Halo 3: The Bad and The Ugly

by Christopher Kirkman · Published September 29, 2007 · Updated

If you’re any sort of gamer, regardless of your particular affiliation, you’ll already know that Halo 3 has amassed more sales than any other title in history and snagged some incredibly high critical acclaim. It would be easy for any reviewer to point out the best features and changes to the already streamlined gameplay.

I’m gonna take the lower road though.

Call it constructive criticism, just don’t misunderstand, since playing the beta I’ve been hooked. The game is excellent, and few people would disagree, but being that nothing is perfect and that I can be a cynical tool, I’m going to rant on the negatives rather than put Bungie in the glowing light every other reviewer already has.

Let’s talk Campaign Mode. The core store leaves little to the imagination. It boild down to rescuing a damsel in distress and saving the world. Despite being well voiced and animated, the human characters look awful. Specifically the faces of the marines. Seargent Johnson, Master Chief’s superior, looks as if his head had been inflated with helium and it forced his eyes out of his sockets which prevents him from blinking. Another high ranking marine (his name escapes me) appears to have the head shape, texture AND color of a claymation raison from those commercials in the 80’s.

For my usual crew, one of the most brilliant additions was Co-op play for up to 4 people. My buddy and I hopped on the first night to try Co-op via Xbox live and despite what appeared to be good connections for the both of us, gameplay was painfully choppy and unplayable, even during the first cut scenes. Now I’ll grant that it could have been a connection issue, but it wasn’t one that either of us experienced when partying up and playing online, so what gives? So to get around it, we pulled the proverbial all-nighter system-linked session. 3 veterans playing on Legendary. We faired much better this time around, but despite the good time had by all, it’s inconvenient and takes some planning and plenty of space to get 3 guys, their consoles and their screens into the same room. In Co-op anyone not playing as Master Chief (i.e. 2nd, 3rd and fourth players) play as Elites, on being the Arbiter. Biggest complaint here is that as new levels begin, the Elites start off with one of the weaker weapons, the Covenant Carbine, versus Master Chiefs Battle Rifle and Assualt Rifle combo. Not a huge deal since you’ll be finding much better weapons as the level progresses, but an annoyance nonetheless.

Oh, and will someone tell me why I can’t take screenshots or vid clips in the theatre when in system link mode? I was signed in to XBL, but the options were disabled until I moved to Online play. I spent 20 minutes scrubbing through an hour of game footage only to discover that I couldn’t save my gorgeous mid-air headshot without switching my network and doing it again! Since I’m raggin’ on Theatre mode, I’d like to make a request to Bungie. How about giving us a little more speed in the fast-forward department. Our typical private matches last between 30 and 40 minutes on Slayer. An hour or more can get clocked on CTF games. Fast forwarding through a 40 minute game at 2x speed STILL takes 20 minutes. How bout a quick skip? Or maybe join the world of DVD user interface and add a little nitrous to that FF button, like 4x, 8x or even {GASP} 16x forwad. Just a thought.

So let’s jump back over to multiplayer. There really isn’t anything ground-breakingly new here. Several of the maps are re-skinned and mildly tweaked (though better looking) versions of the best maps of Halo 2. Game types similarly have been brought over with the addition of VIP and Infection types. The most irksome issue here is in the customization of game types for private games. Halo:CE probably did it best, and fans expressed their opinions when Halo 2 came out. Despite what looks to be an incredible amount of customizable options disguises simple on-off decisions on weapons and power ups. For example, my crew is big on sticky grenades. Now with spike grenades, the game gets that much more fun for us, so what options do we get in that arena? How about Map Default and Off. THAT’S a choice? How about spike only, plasma only? And the fire bombs? If I want to set up a game with fire bombs and trip mines as available items on Valhalla (Blood Gulch’s supposed predescessor), I simply can’t. No choice there. It’s either take what they give you or turn it off, but still call it customization.

How about a few more:

Online matchmaking gives you no choice as to the type of game you get to play (Slayer, King of the Hill, Oddball, Territories, etc..) when ranked and playing alone.
Clan support has been completely eliminated from the game. Rumors that an Xbox Live Dashboard update would allow this, but the last update contained nothing of the sort and likely wouldn’t apply to Halo 3 game rankings anyway since they wouldn’t be tracked by Bungie’s servers.
Video clips saved through the theatre and uploaded to bungie can’t be downloaded or played back through a PC. Screenshots can be shared as JPG files, but it’d be nice to share the action to non-players.
Semi-related: Bungie.net allows players to register their gamer tags to compare with friends and track stats, something which has been around since Halo 2. Additionally, users could create groups with which to see quick stats on all those involved in the group. Get this though, despite my being a member since the last game came out, I can’t create a new group because I haven’t been registered for 14 days. News flash boys! I can see the details of a Slayer match I played in Halo 2 on November 9 of 2004 (I came in 4th…sniff). Attempts to have this explained have so far been unanswered. Obviously more web related, than game, but still relavent.

For a game company who goes out of their way to let their fans express themselves and takes pride in listening to their community of players, Bungie seems to have turned something of a deaf ear to a lot of the little things. I say little things for a reason though. This title is engauging, entertaining and entirely too time consuming, in a good way. I still feel my comments are relavent, if not nit-picky and maybe a tiny but unfair considering the quality and detail provided in the final product. Maybe my whining will reach the ears of someone who can make it that much better.