Halo 3
About the Game
Halo 3 is the third game in the main Halo series. Like the rest of the series, it is a sci-fi/military-themed first-person shooter with an emphasis on vehicles and an extensive multiplayer mode in addition to the single-player campaign. As before, the series' signature shield system is used where, rather than health, you have a force field of sorts which loses power as you are attacked.
Story & Setting
The campaign mode contains a number of new features as well.
Gameplay & Core Systems
If you can avoid being attacked, the shield will recharge on its own. These are human and alien transport which can be driven or ridden in with another player or AI doing the driving. Halo 3 adds numerous new types of vehicles, notably a massive mobile command center called the Elephant and a human VTOL aircraft called the Hornet. Also as before, you are limited to one weapon in hand (or one in each hand for some of the smaller guns) and one on back-up with both human and alien weapons available. Weapons can be fired or used to club someone for a melee hit.
Standout Features
- Enemies with good timing can board a vehicle, kicking out the occupant.
- There are several new weapons, including the gravity hammer, which is a massive hammer for one-hit kills in close combat.
- When using a single weapon, your second trigger throws grenades, which have a new spike type in addition to the basic sticky and frag ones from previous games.
- Turrets are back, which are mounted guns with a new missile pod variant and the added ability to rip them off their moorings and carry them around in 3rd person view.
- There is a new feature called equipment where you get objects with particular effects, such as a gravity lift, a shield drain field, a shield recharge field, land mines and a bubble shield which can be penetrated by players, but not gunfire.
- One piece of equipment can be carried at a time and it can be deployed anywhere.
- This includes the standard fps games like slayer (essentially deathmatch), capture the flag, assault (reverse ctf), territories and king of the hill (territories with a single point).
- Two new games are added: VIP, where you are tasked with killing a specific player on the other team and must protect your own VIP, and infection, which is a human team vs a zombie team and humans are infected and brought to the other team as they are killed.
Modes & Ways to Play
All the multiplayer game types from Halo 2 are back. The map editor is actually a playable game mode with some players becoming the monitor and placing objects for use by their teammates. The players now control distinct characters in co-op rather than the Chief just having an identical twin, players limit has been expanded to four and it is now playable online. There is a metagame where you score points in the campaign (used for some of the achievements) and the skulls from Halo 2 have been expanded with a checklist and additional features, such as unlocking extra armor for use in multiplayer and additional dialogue featured throughout the game.
Player support includes Co-Op, Free-for-all / One-on-one (VS), Team, and 2-4 Players.
Presentation & Atmosphere
Other new features include a theater where you can re-watch games you or others played from the viewpoint of any player-character or in third-person or with a free camera.
Display support includes Progressive Scan (480p), HDTV 720p, HDTV 1080i, HDTV 1080p, and Widescreen (16 x 9). Audio support includes Dolby Digital.
