If you remember anything from Halo: Combat Evolved then it’s probably those incredible thirty-second situations you got yourself into. Moments that drew on all your play experience up to that point, as you encountered an enemy and like a Wild West showdown, forced to out-think and out-gun one another.

If you remember anything from Halo 2 it is most likely those long late evenings of local and online multi-player. The sheer joy of teamwork and outflanking another squad of Master Chiefs was something to behold. The sheer variety play that was encouraged by the environments still sticks with many players to this day.

Needless to say Halo 3 had the weight of high-expectation on its shoulders, and then some! And to cut a long story short it somehow achieved the impossible of outdoing all that had gone before. This is not a matter of pushing more polygons or larger maps or grander set pieces; Rather, it is a game that has finally been allowed the time it needed to gestate to its full potential. Every feature now shines with refinement and the steady hand of a team who understood their game better then all.

Let’s take things one at a time- First, obviously, the campaign. Finally, we get to return to Earth and finish the fight, those words ringing in our ears from the end of Halo 2. The first thing that strikes you about the Halo 3 campaign is that it now really feels like you are taking part in a grand war; Rather than fighting through corridors or Grunts and Brutes, we now find entire environments ready populated with dozens of enemy squads already in full action.

Having run through the experience once on normal, you may feel you have seen it all, but subsequent play through on heroic or legendary reveal this to be a game of many layers. Turning up the difficulty makes sense of unnoticed aspects of the level design and starts to call for a more considered and tactical approach from the player. Throw into this mix the ability to tackle the game with four player online co-operative play and you have the making of years of fun. Campaign scoring is then the icing on the cake; this provides a meta-game where you compete for kills, head shots and multiple takedowns; a simple idea but an astounding amount of fun.

Once you have wrung the campaign out for all its worth, you can turn you attention to the online multi-player experience. Here again we see the blossoming of all that the previous games promised to deliver; Rather than simply ramping up the visuals Bungie has improved physics and telemetry to ensure the world feels more real then ever. The action is spread across an impressive 11 maps, and can take in up to 16 players at a time. On top of this the multi-player benefits from the expanded arsenal of weapons and grenades from the single player game. These additions again show Bungie’s consummate maturity in balancing the experience; No one piece of the new arsenal outweighs the existing weapons. Even the gravity hammer that can send players flying through the air is implemented in such a away that it both makes sense and fits within the Halo environments.

The basic map types and game variants can then be adjusted with a variety of settings and applying skulls you have obtained in the single player. Some brief adjustment can completely alter the way a particular game type plays and deliver exciting results. Which leads us onto the most revolutionary feature in Halo 3: Forge.

Forge enables you to not only adjust the player and level stats but also to move objects and objectives around within the level. Although at first this sounds a little confusing, seeing it in action reveals the power that Bungie has handed over to the player community. The result will be an endless stream of quality game types that imaginatively re-use Halo 3’s essential elements in ever-more creative ways.

This all adds up to quite a package. We haven’t even really dug into the astounding visuals or bottomless pit of sound effects and voice work, but this just goes to show at its heart Halo 3 is all about the game play experience. There is no higher praise for a game than the sheer delight in playing every part and then playing them again. Like a good book, once you have played it you need to find someone to tell about what you have just experienced. Halo 3 is one of the best games in a long time, and as such deserves to be shared with all your friends.

Sweet
- Four Player Co-op Campaign
- Custom community maps with Forge
- Finally finishing the fight

Sticky
- Similar to previous games
- Only on 360