Halo 3 Has a Great Personality

By James Munn | September 27, 2007

Halo 3 is a lot of things. It’s an excellent multiplayer game, either in the competitive online play category or with the online/offline co-op. It’s storyline is simple, yet engrossing. Halo 3, as far as overall content, is a very deep game, it’s multiplayer Forge mode can have limitless amounts of replay value. I spent way too many hours last night with our very own Richard and Joe on a single, solitary level. Dying has never been so creative.

Sadly, Halo 3 is also not nearly as pretty as I hoped it would be. Half-way through the single player campaign, I have yet to be wowed by the visuals or audible presentation of the game in any way. It’s really disappointing that a half-game like Warhawk can come off more polished than something as high profile as Halo 3. I draw this comparison simply because I went from playing Halo 3 directly into a game of Warhawk and that’s when it hit me. I’m not saying Warhawk takes nearly as many chances as Halo 3 has, but it sure does come off more polished.

I think polished is the right word for it. Surprisingly, there’s a significant amount of aliasing in Halo 3, something that’s seriously exposed during the in-engine cut scenes on a high definition monitor. I’m not used to seeing jaggies to this extreme coming from my 360; it’s difficult not to notice when the controller is unceremoniously yanked out of my hands for a piece of storyline. The textures in the campaign also seem to be somewhat hit or miss. Objects like boxes or crates that react to you in the environment are blatantly obvious due to their lower-res textures when compared to static items on a level. I’m also far from thrilled with the single player frame rate, which can chug fairly often.

In short, Halo 3 is excellent in the gameplay department or rather, it has a great personality. It’s the kind of game I can bring home to Mom. Unfortunately, I won’t be using it as a display piece for when my friends come by, like Gears of War or even Rainbow Six: Vegas.

That’s okay though, because In the privacy of my own home, when it’s just me and Halo 3, it’s the only way to be.