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Recordkeeping: Halo 3 COMPLETE
Jan. 16th, 2021 09:26 amThis is the first Halo where playing co-op is taken into account in the storyline, as it's a road-trip buddy movie between everyone's favorite calamari special The Arbiter and John Halo as they roam earth and space looking for an excuse to finally fire one of those damn Halo rings already.
Okay that's not quite the plot but the ACTUAL plot isn't... too bad. Halo has always been decently-executed military sci-fi and this keeps up the trend. If there's a downside it's that this was what everyone expected to be the Big Finale of the series, so they just sorta ran a finger down the list of named characters and wrote every single one out boop-boop-boop bye all.
This would've been a really SATISFYING end to the series, but hey, we got even more coming up with Halo 4 and the Halo 4 Spartan Ops (which is something like 50 missions long and I will probably be counting as a separate "game") and then Halo 5 (which gets back to co-op being sensible in-world) and Halo Infinite is coming and then there's the spinoff Halo Wars stuff and I never watched that anime...
Ehhhh well look, there's a frickin' lot left to go. But Halo 3? Pretty good. Pretty darn good.
...you know, I say "count Spartan Ops as a separate game" but one thing the Master Chief Collection has made me realize is, Halo is one long game. The buttons change. Sometimes you can pick up two guns and sometimes you can't. But with a single playlist campaign smoothing out the transitions, Halo 1 can be Halo 2 can be Halo 3 can be ODST can be Reach. The characters change but the feel of it doesn't.
My, that consistency. On one hand, it speaks of corporate edge-smoothing, lowest-common-denominator sausage that doesn't want to stand out or take risks (well, past the initial risk of two-guns-shield-recharging. Do people realize that was a risk, once, nowadays?) but on the other it says just... consistent quality. Not many games achieve that. And I have been saying for years just give me mission-pack sequels that don't reinvent the engine but slap new wheels on.
I guess I wasn't joking, that IS what I desire.
Okay that's not quite the plot but the ACTUAL plot isn't... too bad. Halo has always been decently-executed military sci-fi and this keeps up the trend. If there's a downside it's that this was what everyone expected to be the Big Finale of the series, so they just sorta ran a finger down the list of named characters and wrote every single one out boop-boop-boop bye all.
This would've been a really SATISFYING end to the series, but hey, we got even more coming up with Halo 4 and the Halo 4 Spartan Ops (which is something like 50 missions long and I will probably be counting as a separate "game") and then Halo 5 (which gets back to co-op being sensible in-world) and Halo Infinite is coming and then there's the spinoff Halo Wars stuff and I never watched that anime...
Ehhhh well look, there's a frickin' lot left to go. But Halo 3? Pretty good. Pretty darn good.
...you know, I say "count Spartan Ops as a separate game" but one thing the Master Chief Collection has made me realize is, Halo is one long game. The buttons change. Sometimes you can pick up two guns and sometimes you can't. But with a single playlist campaign smoothing out the transitions, Halo 1 can be Halo 2 can be Halo 3 can be ODST can be Reach. The characters change but the feel of it doesn't.
My, that consistency. On one hand, it speaks of corporate edge-smoothing, lowest-common-denominator sausage that doesn't want to stand out or take risks (well, past the initial risk of two-guns-shield-recharging. Do people realize that was a risk, once, nowadays?) but on the other it says just... consistent quality. Not many games achieve that. And I have been saying for years just give me mission-pack sequels that don't reinvent the engine but slap new wheels on.
I guess I wasn't joking, that IS what I desire.
