Game Curmudgeons

Have you ever had that feeling that, no matter how very well you do something, no matter how confident in it you are, you absolutely know somebody has done it better than you? Nothing wrong with what you made, certainly not, but you’ve seen the better version, you’re a fan of the better version?

That’s how I feel right now, thanks to a Zero Punctuation Review of Halo 3. And that’s how Bungie must feel about Halo 3.

See, no matter how good this review is, Yahtzee just said everything on my mind, better, and faster. Really, you can just click that link and consider this a reworded version, with extra text and punctuation. It’s not the same thing, but it’s similar enough in what it is to draw comparison. And that is precisely where Halo 3 is, respective to its genre. It’s come out hot on the heels of Bioshock, and with Half-life 2:Episode 2 about to launch.

I, like everyone on the god damn planet, already expected to feel a certain way about Halo 3 before getting it. And like everyone else, I was prettymuch right. Apparently Halo 3 really is what you make it, or at least expect out of it, Bungie’s intent be damned. The people who expected the second coming got it, and those of us who expected average got it.

This review is, in all fairness, huge. It’s one of the biggest video game releases, well, EVER. It’s a big game with a lot to talk about, and this review will indeed be hueg like xbox. So read more after the cut.

So, to prevent later confusion, here’s the rundown, because if you haven’t played the previous games, or haven’t played recently, you’ll need it. The big bad aliens, AKA, the Covenant, have been trying to kill the world. Unintentionally, with items called “Halos”, which are big fucking rings built in space that contain samples of all sorts of life forms, including some very dangerous ones. The rings are weapons that destroy all sentient life in the god damn galaxy, but the Covenant thinks they’re holy artifacts that will take them to a promised land. Master Chief, the hero, blows up the one the UNSC(aka, humans) find at the same time as the Covenant. This stops the spread of one of these dangerous life forms which are your standard mind control creatures which add a layer of mutating your body and making it fall apart into little pieces when smacked with the butt of a rifle, which happen to be called the Flood.

Some Covenant guys get smart and learn hey, those holy artifacts will kill us all, and a revolt begins, with some aliens of a lower caste(Brutes) stepping up into the of spot the guys who revolted, aka, the Elites. Elites join with the UNSC to stop the Covenant from firing the Halos, blowing up the second one both races have happened upon. By the time all this has happened, another group of those super nasty parasites from last time has been released because one of the higher up types in the covenant thinks it’s a good idea and to hell with the little floating AI cube which lives on the halo and tells him it kills all sentient life in the universe so the Flood have no food. Higher up type doesn’t give a shit, Master Chief and his new Elite friend blow it up, fall down big shafts as if this were Star Wars game, talk to the amalgamation of Flood corpses that has gained sentience, and the game ends right as the plot really seems to be getting started. If it all sounds rather convoluted, that’s because it is a the plot is haphazardly shown through cutscenes and a book or two which have events that matter to the game’s story arc but are never once mentioned.

By the time Halo 3 starts, all that exciting plot you were waiting for has already passed you by in the form of another book and a comic. Lovely. So now Cortana, Master Chief’s AI which serves to give him constant visions apparently through the fucking force in this game, is chilling out with the Gravemind(big bad sentient corpses), and Master Chief has just crash landed on Earth. Really. Just him, in his armor, smacking down face first into the ground. And now, on with our review.

Halo 3 is, approximately 3/4^ths of the time, a run and gun shooter. Sometimes more run, sometimes more gun. It’s fairly good at what it does, what with the option to wield a single gun and grenades of four types, or dual wield two smaller guns. Some of those smaller guns, like the spiker, are actually very large and I wonder why they can be fired akimbo yet guns which are much smaller and previously had this ability, say, the needler, are apparently large enough to warrant two hands.

There’s not a huge variety of guns, at least, guns that players will use often. Most players will keep the battle rifle, which is given at the start of just about every chapter, and throw away the wimpy UNSC pistol in favor of something a bit less useless. Often enough it’s a small(exceptions for spikers) gun like a plasma pistol or plasma rifle that serves to take down shields to great effect, as people just love to dual wield whenever given the chance; Sure it’s not that effective in a large amount of situations, but sending plasma covered metal spikes through the air at double the standard rate of fire has something going for it. That, however, becomes part of the drag on the weapon selection. Most of the time, it’s a big gun and a small one. Sometimes the situation calls for a battle rifle and a sniper rifle or a carbine with good long range accuracy, or a close range weapon and some sort of rocket launcher. But more often than not, players will carry a big gun and a small one, ready to pick up another small one and hold the triggers down until nothing comes out of the barrels. Then reload and repeat.

Unfortunately even with all this dual wielding going on, some guns seem absolutely useless. Well, two of them. The aforementioned UNSC pistol has little use as if you’re relegated to using it, you’ve done something very wrong and should just run around looking for someone friendly to take a gun from, or loot the nearest corpse to get ammo for a weapon that doesn’t suck. This applies to the UNSC submachine gun as well. Both guns are perfectly dual wield capable, but not particularly useful. The pistol is slow and wimpy, the SMG is fast and wimpy. It sprays lots of lead, but the lead has little accuracy and range. It serves no real use except for blowing up flood infection forms, which are brown grocery store bags that take over your central nervous system, and explode when they die. Spray a little lead into a cluster, all threat eliminated. Beyond that use, it’s a crappy version of the spiker. You don’t need to lead the shots as much, but the lack of accuracy in both guns rather nullifies that need anyway. “Oh good! The spikes/bullets that sprayed right hit him as he ran that way. How fortunate!”

So, what about the other 1/4^th of the game? Well, that’s split between two types of frustration. The “holy shit there’s a lot of well placed enemies and very little cover, I am going to die” frustration is 1/8^th, and the “God damn it, my gunner/driver is fucking useless and that tank is going to kill me” sections are the other 1/8^th. The first part makes me feel like I’m playing some sort of Bizarro Far Cry, which went from “super tactical sneaky!” to “Holy shit run and gun giant mutants!” Only here, demented little midgets with plasma guns and a few big brutes are the start of the game, then it’s a room full of brutes who also happen to be carrying turrets that should be bolted to the back of a truck and I can get shot as many times as your average character from a Tom Clancy game. The level design is stunningly inconsistent, as is the difficulty curve, which isn’t so much of a curve or even parabola as the pattern formed by a 5 year old girl screaming into an oscilloscope.

Now, honestly, I don’t mind the former so much, because most of the time, with some tactical sense the situations ARE passable, especially once you figure out where to hide and regenerate shields. And that 1/8^th of the game disappears in co-op, which is certainly a nice bonus. Along with that, the driving frustration also tends to disappear in terms of having shitty turret gunners/drivers who don’t know what they’re doing but really want to get close to that tree/really hate that non-threatening grunt, when they really should be driving to the backside of a very large tank with a very large weak spot of an exhaust port and avoiding fire from small vehicles as they do it/shooting the shit out of that exhaust port. Admittedly, I feel like Cortana should be saying “Use the force, Master Chief” as he’s being chased by a large enemy, and the Arbiter swoops down on a small hovercraft type fighter called a ghost, blasting plasma beams at the big enemy and shouts “You’re all clear kid! Now let’s blow this thing and go home!”

Sadly, that never happens because, as I said before, the driver can’t fucking get there, and the guy on the turret has no sense of priority. There’s also the issue of very little guidance of where the hell you’re going in vehicles and sometimes on foot, leading to time driving in circles until you make someone leave the turret and drive, which, while sure to result in a few close-ups of trees, will get you to the general area you need to be before the AI drives off a cliff or is blown up by a floating enemy tank. But at least while that’s happening you can shoot at the right enemy.

So, we’re in the whole next-generation again, even though we’re “next-gen” every 3-5 years at this point, and the Sega CD was next-gen at one point. What’s that mean? Well, it should mean deeper AI, expansive, solid, persistent believable worlds, pushing the frontiers of gaming. Instead, it means HDR HOLY SHIT HDR EVERYWHERE OH GOD ITS BRIGHT THEN DARK AND BRIGHT AGAIN AAAAGH.

I’ve got to say something here. I live in Phoenix, Arizona, USA, where you get sunburned through clothes(that is NOT an exaggeration). It’s so bright outside than when you walk from a room with an open window into one with a lamp, you won’t see shit for 30 seconds, and must stand there to adjust to the new environment. Most businesses have seeing eye dogs at the door because after spending 10 minutes outside, even in a 10 foot white room where the ceiling is entirely made out of floodlights, the room appears darker than the walls of your local Hot Topic. Halo not only serves to revisit this experience, but it does it every time I walk through a door. It’s like every doorway is not a doorway, but a trigger to a flashbang grenade. A bright magnesium flare right at eye level, every time a door opens. I know Valve opened the floodgates here with Lost Coast, but they used the idea in moderation, and still do. I wish other companies would do the same. The game also has a few moments suffering from the most common of next-gen graphical ailments, commonly known as “too fucking dark.” It’s not too often, though it is accentuated by the HDR.

When you actually can see, it’s a very mixed bag. There are some stunning environments, some really impressive modeling. Enemies are well textured and generally appear threatening, except for the grunts who are simply comical with their diminutive size and constant panicked nature, but at least they look good going it. Unfortunately, textures everywhere else can vary tremendously, going from “Rather okay” on most vehicles to “My god, what is that? Is that supposed to be her face? It looks like a cheap Halloween mask.” Anyone with a line of actual dialog in the game suffers heavily from bad textures. Now that we’re playing in hi-def, we can see just how low-def your textures are, and it’s not pleasant. Miranda Keyes has a somewhat smeared look in many scenes, and Sergeant Major Johnson’s texture looks rather cold and lifeless.

Halo 3 has a wonderful musical score. It kicks in when appropriate, sounds great, and comes through beautifully. It’s by far the best part of the game’s audio presentation. This is incredibly fortunate, because the rest of the game’s audio is generally weak, or even stunningly inaudible. The weapons are quiet and lack any sense of punch, sounding like noises a little boy with a plastic gun makes. Pew pew! Pew pew! Chinkchinkchink! Kaboom!

It really would be an improvement, which is sad given the weapons do often have some beautiful visual effects, particularly the more explosive among them. And then, we come to dialog. You can’t hear it. Don’t bother, turn on the subtitles. The game’s sound mix is thoroughly whacked in this regard, which is a shame because it has, for two previous games, made it really hard to figure out a story that’s so damn convoluted and full of gaps in the first place. The lines you can hear aren’t particularly convincing, but they’re not badly delivered either, just rather flat most of the time. It’s a shame, really, because the dialogue is well written, and when you start to understand the story, it is pretty good as a series. But hey, the music is great, and even without dialogue it certainly gives a sense of the emotion of the scene, and would fit into any major movie score.

At the end, the single-player mode is thoroughly average. It doesn’t have any glaring spots of hating the publisher like the previous games in the series had with copy-paste level design. There are a few great moments, some big battles where you really feel like you got something done. The feeling of accomplishment goes up with difficulty, but leads to massive frustration. That, however, is where the shining gem of the game comes up. The single-player mode, in the times it gives you teammates, does well with them. They can be cannon fodder, especially in higher levels, but they immerse. Fortunately, that feeling never goes away in co-op mode, which is really, really fun, even with strangers. Get some friends together, and it’s a much better time than you’ll have by yourself. Even in legendary mode, enemies will fall beneath your mighty heels, and the feeling of really getting together to take on a major challenge is just unmatched. Halo 3’s greatest moments come when friends get together and crush a seemingly unbeatable foe.

Sure, there’s other things to do. There’s all sorts of forms of deathmatches, team deathmatches, capture the flag, last man standing variants, and even races. They’re all very well balanced and well done by default, and if you’re the competitive type who feels the need to prove your superiority in the arena of twitching thumbs, it’s brilliant.

The real good stuff is the Forge, which is nigh-unlimited in potential. Invite people from your friends list, who do the same, and lots of people can pile into one Forge server. At first glance, it’s a deathmatch, and you can play as such. But anyone can, at any time, edit the map. Add or remove items, spawn points, whatever. Rules and such can be changed, and, when everyone is set, the settings are saved(and can be shared with friends later), and a custom gametype is launchable. There are countless permutations of any game already, with entirely new ones made constantly. Gravity Hammer Baseball, for example, is popular. Lots of version of Infected(one person starts with a sword and radar, everyone else has a shotgun and nothing but their eyes, then as they die, they too become infected and have to kill the remaining players) are abound. Lots of games that are hard to describe, really, are out. Insane melees, rocket launcher duals, contests to see who can send another player flying the furthest, king of the hill modes with all sorts of bonuses and penalties for being on that vaunted point.

The Forge is completely, absolutely great. And it’s got a sad, artificial limitation in that you can’t just randomly find new gametypes. Players can only play games hosted by friends/friends of friends, or that they’ve downloaded off Bungie’s servers. Bungie uploads favorite gametypes for everyone to download within Halo. Or, players can go to Bungie’s community site, where they can download map edits, things made in the Forge, or screenshots or movies people have recorded, to view in-game. If Bungie opens up Forge games to anyone, not just friend networks(this isn’t Myspace, afterall), it’ll give Halo 3 something that console gamers haven’t ever really had, and in a way easier than PC gamers have had it.

And now, generic complaints. Please, game developers, start putting controller edits back in. I really appreciate the effort to make lots of configurations, but they’re just not doing it for me. The game’s use of bumpers to reload really screwed with me on the primary weapon, and X, the traditional reload button, is “use item.” Which means when you want to reload, you end up dropping a valuable shield, or wasting a cloak, or something that you had been saving for an appropriate situation. It’s not the end of the world on normal difficulty, but it’s a problem. Let me remap buttons to where I want, please.

The game world never feels real. Yes, I know it’s fake, but if Oblivion feels real and solid, I expect something so narrowly focused to do more than that. It always feels…empty. Of course, maybe it’s because I’m firing plasma and missiles everywhere, and not even a branch breaks off a tree. I’m not playing Mercenaries here, but I’d like some sort of response.

Lastly, among the small complaints, the MP customization feels a bit limited. Parts are mixed and matched from different armor sets, with pieces being unlocked by finding hidden items in the SP/Co-op campaign. They’re fine, but the colors are lacking. Rather than presenting the player with a palette, we just get 30 or so colors to choose from, and due to that, some really great color combinations for primary/secondary areas and logos aren’t going to be possible. There’s also no logo editor, which is too bad. If Forza can let me put anything at all on my car, I’d like the ability to make my own icon at least for my armor, and put it where I damn well please.

Even with all the complaints, the game managed to be on the entertaining side, and ventured into “Damn this is great” a few times. But for the most part, it’s just stunningly average. You probably know how you feel anyway, if you’ve played Halo or Halo 2. It’s a refined version of the formula, better than the predecessors, but it’s very much Halo.

The single-player mode is a pure 3 cane affair. But, the greatness of the co-op, and the real potential fun in MP earn the game another. It’s a shame the game doesn’t have a better SP, some real polish there could have made it a must own. But at this point…

Halo 3 scores 4 out of 5 canes. It ventures into greatness at points, and it’s better than the sum of its parts, but it doesn’t have the polish or single-player greatness that it needs to move beyond that. For SP gamers, rent it. For MP gamers, go ahead, it’s worth it.