Replica
18-10-2007, 01:45 PM
In case you have been living under a rock for the last 7 years or so, Halo is Bungie's much ballyhooed money spinner that Microsoft rather wisely decided to co opt for the then fledgling first generation Xbox. This caused PC gamers the internet over to scream, cry and piss blood from their eyeball's and subsequently managed to elevate Microsoft's hideously large, hardly any exclusives, cut down Celeron with a Geforce 4 into a system that a discerning console gamer might not feel so embarrassed or ripped off purchasing.
The Halo series revolves around a fairly generic Sci fi story. A brutal collective of warlike aliens named the Covenant lead by batshit insane religious zealots named the Prophets are hellbent on the genocide of mankind and the activation of the titular Halo rings in order to go on a great journey. By great journey what is really meant is the destruction of the known universe. This is where the now iconic protagonist with the sporty green armour and a penchant for killing things comes in.
As the Master Chief (Spartan 117) you are the last (and apparently) the most bad arsed genetically engineered cyborg still alive, capable of saving mankind, the universe and some small computer woman from a queer set of space zombies. Did I mention that there would be space zombies? Well there are as well as murderous AI robots and a whole bunch of other shit that if you have either Aadvark's or my attention span you really won’t care about.
Graphically the game is a bit of a mixed bag. I would be lying to you if I had not been expecting a good deal more considering the quite reasonable hardware of the Xbox 360 and the total development time.
Crisp, clean and elegant is the order of the day here. Which is perhaps not a bad thing given the supreme level of chaos that occurs constantly throughout the game. This leads to consistent frame rates, epic scale battles and some truly jaw dropping (in scale) boss battles and firefights. The one area that Halo3 really shines is small ambient details, things like water effects, dust blowing through a desert, snow falling and elegant usages of transparency effects. It also sports possibly the best usage of HDR lighting within any video game which makes everything look nice and shiny and the overall lighting and texturing seem allot more natural.
The controls in the Halo series really did in allot of ways re-define expectations that console FPS were always going to be a bit rubbish compared to a PC with a keyboard and mouse. Thankfully Halo3 is no different. If anything Halo 3 benefits from having a much better controller on the 360 with better button placement and triggers. If the default layout doesn't grab you then an incredibly comprehensive set of layout customization is at hand. Everything from movement sensitivity, inversion, which controller moves / aims can be quickly and easily remapped to a player's preference.
This leads onto the game mechanics themselves. In a word, superb! It would be very easy to write Halo 3 off as a mindless run and gun fps, especially if you played it on the lowest 2 difficulties. In either of these modes directly running at a swarm of enemies is a viable option which undoubtedly will end in success (yawn). However crank the difficulty up to Heroic or the ball kickingly hard Legendary and things become a little different.
You see, the great thing about Halo 3 is that when you raise the difficulty the enemy gets a shit load smarter and starts doing things like throwing strategic grenades to pull you out of cover only to throw another grenade to your next point of cover leaving you out in the open getting raped by gunfire or keeping you heavily suppressed by gunfire only to have 3 of the bastards sneak round from behind for an ambush. Over the course of our 12 hour marathon Legendary co op session Aardvark and I were constantly shocked to see the AI do incredibly intelligent things that constantly thwarted us. Not cheap mind you but coordinated and adaptive to our own strategies.
This fantastic AI happens to be wrapped in a layer of supremely well balanced weaponry (where very little to none of the weapons are ever useless), superb physics, wide open spaces filled with stupidly fun vehicles ranging from multi person jeeps, single seater Brute Harleys, Scorpion tanks, bizarre covenant plasma things and elaborate harrieresque fighter jets. Couple that with a host of unwilling but deserving recipients of said firepower and a fun time can and will be had by all but the most one eyed, ardent console or pc fanboys.
Without a shadow of a doubt however, Halo 3’s major strength is its wealth of multiplayer options. Completely destroying the toweringly high standard set by Halo2 the comprehensive list of options and settings is just insanely large in scope and function.
A couple of weekends ago Aardvark and I decided to hunker down on a Friday night to beat Halo3 in co operative mode. Aards trundled over to my place with his 360 in tow and we proceeded to get a system link game of co op Legendary going. Being the masculine manly men men we were we proceeded to set the difficulty to Legendary. Even with the two of us being reasonable gamers it was a bloody challenging experience. The sheer amount of fun, enjoyment, heartbreak, triumph and tears cannot be relayed. Aardvark and I invented new swear words, military strategy and came to the conclusion that he should never ever drive a warthog as long as a blind, retarded child with no hands could be used as a willing substitute. 12 hours after the initial start point we were both slightly delirious, over tired, hungry, over caffeinated and cranky as shit, but utterly elated as we kicked Halo 3’s arse. Will we ever play co op on legendary again? Hell no! Did we enjoy it immensely? A definite thumbs up there!
After a few hours sleep Aards proceeded to grab his little brother + 360 and another couple of mates of ours came over for more Halo 3 multiplayer. This time (due in large part to Aards and my burnout) we decided to jump online and kill some strangers. The beautiful simplicity with the matchmaking in Halo 3 enabled 5 of us to jump online in a mixture of split and fullscreen and start fragging in minutes. First up was a game of CTF in which the 5 of us working in conjunction completely and utterly managed to dominate due to effective communication and usage of warthogs, flag runners and machine gunners. After this we mixed up game modes with varying levels of success until after one HILARIOUS game of CTF we discovered a very cool feature, a video playback mode! Let me tell you that there is nothing more satisfying then being able to see the retribution of someone hijacking a jet from you (mid air) only for you to machine gun him to death before you hit the ground or who can forget Aardvark’s Harley death run of doom? Good times.
This only scratches the surface of the depth of multiplayer, I could go on about things like the active radar which tracks rapid movement being an incredible (and often underutilized) tool, the 2 weapon limit at one time forcing you to learn the right tool for the job, using the terrain to your advantage with grenades, the crafty uses of bubble shields, emp bombs, camouflage suits and the joys of pistol whipping someone in the back of the head but there are just not that many hours in the day.
All in all Halo3 was worth the $79. Buy it, beat the campaign on Legendary (with a friend for the most fun) and you will probably never want to look at the campaign again. However the real reason you buy Halo 3 is just the insane wealth of multiplayer options and playability, get a few regular games going with some friends and you probably will never stop playing until Halo 4 or your 360 shits itself.
The Halo series revolves around a fairly generic Sci fi story. A brutal collective of warlike aliens named the Covenant lead by batshit insane religious zealots named the Prophets are hellbent on the genocide of mankind and the activation of the titular Halo rings in order to go on a great journey. By great journey what is really meant is the destruction of the known universe. This is where the now iconic protagonist with the sporty green armour and a penchant for killing things comes in.
As the Master Chief (Spartan 117) you are the last (and apparently) the most bad arsed genetically engineered cyborg still alive, capable of saving mankind, the universe and some small computer woman from a queer set of space zombies. Did I mention that there would be space zombies? Well there are as well as murderous AI robots and a whole bunch of other shit that if you have either Aadvark's or my attention span you really won’t care about.
Graphically the game is a bit of a mixed bag. I would be lying to you if I had not been expecting a good deal more considering the quite reasonable hardware of the Xbox 360 and the total development time.
Crisp, clean and elegant is the order of the day here. Which is perhaps not a bad thing given the supreme level of chaos that occurs constantly throughout the game. This leads to consistent frame rates, epic scale battles and some truly jaw dropping (in scale) boss battles and firefights. The one area that Halo3 really shines is small ambient details, things like water effects, dust blowing through a desert, snow falling and elegant usages of transparency effects. It also sports possibly the best usage of HDR lighting within any video game which makes everything look nice and shiny and the overall lighting and texturing seem allot more natural.
The controls in the Halo series really did in allot of ways re-define expectations that console FPS were always going to be a bit rubbish compared to a PC with a keyboard and mouse. Thankfully Halo3 is no different. If anything Halo 3 benefits from having a much better controller on the 360 with better button placement and triggers. If the default layout doesn't grab you then an incredibly comprehensive set of layout customization is at hand. Everything from movement sensitivity, inversion, which controller moves / aims can be quickly and easily remapped to a player's preference.
This leads onto the game mechanics themselves. In a word, superb! It would be very easy to write Halo 3 off as a mindless run and gun fps, especially if you played it on the lowest 2 difficulties. In either of these modes directly running at a swarm of enemies is a viable option which undoubtedly will end in success (yawn). However crank the difficulty up to Heroic or the ball kickingly hard Legendary and things become a little different.
You see, the great thing about Halo 3 is that when you raise the difficulty the enemy gets a shit load smarter and starts doing things like throwing strategic grenades to pull you out of cover only to throw another grenade to your next point of cover leaving you out in the open getting raped by gunfire or keeping you heavily suppressed by gunfire only to have 3 of the bastards sneak round from behind for an ambush. Over the course of our 12 hour marathon Legendary co op session Aardvark and I were constantly shocked to see the AI do incredibly intelligent things that constantly thwarted us. Not cheap mind you but coordinated and adaptive to our own strategies.
This fantastic AI happens to be wrapped in a layer of supremely well balanced weaponry (where very little to none of the weapons are ever useless), superb physics, wide open spaces filled with stupidly fun vehicles ranging from multi person jeeps, single seater Brute Harleys, Scorpion tanks, bizarre covenant plasma things and elaborate harrieresque fighter jets. Couple that with a host of unwilling but deserving recipients of said firepower and a fun time can and will be had by all but the most one eyed, ardent console or pc fanboys.
Without a shadow of a doubt however, Halo 3’s major strength is its wealth of multiplayer options. Completely destroying the toweringly high standard set by Halo2 the comprehensive list of options and settings is just insanely large in scope and function.
A couple of weekends ago Aardvark and I decided to hunker down on a Friday night to beat Halo3 in co operative mode. Aards trundled over to my place with his 360 in tow and we proceeded to get a system link game of co op Legendary going. Being the masculine manly men men we were we proceeded to set the difficulty to Legendary. Even with the two of us being reasonable gamers it was a bloody challenging experience. The sheer amount of fun, enjoyment, heartbreak, triumph and tears cannot be relayed. Aardvark and I invented new swear words, military strategy and came to the conclusion that he should never ever drive a warthog as long as a blind, retarded child with no hands could be used as a willing substitute. 12 hours after the initial start point we were both slightly delirious, over tired, hungry, over caffeinated and cranky as shit, but utterly elated as we kicked Halo 3’s arse. Will we ever play co op on legendary again? Hell no! Did we enjoy it immensely? A definite thumbs up there!
After a few hours sleep Aards proceeded to grab his little brother + 360 and another couple of mates of ours came over for more Halo 3 multiplayer. This time (due in large part to Aards and my burnout) we decided to jump online and kill some strangers. The beautiful simplicity with the matchmaking in Halo 3 enabled 5 of us to jump online in a mixture of split and fullscreen and start fragging in minutes. First up was a game of CTF in which the 5 of us working in conjunction completely and utterly managed to dominate due to effective communication and usage of warthogs, flag runners and machine gunners. After this we mixed up game modes with varying levels of success until after one HILARIOUS game of CTF we discovered a very cool feature, a video playback mode! Let me tell you that there is nothing more satisfying then being able to see the retribution of someone hijacking a jet from you (mid air) only for you to machine gun him to death before you hit the ground or who can forget Aardvark’s Harley death run of doom? Good times.
This only scratches the surface of the depth of multiplayer, I could go on about things like the active radar which tracks rapid movement being an incredible (and often underutilized) tool, the 2 weapon limit at one time forcing you to learn the right tool for the job, using the terrain to your advantage with grenades, the crafty uses of bubble shields, emp bombs, camouflage suits and the joys of pistol whipping someone in the back of the head but there are just not that many hours in the day.
All in all Halo3 was worth the $79. Buy it, beat the campaign on Legendary (with a friend for the most fun) and you will probably never want to look at the campaign again. However the real reason you buy Halo 3 is just the insane wealth of multiplayer options and playability, get a few regular games going with some friends and you probably will never stop playing until Halo 4 or your 360 shits itself.