Halo 3 (XBox 360)

Gamecow’s Price	RRP $49.95     Save $4.00 $45.95
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Genre	First Person Shooter
Platform	XBOX 360
Release Date	25/09/2007
Rated

Halo 3 is a MUST Have for anyone who owns a XBOX 360.  This is THE GAME that makes the XBox 360 stand out from the Playstation 3 (indeed, all three Halos are worth owning).  The soundtrack is awesome, especially the theme song.  The music is used to great effect when things are about to go nuts.

The other outstanding feature of Halo 3 is the on-line community.  If you really want to get the most out of Halo 3 log onto XBox Live and play against players from around the world.  This is where Halo3 steps into a league of its own.  Halo 3 rocks.

Halo 3 (XBOX 360) Product Information

A HERO MUST RISE. BELIEVE.
The epic saga continues with Halo® 3, the third chapter in the highly successful and critically acclaimed Halo franchise. Master Chief returns to finish the fight, bringing the epic conflict between the Covenant, the Flood, and the entire human race to a dramatic, pulse-pounding climax.

Halo 3 represents the third chapter in the Halo trilogy—an international award-winning action series that grew into a global entertainment phenomenon.
• Epic story: The thrilling conclusion to the epic Halo trilogy.
• Next-gen advantage: Taking full advantage of the power of Xbox 360™, Halo 3 expands on everything that has made the Halo franchise great, adding a wealth of technical and gameplay advancements.
• Evolution of design: Next-generation high-definition visuals, enhanced A.I., an advanced real-time lighting engine, and new weapons, characters, and challenges are just a few examples of Halo 3's evolution of design and technology.
• Unparalleled experience: Ultimately, these improvements provide gamers with an unparalleled experience and, in the end, tell an even more compelling and engrossing story.
• Online multiplayer: The most complete online multiplayer experience ever conceived.
• Only on Xbox 360.

Halo 3 (XBOX 360) Review

Whereas Halo 2 provided roughly three-quarters of a story, Halo 3 provides another three-quarters, so you’re left with some rather obvious filler material. That, and Halo 3 is really just finishing off what Halo 2 started. It’s good and it works well.. In a way, the Halo trilogy is akin to the Matrix trilogy. If you’re memory is a bit hazy and you haven’t played through Halo and/or Halo 2 in while, it may be a good idea to take them for a spin just before going through Halo 3. If you’re late to the party, you really should play the predecessors first.

As mentioned, the single player kicks off where Halo 2 left things. Master Chief and the Arbiter finally get acquainted and the two are off to cause a whole lot of havoc. The first thing that you’ll notice is that the environments have been spruced up really nicely. Throughout the game’s nine missions, there is a much greater variety among the levels than has been seen in the previous games.

At it’s best, Halo has been about the close quarters combat against tough AI. A lot of the enemy patterns have improved, and new behaviours include Grunts sticking plasma grenades to themselves and going kamikaze. So the single player doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but it does do what its meant to do very well. We felt that it was exceedingly better than Halo 2 but didn’t quite have the same impact as the original Halo, despite the streamlining.

So far, you have a well-built and solid experience in the campaign and multiplayer, but apart from the ending, you won’t see anything that hasn’t been done before. We now get to the newest additions in Halo 3, that of the Theatre and Forge. Long before these modes came along, you could find a lot of home movies of people playing around with the Halo physics engine. Bungie have decided to take advantage of this and the burgeoning community and provide something that has never been seen on a console FPS.

It's obvious that Halo 3 is about satisfying the community that has been built since 2001 on as many levels as possible. Be they casual or hardcore, Bungie certainly got it right. Halo 3 certainly won’t be the greatest game ever released and it won’t fulfill its premise without an Xbox Live connection, but as a game and multiplayer package for those who just want Halo, Bungie have hit the nail on the head.

Full review PALGN