Halo 3 Single Player

If you’re looking forward to innovative gameplay or something evolutionary, you’re not going to find it here. Halo 3 uses a formula that’s worked for its first two games – an engaging, replayable single-player campaign that supports co-op, along with some killer multiplayer action (that I’m dying to get my hands on; we should have a review of it up soon), and it works well for the third iteration too.

In fact the single-player campaign of Halo 3 is so identical to Halo 2 that you’d think you’re playing Halo 2.5 at times. That isn’t such a bad thing though, since just like killing those little grunts with the butt of your gun, the old-school corridor-shooter gameplay of Halo 3 never goes stale.

After playing games like BioShock and Heavenly Sword, what I expect next-gen games to look like has changed. The game certainly doesn’t match up to these titles where presentation is concerned. While the game’s certainly better-looking than Halo 2, it lacks the polish and visual depth you see in most games that use the Unreal Engine 3.

That said, the lack of eyecandy is forgivable since the gameplay makes up for it to an extent.

What I love about the campaign is the way Bungie’s hit the sweet spot with the game’s pace; it’s fast enough to keep you in the heat of battle constantly, while giving you enough of a breather when you need to recuperate.

The scarcity of ammunition and complexity of enemy AI is enough to keep you challenged, which is a better approach to pump up the game’s difficulty than by just throwing a crazy amount of foes at you (as many games do).

The fact that the enemy AI will flank you, throw down shields, and make good use of cover, go a long way in making the campaign an intense experience. This however doesn’t make up for the level design that’s great at some places and terrible at others.

I’ve never been a big fan of the open levels in the Halo games, and that doesn’t change here either. The open levels make you rather disoriented and you’ll find yourself lost many times. If it’s any consolation, there aren't too many of these in the game.