Admittedly long Halo 3 rant
Now that this game has fallen into the Platinum Hits bargain bin, it's worth picking up.
But it certainly wasn't when I got it.
I have never been so thoroughly underwhelmed and disappointed in a multi-million (some say billion!) dollar franchise closer than this one. Between all the hype the game received from all of the game media outlets and the incessant, virtually inescapable advertising in the months leading up to the game's release, the mountain of hype Microsoft managed to create for the game had a peak so high the game couldn't have reasonably been expected to reach it.
The most disappointing part is the fact that the game didn't even try to be anything more than Halo: Combat Evolved with a fresh new coat of paint.
The game was hyped up to be so epic and legendary that The Lord of the Rings would look like a cartoon by comparison, but unfortunately the joke is on Halo 3, which is suffocated by the completely inept storytelling, and the cartoonish presentation of a game that purports to be deep in religious rhetoric and filled with humanity. The game attempts neither, and is instead just another stale first person shooter that has been left in the dust by the competition and seems to be completely unaware of it.
By taking a generic black hat story line no more complicated than that of the original Donkey Kong (princess stolen, must rescue from evil ape thing, rinse and repeat) and substituting in a cast of characters whose names are derived from the fictional religion of the Covenant, the game alludes some deep religious metaphor that seems to think it reflects humanity, but unfortunately there is absolutely nothing meaningful about the religious aspect of the game. The villains are attempting to do something unspeakably evil, and the Master Chief has a clear cut solution that will eradicate them all forever. Everything is cut and dry: the cybernetic man will save humanity and the rest of the galaxy from extinction by moving through a series of gray corridors and river beds, shooting everything in his path dead. The fact that the game takes itself seriously as a storyteller makes the writing seem as comical as it is atrocious. Religion is a very complicated thing, and the fact this game so half-assedly attempts to study it is comical at best and insulting at worst. The enemies are evil and can't be empathized for, and humanity is a self-less victim of a terrible crime. There is no gray anywhere in the game, only that MASTR CHEFF AM TEH GREETEST and will purge the universe of all evil all by his lonesome.
In fact, the combat is so far removed from the storyline that virtually every cutscene in the game has a few "what the hell are they talking about" moments, since you seem to do a heck of a lot of shooting and seemingly accomplish nothing, only to find out several hours later via cutscene dialog that all that shooting you did back in Africa was actually the end of a large battle where (spoiler) the entire continent was glassed by nukes (/spoiler).
Oh, okay. Couldn't you have just said that earlier?
In fact, the game actually does so little storytelling that the only way to really understand it is to have played the second Halo game yesterday. Halo 3 seems to have the expectation that you know the story just as well as developer Bungie does. I frankly don't care to ever read any of the Halo novels and I'm certainly not going to play Halo 2 again just to get anything at all out of Halo 3. I understand throwing in some nuggets for the fans, but it's hard to get much of anything out of Halo 3 without first studying the previous game since the political and religious struggles of the Covenant are explored in detail in that game, from the perspective of one of it's members via the much lauded but nonetheless important Arbiter sequences. Halo 3 makes little enough sense with that background, but without it you're in for 8 or 9 hours of confusion.
Despite my overall dislike for the game, there are some moments that I have to give credit for. There are these large covenant machines called Scarabs, which are these giant hulking bug like walking-fortresses-of-death that take advantage of the game's monolithic scale. They are immune to all small arms fire, so pelting one with your machine gun isn't going to do you a lot of good. The strategy with these is to aim for the legs to get the things to crouch down low enough for you to hop on board, do some serious damage to the power core, and jump off before the thing lights up in a fantastic explosion that seems to rock the earth it stands on. These are some of the most satisfying moments in modern gaming, which has been so watered down in order to appear more accessible to the masses that you rarely, if ever, get this sense of triumph, which gaming once brought. Battling ever increasingly difficult bosses is something of the past. I can recall very few battles like these in recent memory, those which bring the excitement of defeating an increasingly more powerful Bowser at the end of each world in Mario or General RAMM from Gears of War, games which constantly tasked you with overcoming the seemingly impossible, and then upping the ante by making that enemy even more powerful in your next encounter, which you overcame with much fanfare and excitement, moments which make up the most satisfying in gaming.
Unfortunately, this is the only such excitement you'll get out of Halo 3, since the storyline has no build. While games like Final Fantasy constantly raise the pitch into the stratosphere, Halo 3 never seems to generate any sense of accomplishment, no sense of urgency (you're fighting for the survival of every living being in the universe, apparently), and no sense of scale. Battling Sin in Final Fantasy X, General RAMM in Gears of War, and destroying the Citadel in Half-Life 2--what all these have in common is a crescendo at the end of a nasty battle against increasingly insurmountable odds. Halo 3 does the complete opposite; the more you play the game, the more the momentum seems to fizzle out. The game was so stale by the time I got to the ending that I didn't believe it was really the ending until the credits started rolling, and I was struck with disbelief that a game would be so truly inept at telling a story that I didn't even realize I was watching the ending of one of the most important trilogies in gaming history until it was already over. Not to mention that it didn't even make any sense.
It's not even just the writing. The presentation alludes to nothing, too. In Half-Life 2 there were some claustrophobic moments of isolation where you were at it alone, stealthing your way along the coast and into the prison Nova Prospekt. When you returned to City 17, it was practically decimated as the resistance against the Combine had culminated into all out war for humanity's survival. The sense of scale was immense, and you could practically feel the whole city being ripped apart. As far back as 2003 Call of Duty gave you the scale of war from the first person perspective. Even with cutscenes, Halo 3 completely fails to show just how huge this battle of the titans is. The gravity of the situation is non-existent, which is what makes the game feel like such a huge, incompetent letdown, and fortunately with Halo Reach coming out later this year, won't be the final entry in the Halo franchise.
But it certainly wasn't when I got it.
I have never been so thoroughly underwhelmed and disappointed in a multi-million (some say billion!) dollar franchise closer than this one. Between all the hype the game received from all of the game media outlets and the incessant, virtually inescapable advertising in the months leading up to the game's release, the mountain of hype Microsoft managed to create for the game had a peak so high the game couldn't have reasonably been expected to reach it.
The most disappointing part is the fact that the game didn't even try to be anything more than Halo: Combat Evolved with a fresh new coat of paint.
The game was hyped up to be so epic and legendary that The Lord of the Rings would look like a cartoon by comparison, but unfortunately the joke is on Halo 3, which is suffocated by the completely inept storytelling, and the cartoonish presentation of a game that purports to be deep in religious rhetoric and filled with humanity. The game attempts neither, and is instead just another stale first person shooter that has been left in the dust by the competition and seems to be completely unaware of it.
By taking a generic black hat story line no more complicated than that of the original Donkey Kong (princess stolen, must rescue from evil ape thing, rinse and repeat) and substituting in a cast of characters whose names are derived from the fictional religion of the Covenant, the game alludes some deep religious metaphor that seems to think it reflects humanity, but unfortunately there is absolutely nothing meaningful about the religious aspect of the game. The villains are attempting to do something unspeakably evil, and the Master Chief has a clear cut solution that will eradicate them all forever. Everything is cut and dry: the cybernetic man will save humanity and the rest of the galaxy from extinction by moving through a series of gray corridors and river beds, shooting everything in his path dead. The fact that the game takes itself seriously as a storyteller makes the writing seem as comical as it is atrocious. Religion is a very complicated thing, and the fact this game so half-assedly attempts to study it is comical at best and insulting at worst. The enemies are evil and can't be empathized for, and humanity is a self-less victim of a terrible crime. There is no gray anywhere in the game, only that MASTR CHEFF AM TEH GREETEST and will purge the universe of all evil all by his lonesome.
In fact, the combat is so far removed from the storyline that virtually every cutscene in the game has a few "what the hell are they talking about" moments, since you seem to do a heck of a lot of shooting and seemingly accomplish nothing, only to find out several hours later via cutscene dialog that all that shooting you did back in Africa was actually the end of a large battle where (spoiler) the entire continent was glassed by nukes (/spoiler).
Oh, okay. Couldn't you have just said that earlier?
In fact, the game actually does so little storytelling that the only way to really understand it is to have played the second Halo game yesterday. Halo 3 seems to have the expectation that you know the story just as well as developer Bungie does. I frankly don't care to ever read any of the Halo novels and I'm certainly not going to play Halo 2 again just to get anything at all out of Halo 3. I understand throwing in some nuggets for the fans, but it's hard to get much of anything out of Halo 3 without first studying the previous game since the political and religious struggles of the Covenant are explored in detail in that game, from the perspective of one of it's members via the much lauded but nonetheless important Arbiter sequences. Halo 3 makes little enough sense with that background, but without it you're in for 8 or 9 hours of confusion.
Despite my overall dislike for the game, there are some moments that I have to give credit for. There are these large covenant machines called Scarabs, which are these giant hulking bug like walking-fortresses-of-death that take advantage of the game's monolithic scale. They are immune to all small arms fire, so pelting one with your machine gun isn't going to do you a lot of good. The strategy with these is to aim for the legs to get the things to crouch down low enough for you to hop on board, do some serious damage to the power core, and jump off before the thing lights up in a fantastic explosion that seems to rock the earth it stands on. These are some of the most satisfying moments in modern gaming, which has been so watered down in order to appear more accessible to the masses that you rarely, if ever, get this sense of triumph, which gaming once brought. Battling ever increasingly difficult bosses is something of the past. I can recall very few battles like these in recent memory, those which bring the excitement of defeating an increasingly more powerful Bowser at the end of each world in Mario or General RAMM from Gears of War, games which constantly tasked you with overcoming the seemingly impossible, and then upping the ante by making that enemy even more powerful in your next encounter, which you overcame with much fanfare and excitement, moments which make up the most satisfying in gaming.
Unfortunately, this is the only such excitement you'll get out of Halo 3, since the storyline has no build. While games like Final Fantasy constantly raise the pitch into the stratosphere, Halo 3 never seems to generate any sense of accomplishment, no sense of urgency (you're fighting for the survival of every living being in the universe, apparently), and no sense of scale. Battling Sin in Final Fantasy X, General RAMM in Gears of War, and destroying the Citadel in Half-Life 2--what all these have in common is a crescendo at the end of a nasty battle against increasingly insurmountable odds. Halo 3 does the complete opposite; the more you play the game, the more the momentum seems to fizzle out. The game was so stale by the time I got to the ending that I didn't believe it was really the ending until the credits started rolling, and I was struck with disbelief that a game would be so truly inept at telling a story that I didn't even realize I was watching the ending of one of the most important trilogies in gaming history until it was already over. Not to mention that it didn't even make any sense.
It's not even just the writing. The presentation alludes to nothing, too. In Half-Life 2 there were some claustrophobic moments of isolation where you were at it alone, stealthing your way along the coast and into the prison Nova Prospekt. When you returned to City 17, it was practically decimated as the resistance against the Combine had culminated into all out war for humanity's survival. The sense of scale was immense, and you could practically feel the whole city being ripped apart. As far back as 2003 Call of Duty gave you the scale of war from the first person perspective. Even with cutscenes, Halo 3 completely fails to show just how huge this battle of the titans is. The gravity of the situation is non-existent, which is what makes the game feel like such a huge, incompetent letdown, and fortunately with Halo Reach coming out later this year, won't be the final entry in the Halo franchise.