Modified review of Halo 3

Below is Gamespots review of Halo 3. It was clearly paid for by Microsoft and Bungie so i've modified it a little to read a true review without all the propoganda and lies, i know you probably won't bother reading the whole crap so i've edited it down to get rid of the waffle, crossed out the arse-licking and I've bolded the parts i've inserted so you can just scan through. I believe it reads as a true review of this years most hyped game:


Regardless of how you felt about its cliffhanger ending (personally, i couldn't give a shit), there's no denying that Halo 2 was a gigantic success that raised the bar for what we, as a game-playing society, expect out of a good console-based first-person shooter principally as it was the only real fps on the XBox at the time and it seemed to satiate the teenage fat translucent fanboys lust for shooting things. In the years that followed, plenty of games attempted to duplicate the Halo formula which in turn duplicated the Unreal Tournament formula, with varying degrees of success. But there's still nothing quite like the genuine item. Luckily for all involved, Halo 3 is a positively amazing package rehashed attempt at a very worn formula that offers extreme absolutely no satisfaction across all of its different parts. Maybe now you can finally retire your Halo 2 disc and really move into the next generation of games play Bioshock instead.

Halo 3 is an interesting mix of established protocol and intriguing new stuff the same old shit as the first two games. Don't take that as a negative, because it means that Halo 3 plays extremely well so simple even a monkey could complete it, with the same types of light tactical considerations that have made the series stand apart from other, faster-paced shooters look exactly the same it did 5 years ago. In Bungie's pathetic attempt to justify the customer spending forty quid on the same shit you'll also have new weapons and items to consider, such as a host of Brute weapons. One example is the spiker, which is an exciting automatic pistol that fires quickly and decimates opponents, especially if you're holding a pair of them. Another is the mauler, which is a one-handed shotgun that can level enemies up close. You'll even find weapons so huge that your movement speed slows when you carry them. When you use these weapons, the camera pulls out to a third-person perspective so you can see your missile pod, plasma cannon, or flamethrower as it fires. Unfortunately there's no really cool weapons like a mini black hole or the ability to freeze your opponents coz other games beat us to it and we're left with the same old shit as in all other games like another fucking shotgun, plasma cannon and shitty handguns. And then there's the gravity hammer. Originally shown in Halo 2 (where it wasn't usable by the player), the gravity hammer is a large melee weapon that will wipe out most regular enemies in one swipe. Needless to say, it can be especially fun in multiplayer settings. The end result is gameplay that feels wholly familiar without retreading the same ground too heavily. This weapon, unfortunately, is completely useless as you'll be dead well before you get within a hundred metres of your opponents.

The campaign is structured in much the same way as past Halo games, with multiple chapters and effective streaming that ensures you'll see load times only between chapters with the same old crap as every first person shooter; start at A, get to B, kill waves of baddies. Ripping off Half Life 2 There are also lengthy vehicle sequences to break up the on-foot action but they're not very interesting so i'll say nothing more about them. You'll pilot the classic Halo vehicles, such as the Ghost, a hovering one-person craft that's fast and deadly, and the Warthog, a dune buggy with a turret mounted in the back. You'll also see new vehicles, such as the Brute Prowler, which is a two-person vehicle with turrets. Like in previous games, the vehicles are fun to use. Also similar to previous games, the artificial intelligence can't drive very well, so if you're playing alone, you'll usually want to grab the steering wheel rather than the weapons.

The concept of "equipment" is new to the series. These deployable special items have a variety of effects. The most obvious example is the bubble shield: You (and your enemies) can walk through it, but bullets and explosions bounce right off, it's totally weak and unoriginal but it's the best Bungie could come up with and they only had 3 years to play with. It's especially entertaining when your enemies use it, given that you can just walk through and bash them with the butt of your gun. You'll also find items that make your shields regenerate more quickly, and others that drain enemy shields and stop their vehicles dead in their tracks. These items also show up in multiplayer, where they're a little more interesting.

Halo 2's ending was widely criticized for being too much of a cliffhanger and leaving you with no sense of progress or resolution whatsoever being a load of shit but still sold by the bucketload to teenagers with no life. It's good news, then, that Halo 3's story doesn't suffer from that problem at all as it doesn't actually exist! Get from A to B; repeat 9 times, Bingo, game complete. It opens immediately following the events of Halo 2: The Covenant is on its way to Earth, continuing its religious zealotry and attempting to activate the floating space weapons known as Halos, which could destroy civilization as we know it. The Master Chief and the other Earth forces of the UNSC are in hot pursuit to stop them, with newfound allies such as the Arbiter coming along for the ride. We'll spare you the specifics because they're quite compelling and should be seen firsthand. All you really need to know if you're on the fence about Halo 3's campaign is that it's a delicate balancing act that manages to provide satisfying closure for the trilogy, make perfect sense of all the cryptic events in Halo 2, and leave you filled with anticipation for more adventures set in the Halo universe. Not bad for a game that will take most players between 10 and 15 hours to finish on one of four difficulty settings.

But you'll probably it's highly doubtful you'll go through the campaign more than once, thanks to the inclusion of a strong even though they've added in a co-op mode, just like most other shooters out on the Xbox these days. Previous Halo games have let two players go through the campaign; In a piss-poor attempt at originality Halo 3 ups that number to four players and lets you do the whole thing over Xbox Live, if you so choose. This is a really fun way to experience the campaign's nine chapters, and you can choose to go through them in any order, provided you've already played through it alone. alleviates the boredom momentarily, but it really doesn't last longer than an hour at best.

(I cut out all the shit about multiplayer as i'll probably never subject myself to such torture)

Halo has always had a very strong artistic vision that 'last-gen' look, and the graphics have always been just good enough adequate enough to convey the necessary imagery without becoming huge technical powerhouses beautiful grey corridors, metal doors, ruined stone archways and all the other shit you've seen a million times before. That's not to say that the game isn't technically impressive, because it maintains a smooth frame rate throughout, and looks very sharp overall with plenty of great lighting and other nice effects. But the visual design overpowers its technical side and really stands out. Given that the game takes place in a wider range of locales than the previous two games, you'll see a lot of different, colorful environments, including deserts, snow, jungle settings, great-looking building interiors, and not to forget all the explody barrels, gun turrets, painted on doors, crates, the greenest foliage around, and much more. The enemies, many of which are returning from past games, also look great are incredibly generic, predictable, come at you in waves, stand there while you shoot them, have no kind of AI whatsoever and will occasionally kill you or you'll kill them, no skill is really needed as it's mostly luck anyway.

The sound in Halo 3 is a good mix of old and new, much like the rest of the game exactly what you would expect from this kind of game, there's really nothing new at all, in fact you can play with the sound off and make your own, it's far more fun. You'll also hear a ton of combat dialogue, both from the marines that fight by your side as well as the enemies you're fighting, who don't seem to appreciate it when you kill one of their comrades. Our favorite line from the Covenant was probably "You've killed my brother for the last time," which was pretty hilarious to my 3 year old son, who completed it in under 3 hours.

As games start to consider user-generated content, it's becoming clear that more and more games will be ready to give you back just as much as you're willing to put into them bungie will soon start charging you three quid for a new fucking version of the warthog coz they know you'll pay for any old shit they offer. On the surface, Halo 3 is every bit the sequel you would expect it to be, in that it delivers meaningful upgrades to both the story-driven and competitive sides of the package it's dull, repetetive, unoriginal, a tired formula, the online mode is unplayable as everyone in the fucking world will be better than you and when you die constantly all the teenagers will be teabagging you over and over again. If i were you I'd save your pennies and go and have your pubic hair pulled out by an old man with shakey hands and some tweezers. It's infinitely more enjoyable than this tripe.