Halo 3

Many years ago I got right into Halo 2. It was great fun, and by great fun, I refer only to the online play. The single player campaign mode was just terrible. I had played a bit of the first Halo, co-operatively of course, and found the levels to just plain out suck. They were very repetitive and uninspired. In the second game, the repetitive levels came back, but to a much less annoying degree; however, they decided it would be fun to play as the Arbiter, which it was not. Those levels really broke up the flow of the game and I just lost interest.

So I bought Halo 3 out of boredom last November. With no games to play at the time and a few bucks burning a hole in my pocket, it was an easy decision. In fact, I decided to return the game and even left it in its wrapping for a couple of weeks. But then I got bored and opened the game, and started to play.

Halfway through the first level the power went out in the neighbourhood and I was out of luck. I wouldn't even put the disc in the system again until last Sunday. There was just no interest in playing at all! However, after my "hardcore-ness" of gaming came into question, I knew it was time to step into the shoes of Master Chief and blast some aliens. So I did. And it was good.

No longer were the levels terrible and repetitive, but somewhat interesting and concise. It just feels like they cut the crap and just let you play the good stuff. I particularly enjoyed the vehicle levels, except when they became frustrating because your driver is stupid AI, however, it became enjoyable again when you just went on foot and took down an enemy tank all on your own. It's fantastic.

What really gets me about playing this game is that you are often followed around by fellow marines, and they just love you. Always complimentary and in awe of your presence, it just makes you feel good. The marine banter is funny and just adds to the game. And of course the scale at which you are doing things makes it interesting: giant, beautiful worlds and big technology. It's good.

So I was really confused with items and equipment. I kept pressing the X button early on and it just seemed like a random effect would happen. Unfortunately the little icons in the top left of the screen were not overly descriptive of what item you had. Indeed, I didn't use equipment once for anything productive the entire game.

And man, is it ever short. I started last Sunday, played probably...seven or eight hours in total throughout the week and it was done. Not that I'm complaining about the length: I have no issue with short games, as long as the experience was good. And it was good. Is it worth going back to? Not really. I'm not going to spend the time trying to find all the skulls and make the game even harder than it was. And the online? Not for me anymore. With Halo 2, I would play at least an hour or two every night. In fact, the Chronicles of Ryebone were started just to log stories of my Halo 2 experiences.