Halo 3 Single Player Impressions Thread (AKA: NO GRAPHICS TALK)

[SugarCoat]

If you're buying a game for multiplayer online, I agree. But for a single-player campaign experience, if a short game is to be scored down, shouldn't that also apply to all titles? This was raised elsewhere, with the suggestion games should get independent single-player and multiplayer reviews. Well, it's off topic here anywhere, so I'll shut up now!

How is an estimated 8-10 short and directly comparable to an estimated 5-6? You've lost me. And what reviews reduced the score of HS directly because of the gameplay? I saw it listed in the cons of the game, but never as having an impact on the score unless it factored in something like value. Most HS reviews were pretty positive with only a side mention about the length as being very short for a pretty anticipated title.

 

[NRP]

The Brute levels are epic. Best Halo combat yet. The Flood levels . . . well, they have never been my favorite and Halo 3 is no exception.

Although I did see something that was amazing. On that level with the three large spyres where you have to destroy that power generator thingy (that Johnson was supposed to do), I was running up to fight a Brute, and some of those little flood infection forms attacked it. It looked like he beat them off and was getting ready to fight me when all of a sudden he bent over, screamed, and morphed into a flood dude - right in front of my eyes! I have never seen anything like that before. It was wierd and cool at the same time.

 

[Acert93]

If you're buying a game for multiplayer online, I agree. But for a single-player campaign experience, if a short game is to be scored down, shouldn't that also apply to all titles? This was raised elsewhere, with the suggestion games should get independent single-player and multiplayer reviews. Well, it's off topic here anywhere, so I'll shut up now!

Reviewing MP and SP independantly poses so many issues (where does coop fall? where does MP with bots fall? are video tools SP because one person uses them to make something, or MP because you publish them online for other gamers to see? is a map maker SP or is it MP because many people play it... and what if you map maker lets you create with more than 1 player? are the MP elements online, system link, offline, or a mixture of each?) it also breaks up a single product when it is sold as 1 game.

And it only caters to forum kevetching.

Reviews are based on value--not every user will maximize that value. That is why you read a review. If you don't have broadband (like I didn't a few years back--one reason I got a GCN) you should actually... read... the review to see if certain elements of the *game* are applicable.

It is all about relevance. I understand some gamers don't like MP--I don't typically like SP games because of the current state of AI to be quite frank. But then again as a MP gamer I get 100s of hours of playtime even if I skip SP. But I am not demanding SP games get arbitrarily penalized for a lack of MP. The reality comes down to value. If your game is short and repetitive it is going to get knocked--$60 for 8/hrs of value is pretty steep.

Then you have games like Bioshock, SP only also, that is 15-20 hours and has a bit of replay through a branch in the story and the RPG style of the game. And then there are games like Halo with Campaign & Multiplayer and the difference between them can be quite blurred with coop and the other tools.

My experience has been the review itself (not the number, the text) often clarifies where the value is and what type of game it is. Asking for another arbitrary number to clarify another number based on a general impression of the overall product, when the review should answer those question, only caters to a small market of users/purposes.

The fact most reviewers didn't sink Bioshock for no MP at all indicates they aren't penalizing games without MP.

 

[Cheezdoodles]

Well, that's a bit cheeky in my opinion. HS was heavily criticized for being short. An interview I've just seen on GT asked of Phil whether it's okay for HS to be short. Short games, I'm fine with, but if you're going to mark down titles for being short, you should do so across the board. Anyway, I'll see for myself hopefully soon enough, as a friend picked up his copy yesterday.

Huh???!??

Heavenly sword is 5-6 hours?

An average FPS is 10 hours. Halo 3 seems to be on par with that.

HS has no multi, when you finish the singleplayer, you can only replay it again at a higher difficulty. Thats it. Halo 3 has multiplayer and coop.

And id HS really get penaltized for being short? It has gotten fairly good reviews (80+ range most places), but frankly, HS isn't really that great of an experience, its a good game, but i enjoyed GoW a lot more (the PS2 gow not the crap on the x360)

 

[kyleb]

I started it just before 2:00, and was finished by 8:30. That was co-op on heroic with one friend, taking occasional breaks here and there for a smoke and such, and even went out to grab breakfast about 6:30 while he serviced his woman. That wasn't just blasting though either, but rather we got stuck in a few places and it included some "hey, come check this out" moments as well. So yeah less than 6 hours is certainly short, but I don't really mind considering it was a good ride all the way though. I'm sure I will replay it many times too, and for that I'd rather it be short rather than having a lot of drawn out filler areas like the previous two had with repeated level geometry in the first and excessive respawn waves in the second.

 

[Oboro Shogun]

I started it just before 2:00, and was finished by 8:30. That was co-op on heroic with one friend, taking occasional breaks here and there for a smoke and such, and even went out to grab breakfast about 6:30 while he serviced his woman. That wasn't just blasting though either, but rather we got stuck in a few places and it included some "hey, come check this out" moments as well. So yeah less than 6 hours is certainly short, but I don't really mind considering it was a good ride all the way though. I'm sure I will replay it many times too, and for that I'd rather it be short rather than having a lot of drawn out filler areas like the previous two had with repeated level geometry in the first and excessive respawn waves in the second.

Truth. I'd take a fun and varied but shorter Halo over repetitive, corridor Quake 4 or Doom 3 or whatever. Playing coop will shorter the game dramatically. Players looking for a lengthier challenge should try solo on the higher difficulties.

 

[RobertR1]

Not to break the trend but I finally popped by multiplayer cherry last night. My only exposure to Halo games online was the Halo3 beta. At that time, I was still pretty new to FPS controls with a controller so I was pure noob. Since then, mainly due to COD4 beta, my controls have greatly improved and then playing the Halo3 campaign, I got accustomed to the guns and gameplay. So I started up MP and decided to play Team Slayer/CTF.

That was a blast! It was nice that I could actually kill people and do good. I can see why the MP is so popular. It's just action packed fun. I played like 3-4 games on Sandtrap and one on the giant windmill level. I enjoyed Sandtrap much more. Didn't notice people lagging or any slowdowns regardless of the amount of action on screen.

One thing I've noticed playing FPS on consoles is the sticky aim which I'm not used to. From years of CS, I'm used to strafe shooting (side step, shoot, side step, shoot). This works great but on Halo3 with the aim trailing the target on it's own, it makes using it quite a bit more difficult. I'm sure I'll get used to it. The other thing is jumping! Wasn't into gaming around the quake days so jump + aim is a no no to me, especially coming from CS. I need to recondition myself to know that I can shoot while I'm jumping and it'll still be accurate!

Aside from all that, the MP takes on a whole new level with the replay system. Instead of just thinking "wow, that was cool!" and moving on, the mentality now shifts to "wow, that was cool! can't wait to check it out in slo mo!" I really hope the community latches onto it and it becomes the standard for games going forward.

 

[Kzin]

I think my biggest complain would be the grenade throwing. I dont understand why they didn´t keep the grenade aiming from halo 1. Now you have to aim a whole lot higher than you want them to land, plus the regular grenades always bounce around all over the place, so you´ll never know where they´ll land.

Halo1: "A bunch of enemys in a group, i´ll throw a grenade in there. Kablaaam! Yeah, who´s the man?!"

Halo 3: "A bunch of enemys in a group, i´ll throw a grenade in there. Oops, to short. I´ll try again. Oops to far and it bounced away. Just wasted two grenades."

I just dont feel like a supersoldier when i cant even throw my grenades properly. Besides that im having a blast.

 

[Kzin]

Played on my old, non-widescreen tv today, and the fov realy sucks.

 

[Kzin]

Played a whole lot more at a friends house, i think im quite close to finnishing it. This is probably the best game I´ve ever played. The combat is totaly amazing.

 

[ninzel]

It's clearly a very well made game,but I'm already getting a little bored with it(campaign).
This games real strength must be the multiplayer.

 

[Fu3lFr3nzy]

Theres a handful of Halo threads that I dont even know where to post this

Either theres some hidden button in my controller, but why cant I adit the campaign clips? afaik you can do that right? or are you limited only to MP gameplay

Any help?

 

[AzBat]

Just go into the Theater. It lists all MP & single player games together. Once the film starts playing back press A and the film controls come up. There's a Record button on there. Hope that helps.

Tommy McClain

 

[Kzin]

Has anyone played any co op yet?

 

[habbe]

m and 3 frineds played it thru from the ark level on normal. the game felt very short maybe because we played it on normal... I also felt we reach a certain point of many levels then we had to go back in the same level. otherwise it was a blast.. the coop is just fenomenal this is how games should be played.

 

[Todd33]

It's clearly a very well made game,but I'm already getting a little bored with it(campaign).
This games real strength must be the multiplayer.

Ditto, maybe it gets better, but it feels exactly like Halo 1 and 2, which isn't good this many years later. I was never a fan of the Halo universe, mostly because the Covenant are lame enemies. If it wasn't for co-op, I'd never play past the first part.

 

[Inquisitive_Idiot]

I've finished the fight!

I enjoyed every aspect of the game from start to finish, even the dreaded Flood levels were well designed and paced. I feel that Halo 3 is the perfection of the Halo gameplay formula, combining the best aspects of Halo: CE and Halo 2 to form the ultimate Halo game experience. As I mentioned in the OP, Halo 3 makes a noticeable improvement over Halo 2 in how it presents the story. Everything feels coherent, and there are no more jarring transitions between the Humans and the Covenant. The characters are well voiced and animated, making you more interested in the people surrounding the Master Chief and Cortana. Overall, I found the story engaging enough to provide sufficient motivation to kill hordes of Covenant troops and finish the fight!

 

[rbushner]

I've finished a solo run through on Heroic and last night a marathon legendary run through with 4 players.

This game is everything that mad Halo great, Bungie have redeemed themselves from the debacle that was Halo 2.

My only gameplay complaint would be that

Spoiler

on the end run they should give you four warthogs, so each player can try driving.

.

 

[Kzin]

What the hell is up with the checkpoint system? Is it totaly random or what?? Sometimes i will multiple checkpoints within a minute and sometimes none for a good while.

 

[Dave Glue]

What the hell is up with the checkpoint system? Is it totaly random or what?? Sometimes i will multiple checkpoints within a minute and sometimes none for a good while.

It seems a little buggy - I've been killed, placed farther back than I should, then hit a new checkpoint seconds later. The game sometimes "misses" checkopints I've found, but that only happened a few times in the entire campaign.

There are quite numerous though, Bungie's always been very good about giving you multiple checkpoints that don't frustrate me nearly as much as other checkpoints in games.