Halo 3 - First Impressions
by matt @ 10:31 pm. Blogged under Gaming (Xbox 360)
I’ve managed to give Halo 3 at least an hour on arcade mode and two on Xbox live since I received it after last week’s release date. Can’t say the arcade mode has blown me away - it’s not significantly different from Halos 1 and 2 and I really couldn’t care less about the background story told through trailers. Call me a heathen but I would have quite liked to have ditched the original theme track or given it to Paul Oakenfold to jazz it up a bit for the third installment. I’m never one for arcade modes on games generally though, AI munchkins just never come close to the difficulty of playing against experienced (and often stoned) human players on Xbox Live.
As I’ve been completely addicted to Lost Planet for about six months, Halo 3 must be quite good because I will quite happily stick with it for the foreseeable future. Graphically it certainly uses the extra power of the 360, but not more than the already excellent Perfect Dark Zero - in fact it really is a lot like Perfect Dark with a similar range of weapons and vehicles in similar environments with very crisp smooth surfaces. So far I haven’t experienced any lag - this could be to do with the superior player matching process though. I love the ‘Googlemapesque’ world view showing the current Halo 3 population playing online globally - 487,000 players on the second night of release tells its own story about the popularity of the brand.
One thing that always frustrated me about Halo 2 was that the default assault rifle was no match for a game against experienced Halo players, that imbalance seems to have been rectified for Halo 3 (either that or my aiming has vastly improved). The pathetic ‘needler’ is still there to frustrate us with its pathetic punch though. Two Lost Planet controls I really miss are 180 degree rotation at the click of the right or left bumpers, and the grappling hook. I’d happily forgo the hook on Halo as it is a bit out of context but a shame they couldn’t make provision for a 180 spin, that’s a move which has become second nature for me now and I keep accidentally reloading my weapons whilst being shot from behind!
Technorati Tags: xbox 360, halo 3, bungie, microsoft, xbox live
Loading ...
October 15th, 2007 at 5:35 pm
I’m not sure what I like about Halo.
I enjoyed 1 because it was novel in the recharging shield. A careful player need no worry about picking up health packs. Well, I enjoyed it until the flood. I hate zombies, I thought I’d be safe doing a Sci-Fi shooter, but no, it turned into a zombie sci-fi shooter. Story wise, it kept promising story, but never really delivered I guess. All you really knew was you were fighting an alien alliance that has decided to eradicate mankind, and in the process cocked up…
Halo 2, more of the same, just slightly tweaked.
Halo 3, again, more of the same. It does look better, and I think it’s well tweaked. The good thing I find with Halo is online, it shows that a lot of time and work has been put into multiplayer, balancing weapons and making it possible for different tactics to work on all maps. Many games suffer from being unbalanced, such as giving the careful sniper the advantage, in 3 snipers/campers aren’t the be-all
The needler is better in 3, give it a try, all you need is a medium range opponent who isn’t on the ball, and after 8 or so needles in him he’s dead.
So yeah, I’m addicted, but I dunno why really!
October 15th, 2007 at 10:20 pm
It’s true what you say about camping snipers Chris, there’s very little room for those. The only map I’ve found where you can camp with the long range rifle is the map with the huge turning wheel and buildings (I’ve forgotten its name!), up the steps to the wheel is a great hiding spot in the shade… taken me 2 weeks to find that though!