The last fight.
Absolutely finished.
There are no more games after this and I think that's a really good...
Yeah, you're not believing any of this, are you?
Yes, the last dying gasp of the Halo series that Bungie had anything to do with. Brought to you by MadCap in charming retro-vision. Gameplay-wise, it's pretty much what you've come to expect from the Halo series up to that point. Things bad, you have guns, go shoot the thing. Unfortunately, this is where the Halo series starts making the cardinal sin of having us have to look up supplementary materials.
That is, we have to read or watch things that aren't the game.
Supplementary materials should be just that, supplementary. The thing itself should be able to stand on its own, but you can look into other things if you're really all that interested in it. It shouldn't have to be a requirement to understand exactly what is going on.
How did Sergeant Johnson, Miranda Keyes, and the Arbiter manage to get to Earth from Delta Halo despite the fact the Master Chief clearly left before they did and on a much faster ship and was crashing to Earth when they were all still in Delta Halo's control room?
How exactly did the Covenant know to come to Earth to find the Ark? (Something that can also be applied to Halo 2, admittedly)
How is Cortana still contacting the Master Chief from across the vastness of space between Earth and Delta Halo?
Why is that the Grunts and Hunters are now back on the side of the Prophets when they very clearly joined up with the Elites at the end of Halo 2 to kick off the Covenant Civil War?
"Well," I hear a snarky voice of someone from Microsoft chortle, "I guess you'll have to buy our range of spin-off novels to find out." No, Microsoft. I don't want the game to make sense because I read a bunch of extra nonsense. I want the game to make sense because the game makes sense.
"Oh, but we have a bunch of multiplayer maps! Even some from the classic Halo redesigned!" The snarky Microsoft Man insists before I whack him over the back of the head with a book. I joke, but multiplayer was made the way to go thanks to Halo 2 and the creation of Xbox Live, so what do I know? I'm just a poor critic living out of a guest room.
In truth, though, I feel a lot of the story problems have to do with those two things: promotion of spin-off materials and more focus put on multiplayer in development. It's a shame, really.
But the plot, as we sail around the holes, is simple. The Covenant have landed on Earth, but they're only attacking on specific place in Africa for some reason. After running around the safari for a bit and getting another run-in with the Flood, a portal is found that leads to an installation called the Ark, from which all the Halo rings can be fired simultaneously.
Thus, the Chief must now save the entire universe...ironically by activating a new Halo that was made from it.
The returning cast from 2 is here, though Miranda Keyes switched voice actresses when no one was looking. I guess Julie Benz was really looking forward to that Buffy the Vampire Slayer reunion and didn't want to be tied up. The Arbiter is back, though he's player two in co-op mode rather than hogging half the missions to himself this time, which I like. Basically now, all he does is make badass poses with the Master Chief during cutscenes and get stoic in the epilogue.
Everything has a tone of finality about it, which is rather hilarious seeing as we're coming up on the sixth main game in the series at the time of this writing. Several of the major NPCs are killed off, both friends and enemies, the ur-Halo ring is destroyed as per the first game to give us a nice sense of bookending for the series, and the Earth mourns those lost as the Human-Covenant War ends, knowing that the sacrifice of heroic individuals like the Master Chief and Cortana will not be forgotten and...yeah, no, they're still alive.
I'll pause for a moment so you can recover from that shock.
Despite Bungie deciding to drop the series then and there, they were unfortunately lacking in enough foresight to close the damn door for sequels, and so we have the ending with the Master Chief and Cortana floating in deep space, the Chief hopping into a cryo-pod to sleep off his incredibly long weekend...and I honestly can't say I blame him. He's had quite the trilogy to get through.
Combat-wise, not too much as changed. Pistols are actually worth using again, which is nice. A new addition to the game, showcased in several of the trailers for Halo 3, are power ups that have a variety of different effects from making your energy shields recharge faster to shooting off a mini-turret to generating a shield that keeps out energy projectiles or projectiles of any kind for that matter. There's also a radar scrambler...which was clearly made for multiplayer and not for the single player. Why it's in the campaign mode, I haven't the faintest clue, since it isn't remotely useful against AI-controlled enemies or - if it is - I certainly couldn't figure out how.
And that's really all I can say on it, honestly. I've been promising this review for the better part of three years and this is all I really had to come up with. It's a solid game, despite the story hiccups and they're more a fault of the owners of the IP than it is the game itself, but the game does suffer because of it. If Halo had ended here, then it would have been find. The first game, Combat Evolved remains as solid as ever and is one I'd enjoy any time. Though thinking back on it, I think it might have been better as just one game on its own instead of a franchise. Three games in, and the metaplot behind everything is beginning its descent into an incomprehensible mess.
It's disheartening, honestly.
But I'm afraid it's not over just yet. For now, we go right into the hands of 343 Industries - the first game that is solely theirs with no interference from Bungie in the least. Will this see a glorious rebirth of the franchise?
...oh, like you don't already know the answer. Next time, the train wreck continues!
Halo 3 is brought to us from Bungie and Microsoft Game Studios for Xbox 360 and Xbox One. It is also available on the Master Chief Collection.
For the latest from the MadCapMunchkin, be sure to follow him on Twitter @MadCapMunchkin
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