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Six years ago come November, a little franchise by the name of Halo, launched on a brand new console from Microsoft. In a couple of days, the Halo saga will close with the third entry in the series. We at Aeropause were sent a review copy of Halo 3 from Microsoft. Now with the review embargo lifted, we can give our readers the scoop on the last part of this arcing trilogy.

For anyone that has been living under a rock, ignoring all the press and hoopla that has been going on the last sixty days, Halo 3 is the last in Bungie’s space faring trilogy. The game is supposed to answer a lot of the questions that have been laid out over the course of the previous two games. Master Chief, the star of the game is back and is looking to finish the battle with the Brutes, the Prophets and the Flood, once and for all.

The story in Halo 3 starts off almost immediately where the previous game left off. You shoot down to earth like a meteorite as you jump from your ship through Earth’s outer atmosphere. You join up with Sarge, one of your compatriots from the first two Halo games. The situation has become dire. The Brutes and the Prophets have bombarded the Earth, killing many and wounding most of the rest. Master Chief has to lead a ragtag army of Marines and Elites to fight off the destruction of the Ark and the known universe. Along the way, you also start to unravel the mystery of the Gravemind and how he controls the Flood.

It needs to be pointed out that if you have not played Halo 2, you may be lost with some of the events that are going on in this game. Someone that was taking notes for me during the play through of the game had not played Halo 2 and was lost with what was going on. He had played the first Halo, but a lot of Halo 3 is tied into Halo 2, so you will want to brush up on the second game before getting into this one.

Once you get into the game, you will notice the step up in graphics from the first two Halo games. The new hardware really gets to show off Master Chief and the enemies in style. Every character from the lowest grunt to big Master Chief himself has a great amount of detail in their armor and faces. The lighting effects have been calmed down, so people no longer look to have a wax-like sheen on their faces. Things like the pot-marking of armor that would happen over time in the game, or the facial expression in your troops as their moods change, are great graphical details that add so much life to the game. Outdoor environments stand out as always in Halo 3. Walking through the forest, you notice how dense the foliage is, while entering a snowy landscape gives off a sense of a stark and barren landscape. Unfortunately, the inside sections of the game fall under the same issues as the last two games. While they look very detailed and intricate, they are very repetitive at times. Some of the indoor levels look like they have just been copied and pasted over and over. Not a huge deal, but it is something that probably should have been looked at by the third game in the series.

The graphics also convey some great emotion. One thing that really sticks out is when you go into a ship that has been crashed by the Flood. It almost reminded me of how the Borg in Star Trek would assimilate things. The ship has been absorbed into the Flood’s collective and was dark and creepy. The walls with bubbling skin were very creepy and made the ship look like a living entity. All of these graphical pieces came together to present fear, because it makes you go slow as you hope that something isn’t going to crawl out of a wall.

Controls are laid out a little differently, now that you have a totally different console. It does not take too much to learn the controls and about five minutes into the game, I was more than ample to get through the rest of the game. Triggers will either fire or throw a grenade, while the shoulder buttons reload or change grenade types. I did confuse the change weapons button and the reload button quite a bit, but I think that was more a case of reviewer confusion than bad layout. It is nice to see that the migration to a new controller type has not hurt the game in anyway.

Sound has always been an important factor and is one of the things that have always impressed me in the Halo series. Bungie has done it right again. The first thing that comes to mind is the ever present music in the background for most of the game. Most of the composition is from Halo 2, but it just sounds full and changes tempo with the events on screen. Everything from rock to choral tones is used in the soundtrack and the give a great sense of ambiance for the game. Weapons also put off full and rich sound, when fired. Shotgun blasts give a solid boom when fired, while plasma cannons pulse convincingly. Dialogue is extremely solid and everyone gives a great performance. From Master Chief to the field soldiers, the lines never sound flat. Cortana especially has some great dynamics as she has two different approaches to her voice at different segments.

Vehicle selection has been ramped up as well for this game adding a greater variance of items to ride and destroy with. Some of the new vehicles include the Ripper, which is like a motorcycle, but with both the wheels in the front of the vehicle with spikes on the treads. For the UNSC, you get the Mongoose, which is like an ATC that you can cruise around in, while a gunner rides on the back. But by far, the best addition on the vehicle front is the Hornet. Think like a one man Osprey with rails that gunners can ride, this vehicle adds so much to the game. High powered front guns along with great maneuverability, this vehicle can take down everything from Banshees to Phantoms in the air, while even helping the downing of the occasional Scarab.

Weapons have been greatly expanded from every angle, with the Brutes getting the biggest change in weapons. Along with the Plasma Rifles and Brute Shots, you now have the Brute Spiker, which is a more powerful version of the Needler, or the Brute Shotgun, which seems to be a little more powerful version of the Marine shotgun. Master Chief gets a few new items and choices, one of which was a nice addition to the game. You now get a very powerful laser in the Spartan Laser Wav. This gun takes about ten seconds to charge and you have to make sure you are on your target at the end of charging, but it kills just about anything it comes into contact with. While nice, the addition of being able to rip up cannons and take them with you was a great change. You like that Plasma Cannon or Machine gun turret, just press the B button and you can rip it off the mounts and take it with you. It will slow you down a bit, but can make a challenging area a lot easier to clear out.

Multiplayer offers several modes of play along with a healthy set of maps to destroy your enemies. Matchmaking is a very simple affair and being able to limit games to just your friends list or open is a nice touch that more games on Live should have. Co-op can also be made for open joins or for friends only and looks like it could be a blast to play. The only problem is that the matchmaking servers seem to be down as of this writing, so I was never able to test the online portion. I was able to start up a game and go through the maps, but no one could join. That being said, it does look like they have put a lot of focus into making this the multiplayer game of choice for the next few years on the 360.

One thing that is interesting to note is the feel of the game on the consoles. I for one have always played the Halo games on the PC, waiting for them to come out and then playing them. Every time I have always felt a sense of average in the games. Maybe it was the competition or expecting more from the game. Playing Halo 3 on the 360 this time, made me realize that it is a different experience on the console. The game was designed around the console and the controller, making the game a better experience to experience on the 360. I had a lot more fun with this game over the last two. Not a huge review point, but something I thought would be good to point out since I am seeing this series for the first time on the 360.

Very rarely does a game do everything right, and while Halo 3 does a lot of things right, there are a few areas where the game slips. One is that the game is not all that long. Those that were expecting a really long single player experience. The game can be beaten in about 8 hours or so, which was a little disheartening. The other is that the game, while great, cannot live up to the hype that was generated around it. Not a ding on the game necessarily, but it will probably give some people some ire considering the game has been so hyped and anticipated. The game also never put me in a sense of being overly challenged, barring a few spots, on Normal difficulty. Harder difficulty levels are there, but it just seems like there should have been more of a challenge at times.

All in all, Halo 3 is a great way to wrap up the series. It takes care of most of the outstanding plot points and leaves Bungie with an opening to “continue the fight” if they deem necessary. From the opening sequence of Master Chief firebombing to the surface of the earth to last sequence after the credits (yes watch the credits), you will be entertained and enthralled with the world of Halo 3. There are some minimal flaws, but they can be overlooked when presented with the splendor of Halo 3. And when you add in the endless replay in multiplayer, you have a game that is near excellent. The game gets 4.5 out of 5 Aeropausonauts.