascinated by the ambition and the sheer scale of the accomplishment in developing such a game under its circumstances, but admittedly was not having as much fun. While playing 3, for the first time, it truly clicked for me, and I was loving every bit of it. I couldn’t even explain exactly what made me feel that way or why if I tried, all I can tell you is that just by playing these games blind two decades later, I can plainly tell that Halo is special, and Halo 3 is doubly special. Knowing that this is where forge mode was introduced and for how long the entire Xbox community thrived with it at the time only makes that truth even clearer.
(from my web zone: https://kerosyn.link/oh-yeah-halo-exists/#halo-3)
The only thing I can complain about is two specific aspects of the sound; One being that the overall volume is quite low, and for no good reason since I can clearly hear things ramming against a limiter when stuff gets loud enough, so it could have been louder not only without issue, but making it louder might have even improved the overall mix a bit. The previous games could be a bit too loud at times, but this is quite an overcorrection. The other sound issue is that voices are way too quiet in the mix, to the point that words are almost entirely inaudible at times, let alone understandable, making subtitles effectively mandatory… and the subtitles don’t even update to show a new line sometimes.
In terms of story, it’s in another league. Still nothing monumental, but the storytelling is so much more compelling here than in the predecessors, and so much more substantial. The cutscenes are all a thrill to watch now too, rather than simply moderately interesting, and they do some heavy lifting to create a much stronger sense of heroism and grandeur than before… even if there are some real dumb lines here and there. I kind of wish the Arbiter and the Elites got more than they did from the story, but knowing that this is a story of humanity, I can accept their relative sidelining and simply enjoy how cool it was to see them cooperate. The pacing of the campaign is also nothing short of perfection this time around, never moving too fast or wasting any time, from opening to conclusion… though I did get lost once or twice and waste a lot of time, but that was on me, not the game. On that topic, the opening gets the action started so fast that it’s – rather amusingly – a nearly seamless continuation from Halo 2’s cliffhanger, and the conclusion is simultaneously powerful and hilarious.
Once I got to the end of the game, I realized that I actually did complete this game on Xbox 360 when I was younger. I have a distinct memory of driving the warthog along that massive field of floating panels and thinking that it was stupid, and… yeah, it’s still kinda stupid, but in a cool and fun way. Oddly, that and the very beginning of the game are the only memories I retained, because every other moment felt completely fresh to me. After finishing the game, I was left with a strange feeling, knowing that I’m about 20 years late to this series and being sure I would have loved it at the time, yet also knowing that I apparently completed at least one of these three titles myself and didn’t remember a thing of value. That said, my memory is infamously full of holes, so maybe I did love it and simply forgot.
I have also well and truly run out of things to say about the game itself, because it’s the third of a trilogy where nothing really changes, it’s just great iteration on the same recipe. That leaves only my feelings to talk about, so I will say this: While playing CE, I was having some fun and loving the atmosphere. While playing 2, I was fascinated by the ambition and the sheer scale of the accomplishment in developing such a game under its circumstances, but admittedly was not having as much fun. While playing 3, for the first time, it truly clicked for me, and I was loving every bit of it. I couldn’t even explain exactly what made me feel that way or why if I tried, all I can tell you is that just by playing these games blind two decades later, I can plainly tell that Halo is special, and Halo 3 is doubly special. Knowing that this is where forge mode was introduced and for how long the entire Xbox community thrived with it at the time only makes that truth even clearer.
(from my web zone: https://kerosyn.link/oh-yeah-halo-exists/#halo-3)