Orange Box > Halo 3

[kester]

Halo 2 with its wacky cliffhanger ending really got me and I couldn't wait for the next installment. I wanted to see what happened to the chief, kill more aliens, and play with new weapons, but mostly, I was keen to see how Bungie would approach the development of a next gen game. I was expecting new baddies, better AI, a longer campaign, stunning graphics, a host of new weapons and vehicles and perhaps some overwhelming innovation in gameplay. What I got, however was a reasonably competent shooter with some good solid action. Im not going to talk about the online aspects of the game at this particular juncture. Im sure its great but my experiences playing Halo online go something along these lines: Spawn-die-respawn-kill-die-respawn-die-kill-kill-die-jump-jump-die-respawn-die-corpse-humped-respawn etc etc. While all the time being harrassed by pre-pubescent boys whose witty retorts consist of various derogatory statement involving my mother and various levels of pwnage. The point I'm really trying to get over is that I am dissapointed with the lack of imagination Bungie seems to have put into developing this game. Now if Bungie had really wanted to make a great sequel they should have talked to valve. Look at HL2 compared to HL1. Firstly they constructed a brand new, phisics based engine, they improved the graphics dramatically, they created brand new environments and a host of new characters and bad guys (loved the tripod thingys) and some ball tinglingly good new weapons (gravity gun anyone). They expanded the Universe and the story, added new driving elements and yet managed to keep the feeling of the franchise intact. Yes, yes I know it took them forever to get the game out, but Halo 3 also took its time to get on the shelves. As the final episode of the fantastically popular trilogy, Halo 3 needed to be special. It needed some balls. It felt like an expansion pack rather than a brand new game. The only truly innovative aspect of this game was the replay option, which I greatly appreciated. I loved being able to freeze the explosions or follow the path of the bullet from my sniper rifle. In the end I think I spent more time with replay than with the real game. Aside from the reply feature there is nothing really new or exciting about this game. There were no new enemies (those irritating shooting flood things don't count. Nor do Brutes in new armour) only a couple of new weapons (The spartan laser which appeared for about 13 seconds and the spiker). They took away the Arbiter story and turned him into an AI controlled twat, who spent most of his time shooting at walls. They made it almost impossible to distinguish between the environments on earth and those on other worlds. They all consisted of the same, hills, plants, rocks, and modern structures. They didnt throw in enough AI controlled marines or up the scale of the battles either. After seeing the brilliant 'believe' ads I was epexting some huge battles in expansive environments, involving whole platoons of men and covenant fighting it out, but what I got were a paltry 3 or 4 marines who couldn't seem to avoid rocks in their Warthogs and who died at their 1st encounter. Finally to top it all off the graphics were pretty but as jaggy as hell. After sequels such as half life 2, GTA 3 and of course Rainbow 6 Vegas I have come to expect more from sequels and Halo 3 didn't live up to it's hype. It needed something more. It needed a gravity gun.

[kester]

Bryan R: Glad I'm not the only one who feels like this. You're so right about the "finish the fight" tagline.

[kolop1]

HF2 is better for single player, but I prefer Halo 3 over team fortress for multi player.

[Bryan R]

I cannot agree with you more. The amount of content in The Orange Box alone, makes it greater than Halo 3. The stories are better, the gameplay is better, and, holy shit, there's Portal. I did not see this one coming.

Halo 3 is fun, and it is worth playing, but it's not the second coming. I'm tired of everyone giving this game a pass simply because of the Halo moniker.

You're spot on in regards to the "Believe" ads. Why haven't more people noticed this? Gamers should be crying "foul" and "misleading", but are instead praising the game and giving it tens. I saw the ads, and I did "Believe" there would be an epic battle. After playing, my belief has been shattered. How is this any different from a marketing team showing a commercial consisting of CG and leading consumers to "believe" it's in-game footage? I have a feeling Microsoft/Bungie knew the game wasn't going to live up to the hype, so they created the illusion of gameplay elements which do not exist. I was actually on the fence with Halo 3 until I saw these ads. The thought of being involved in a battle as intense as the one advertised sealed the deal for me. $60 later and I'm still waiting. One should expect more from the single player aspects of Halo 3, rather than blowing it off by saying, "The multiplayer is where it's really at." If that's the case, why is there so much back story for Halo? Why should we care whether or not we "Finish the Fight" if we're meant to play in arenas with 15 12-year-olds? If the multiplayer is going to be the focus of the game, why is everyone so obsessed with Master Chief, and not Random Spartan-117?

Bottom line: Halo 3 falls short where it should have knocked it out of the park. Half-Life 2, on the other hand, delivers in every sense of the word. Granted, it is a single-player-only experience, so the story had better be good. But if only a fraction of the care given to Half-Life's story went into Halo 3, I probably wouldn't be writing this. For what it's worth, I cared more about the story in Portal than I did in Halo 3.

[ChanceNit]

seemed to me the jump between Halflife and Halflife2 was huge! Almost like they skipped a console life like saying if Halflife came out on the ps1 then the sequal later came out on the PS3. That epic an improvement. Doom was similar with Doom3 being amazing, but then again, if you think about it these two titles were PC games 1st where the developers are not as limited with the confines of whatever console they are making their games for. PC guys can push their engines to the limit of what new PC gear is avalible. I'm not sure if you can really compare Halflife with Halo. Halflife is more of the story based shooter where Halo became the multiplayer game. In fact Halflife2 didn't have mulitplayer at launch, it was a update download later you had to get and install if you wanted to play it online.