Halo 3

[Simmy]

Some more insane stickies for your amusment

http://gameroom.mlgpro.com/view/fTukfhsalsQrRh2c.html

These are more set-up than the first one but are still fantastic.

I love the isolation one and the narrows is just insane !

[moonwhistle]

I bought a 360 the other day just to play Halo 3 as I love the series. I blasted all the way through on heroic in just a day. I won't bother singing it praises and everyone knows how great it is. Although I thoroughy enjoyed it I do have a few complaints about the game:

The skies aren't animated. This may seem very pedantic and a small issue but I loved admiring the beautiful views in the first 2 games and having purely "painted on" static skies is rather jarring in such an otherwise impressive game.

Having the Arbiter fight alongside side you alot of the time has alot more faults than benefits. The guy is just an invincilbe killing machine meaning that if you hold back or take a very cautious approach, the chances are the arbiter will kill most of your opponents which seems like a bad oversight by the developers.

Also, due to plot constraints you no longer fight the covenant elites. This is the games biggest flaw imo. They were the single best opponents in the other Halo games, perticularly in Halo 1. Not having them to fight against really detracts from Halo 3 imo. Although the Brutes are cool characters they are simply too easy to kill. No matter how smart the AI, as Brutes do not have recharging shields they can also be killed simply by attrition. So instead of being forced to actively engauge them in combat, beat thier sheilds all the way down and then go for the kill you can just potshot them to death from a distance. The big challange came from taking down elites in cover, with Brutes it's just a walkover no matter how many there are.

Due to these last 2 points, I'd say the game is a little on the easy side on the heroic level. Although fabulous to play there really wasn't a single hard part in the entire game. No section took more than 3 restarts. Halo 1 and 2 were considerably more challanging.

Maybe I should have picked Legendary the 1st time through but I thought it'd be more enjoyable on heroic without being grindingly hard. Hopefully some of these problems don't arise in legendary although I have my doubts.

It's undoubtedly better than Halo 2 but I still think for difficulty level, purity of theme and cohesion of plot, Halo 1 still reigns.

[Concept]

Yup, good points which I'd mostly agree on. I actually prefer the Brutes though for the opposite of the reasons you mention. Too often with the Elites on the higher difficulties in the original it was little else but a war of attrition you say fighting the Brutes is like in Halo 3. It was often a case of repeating the same stalemate over and over and over again until you eventually ran out of ammo, had to backtrack, get some more and return. At least with the Brutes you know where you stand due to their armour. There's visible feedback with regards to how much health you're taking off.

[egparadigm]

In a weird way I'd cautiously welcome a shift in focus from Elite to Brute. In the second game they upped the difficulty on Legendary to the point where the Elites were far too difficult to kill. If you no longer fight Elites, maybe they've taken a more comprehensive review of the difficulty.

Really gutted I probably won't get the game 'til next Thursday now, thanks to the strike.

[Dogg Thang]

Well I join the ranks of those who have completed the game (on Heroic for me). I loved it. Great game, well polished. The big set pieces were incredible and there were so many of them.

I still have a hard time with the story. I think they could have structured that better to make it clearer. On the ending (spoilers obviously)

->Open Spoiler<-

if the Halo's firing will destroy all life, why did they fire that Halo to win the war? How come it didn't destroy everything? Who was the deep voice that kept talking to me and why wasn't there a dirty great big boss battle with him?

Story aside, yep, great game. Moonwhistle is right about the Arbiter though. A few times, I hung back and let him do his thing.

Really glad I allowed myself to get caught up in the hype, especially as I didn't really get on with the first game.

[peeveen]

Dogg:

->Open Spoiler<-

the Halo at the Ark wasn't complete, and so just caused a big 'splosion, rather than a galaxy-wide "cleansing". Big deep voice was Gravemind (see Halo 2).

[Dogg Thang]

Ah, thanks for the info. They should have given at least a recap for the people who didn't play 2. Not to worry.

[Keith]

A recap for people who didn't play Halo 2? They didn't even include a link between what happened at the end of the second game and the start of the third.

[El Leone]

Also,

->Open Spoiler<-

It was also outside of the galaxy, so earth wasn't in range of the blast

[iloveannie]

A recap for people who didn't play Halo 2? They didn't even include a link between what happened at the end of the second game and the start of the third.

I never really knew/cared what was going on in the second one. And as for THAT ending. Hope someone was shot for that. Story on this one? Haven't really been paying attention to it. Even guilty of sending a text whilst a cutscene was happening.

The blue guy is on my side (and some (turns out all) of his mates), the Flood are really ok they just want to live and are controlled by a talking rectum that has no mouth but has many sphincters, Jim Henson wants the Prophets back home so he can start filming a new Dark Crystal, the Forerunners were as dumb as **** so were probably human'ish ("oh the Flood's really dangerous and can kill everything so lets put it somewhere safe with doors on"), Cortana's got the hots for Chief (who sometimes sounds like Clint Eastwood: wish the black dude would give him a cigar) and the Oracle is really ****ing me off with that flanger strapped to her voice box.

As for the game now I've played it on Heroic nearly to the final level? ****ing excellent

Except for the anus level.

[Dogg Thang]

There's an Oracle? Did I miss that? And what's the deal with Cortana? Isn't she just a computer interface, albeit with bad hair?

Hang on a sec, on the story

->Open Spoiler<-

wasn't the Halo fired at the end the same one the Prophet wanted to fire? If so, why did we stop him?

[iloveannie]

[QUOTE=Dogg Thang;1214204]There's an Oracle? Did I miss that?QUOTE]

She's the round flying thing isn't she? Bakes brownies. Which is what I've been doing for the last hour so logging off for a pooh now.

[Spatial]

He. He's the round flying thing. Or maybe that should be it? Anyway, that's 343 Guilty Spark who

->Open Spoiler<-

was the automated custodian of the original Halo.

He survived the original destruction of Halo and teamed up with the humans / Elites at the end of the second game as he thought that was his purpose (in order to aid the last Forerunner i.e. Master Chief).

As for Cortana she's an AI construct.

->Open Spoiler<-

She got left behind with the Gravemind at the end of the second game. They try to make it seem like she's got corrupted and gone `rampant` (the term used in the Halo universe when an AI goes as mad as a bucket of frogs). Turns out she was just having a funny turn. Or something).

I guess the lesson from all of this is that you really, really need to have played Halo 1 and 2 to understand the storyline (what's actually there that is). Or go and have a good read of the wikipedia entries for them.

so logging on for a pooh now.

Corrected that for you.

[El Leone]

Any of you guys got round to reading the terminals? They reveal quite alot of the story which keys into the forerunners and the first firing of the ring.

http://forums.ascendantjustice.com/index.php?showtopic=1706&st=0&#entry9225639

[EvilBoris]

I've been playing through Legendary single player the last couple of days whilist my net is down and I've been really enjoying it. Fighting several brutes at once is a genuinely terrifying experience and even a lone dual weilding grunt is enough to worry me.

Also I just heard Jonathon Ross on the Storm level "Hi Chief, whatdya need?"