I had the honor to play some Halo 3 with our leader, BreakmanX last night. While playing was fun, I think the majority of it was because of our chatting. We got through the first 3 levels, but the game itself left us bored, confused. We found ourselves picking apart little things in each level just to get some entertainment value. However, this IS Halo, and it was everything I was expecting it to be.
Johnson and his crashed Pelican
Halo 3 is mostly seen as a multiplayer experience. Bungie showed this when it delivered Halo 2. You could really feel how rushed and incomplete Halo 2's single campaign was. While the first few levels of Halo 3 were nothing spectacular so far, I can firmly say that it is better than Halo 2. The atmosphere and sense of war you get out of the whole experience is astounding. Everything has life, from attacking enemies and helping allies, to the beautiful environment. That being said, the majority of Halo 3 consists of running and gunning and not much thinking or uniqueness. Hopefully something amazingly will happen that will leave me wanting more, but as of right now the campaign is fun but nothing revolutionary.
We found the Pelican! …Now what?
Since I was mostly talking and laughing to my co-op buddy the whole time, I didn't really understand much of the story, or objectives. We found around ourselves doing menial tasks and running around in circles, backtracking for no apparent reason. We even got lost a couple of times.
On the graphics side of things, Halo is detailed game. Detailed but not good looking. The graphics take a huge hit at the consequence of detailed textures and a smooth frame rate. If you're looking for the next visually amazing 360 game, this isn't it.
I did get a chance to play some multiplayer, which is of course a blast. New vehicles and weapons really change up the gameplay, and levels seem to much more vast than previous installments.
You can find out more of what break thought of the game on this week's game show.