Napalm Riot

When we first saw the trailer at E3 '06, we were all excited. Now a year later, we have the finished product of all of Bungie's blood, sweat, and tears.

GRAPHICS

Although jagged edges show up at higher resolutions, the amount of detail put into the first level of Halo 3 helps show off how beautiful a video game can be. Dynamic water effects, HDR lighting and much more bring out a wonderful start to his game.

SOUND

The sheer amount of work put into the audio of Halo 3 is astounding. With the use of what the games audio director, Martin O'Donnel, calls 'interactive music.' It feels as if the engine is scoring what you are doing at any point during the game. Level of detail effects add to the realistic sounds of the game world itself making gun fire sound more muted and crackly at longer ranges.

CONTROLS

Halo 3's control scheme makes it quite easy to pick up the game and start playing. Of course, for more advanced users many different presets can be cycled though to give you many different ways of controlling the game.

Story

For first timers to the halo series, it may be hard to figure out exactly what is going on, as Halo 3 gives very little back story from Halo: CE and Halo 2. Halo 3 does it's part to end the story arc started in the original, but it does leave you asking questions.

FUN FACTOR / REPLAY VALUE

Halo 3 has a great deal of features packed into it to give you your moneys worth.

Forge
An object editor that allows you to edit any object within a level, such as weapons, spawn points, and objectives. Maps made here can be uploaded to your fileshare and posted on Bungie.net.

Theater
Allows you to watch replays of games you're played, from here you can make film clips, and take screenshots to be uploaded to your fileshare.

Multiplayer and CO-OP
Halo 3's matchmaking system will match you up with users of approximately the same skill level as you in any ranked playlist to help insure a fair game.

4 player CO-OP allows you to traverse the single player campaign with up to 4 of your friends over XBOX LIVE or System link.

Overall, Halo 3 was a decent game by my standards and I recommend anyone owning an Xbox 360 and have been wanting to try the game to purchase it and play with me on LIVE.