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Halo 3 - The Final Word
In anticipation of Halo 3's release later this month, EGM and the folks at 1up have been creating a veritable altar to the Halo deities over at the website. This edifice has tons of information on the two previous Halo games, commentary from numerous Halo-literate folks on the subject, as well as weightier articles like a preview of the co-op mode (four players, mind), a primer on the story if you've missed something, and a breakdown of the good and bad in Halo 3 . Yes, there are even some things they don't like about the game. From the co-op breakdown: "The Achievements offered tantalizing hints of the game's structure, features and techniques, a welcome morsel of information for the faithful to contemplate and speculate about. The co-op news was greeted with even more warmth, because it put to rest ill-founded rumors that Bungie was planning to deliver a half-completed game. On the contrary; up to four players will be able to take control of the Master Chief, the Arbiter and two Elite warriors, N'tho 'Sraom and Usze 'Taham. (Don't bother trying to pronounce their names; just appreciate the promise of joining up with three friends to conquer the game.) And somewhere in the middle, these two topics are connected by something even more intriguing. Halo's co-op game and its Gamerscore-grinding intersect at a point enigmatically referred to in the game's Achievements as the 'Meta-game.'"
Halo 3 was supposed to be Microsoft's ultimate weapon. It was supposed to launch on the same day as the PS3 and PS3 owners were just going to flock to the 360 because of how amazing the game was.
LOL
Looking at what Halo 3 has in reality turned out to be one can only be left with the question: What the hell has Bungie been doing for the past three years?
After three years of 'work' Bungie has shipped a game that:
1) Looks almost identical to Halo 2, just with the resolution bumped up and some higher rez textures. It's the same old last gen style engine. Three years of work and people getting confused in comparison shots between Halo 2 and Halo 3 is shockingly bad for what is supposed to be the killer first party tour de force for Microsoft.
2) Has the same networking setup as last gen. The rumored dedicated servers turned out to be a pipe dream. Instead Halo 3 has the same old last gen 16 player cap per game and lag prone P2P networking for games. With all of Microsoft's money you would think they could have hired someone to actually updated the networking code to next gen levels.
Outside of a variety of gameplay tweaks and additions Halo 3 might have been a decent 360 launch title where people would have been happy with such a weak effort and been happy just to play a new Halo in 720p.
What will the final verdict on Halo 3 be?
The same almost entirely US Xbox fans who bought the first two Halos will buy Halo 3.
The rest of the gaming world will go right on not caring about the game.
Microsoft will put out lots of press releases claiming all sorts of "Fastest..." "Biggest..." and the 360 will continue to sell at roughly the same pace as the first Xbox(24 million after four years for the Xbox, 10 million at just under two years for the 360 worldwide).
Instead of diversifying their line up and beefing up their first party development Microsoft has become fixated on Halo with the belief that if they just spend enough money hyping the games that the gaming world will finally come around and care about the franchise.
I play it with a dog.