New 'Halo' is More of the Same: Pure Perfection
Demeng Zhanchai - The Santa Fe New Mexican
Nov 05, 2007
First-person shooters, or FPS, are commonplace in the world of video games. You got your World War II shooters (Call of Duty), your futuristic travel-across-galaxies flavors, some that play like a George Romero horror movie (Doom), and even a Civil War variety (no fun). How many times have you visited Normandy? How many demons have you blasted back to oblivion? How many shots have you missed because your musket turned out to be accurate only from two feet?
In a world of such overused concepts and gimmicks, it's hard for developers to muster an FPS, let alone a whole series, that people would consider putting on their Christmas list.
Halo has always been different, with an extensive back story, superb Artificial Intelligence (on the highest difficulty, of course), solid multiplayer (the community, not so much) and unique gameplay, all set in a believable world where you don't fill Nazis with countless bullet holes. The third installment is more of the same, albeit slightly improved.
Single-player improvements include four types of grenades, new toys thrown in, "equipment" to help you along the way, and no cliffhanger ending. Oh, no, everything is explained this time around. Multiplayer ranks players, so you have something to work for. You have the ability to "mute" other players and the ability to create custom games where you alter anything: gravity, health, power-ups and more. This last upgrade is major; every game mode you can imagine can be created and, more importantly, played.
Aside from that, the new Theater mode also scores big points. This essentially allows you to save up to 100 videos of either a single-player mission or a multiplayer match. You can watch the whole ordeal over however you want. Want first-person but no HUD? Sure. Top-down? That too. One minor complaint is the inability to rewind. But slow motion is so cool, as is freezing that one moment where your laser eliminated the tank and that sniper behind it.
Quirks: A large percentage of the multiplayer community is still prepubescent kids who ruin the overall experience by yelling well-known obscenities over the mic throughout an entire match. The "mute" feature helps, but how can you relay strategies to your team if you're forced to mute the whole lot of them? Furthermore, the graphics, although vastly improved from Halo 2, don't look as impressive as some of the other 360 titles.
Final word: If you've played previous Halo titles, why are you even reading this? It's Halo. Despite everything, that fact does not change. Ten out of 10. Five stars. Perfect.
Final final word: Buy it.
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