Halo 3 Clan Review

Clan Overall Score: A+ (94%)     overview of the rating system
  Presentation: (4.5) Peerless
  GamePlay: (4.8) Excellent
  Ambiance: (3.8) Excellent
  Fun Factor: (4.3) Excellent
  MultiPlayer: (4.5) Excellent
Shalewind's Scoring
  Presentation: (5.0) Peerless - Halo 3 presents amazing graphics for its pace and platform. The shading and most especially the lighting from explosions and bright sources is amazing. Light to dark transition is also a new feature that adds a great deal of realism. The sound and audio is also top notch. Voice acting is the same old routine, some good, some bad. And in my opinion, Marty O'Donnell (composer) delivers his best score of the three in this one.
  GamePlay: (4.5) Excellent - Play control is fairly tight. Movement is solid and most of the weapons are fluid. Jumping I think is still a little flaky, as it was with the other games. You do still get an occasional glitch causing you to get hung up on invisible barriers or shoot walls that aren't there but overall these are minimal. Campaign difficulty is just about right, "Legendary" providing an intense challenge and "Heroic" providing just solid fun. One of the most impressive features is the rock solid frame rate.
  Ambiance: (4.0) Excellent - I maintain Bungie has produced one hell of a story-line for an FPS. But as always, the game focuses on its plot basics while the meta-plot is only available in novels, alternate reality campaigns, and hidden media. Nevertheless, the plot in-game is good if a bit rushed and predictable. Everything in the final chapters gets to cash in on reminisces as well. The growing intensity gives Halo 3 a climatic feel and adds to the love story between the Master Chief and Cortana. I'd of liked some more closure with the "Believe" advertising campaign.
  Fun Factor: (4.0) Excellent - Halo is Halo, and it's fun. The campaign has got a number of awesome moments that are ridiculously entertaining and the long haul moments are minimal. The flood are actually fun to combat in this installment, and brute combat is run-of-the mill but good. Bungie's concept of a few seconds of fun repeated over and over again hold true into this game. New weapons and equipment do add a bit to the game, but not on a paradigm changing level. The fun factor is in the quick action and thrill of survival.
  MultiPlayer: (4.5) Excellent - Halo has a dedicated multiplayer community, probably the largest around. The problem is many of them are idiots. However, new chat options, proximity voice elimination, and party grouping and matching make the experience better. Like its predecessor, the game functions poorly on bad connections because of its distributed model, but runs very smoothly with average or better ISPs. So far, game types look promising and the action and competition is good. The presence of certain game types such as "Shotty Snipers" and their repetitiveness is less than desirable. The addition of videos and screen captures are just groovy. Overall I think the multiplayer is comparable, if not better, than its predecessor and outperforms its peers in terms of fun, community, and versatility.
Overall Score: A+ (94%)
Dark Gyraen's Scoring
  Presentation: (4.0) Excellent - Halo 3 is by all accounts a beautiful game, with a sweeping musical score that truly brings the game to life. Dense foliage and well used lighting brings the world of Halo 3 to life, and there almost no visual or technical flaws that stand out while playing. The game never quite reaches that next tier though, looking more like a polished, High Definition version of Halo 2 than an entirely new game. While it's better than many of the next generation of games visually, Halo 3 cannot stand up to the new standard that has been set by others, such as Gears of War or Bioshock. In the past year, the bar for presentation has been set incredibly high, and Halo 3 almost reaches that new bar, but falls just shy.
  GamePlay: (5.0) Peerless - You have to credit Bungie for knowing what works and sticking with it. The controls for the entire Halo franchise is one of the things that has made it so popular. Easy to get into, fun to master, the gameplay is varied enough with the weapons that it keeps you engaged. Almost no technical issues get in the way of the gameplay here, and Halo 3 will stand out as a way to make any FPS easily accessible to players. New additions to the game like Forge and the Video editor are great, adding a lot to play around with once the campaign has come and gone.
  Ambiance: (3.5) Decent - The story of Halo 3 was something that many players looked forward to, especially after the cliff hanger ending of Halo 2. If there is a shortcoming for Halo 3, it's the campaign mode. The game picks up some time after the events of Halo 2, leaving players guessing as to what happened if they didn't pick up the comic books in between. From there, the rest of the story just seems rushed, with characters meeting what should be tragic ends with almost no emotional impact. Bungie has made a very sound game, but the story leaves players without any real connection to the faceless, but badass Master Chief.
  Fun Factor: (4.5) Excellent - While the gameplay of Halo 3 isn't anything revolutionary, there are times in the game that you will almost find yourself giddy with the general fun of the game, as long as you aren't too focused on the mission. The end of the highway level was among my favorite moments in video games, as a mass of four wheelers, one driven by me with a computer ally on the back wielding a rocket launcher take on one of the Scarab tanks. Jumping over the massive laser, slipping between his legs, it was a truly enjoyable level. Halo 3 has many such levels, and for the most part it is very fun. The only mark against Halo 3 is Bungie's love with making players drive a Warthog through some crumbling level at the end of their games. The last level of Halo 3 is terrible, and it saps away much of the fun that players feel by knowing they have completed the epic.
  MultiPlayer: (4.5) Excellent - Bungie has figured out that the multi-player aspect is the best part of the Halo franchise. A well designed co-op mode, mixed with wonderful online play gives the game great replayability. The online system is probably one of the best in terms of getting together with friends to play online, and the rank system isn't badly implemented. A good variety of maps, game types and match making capabilities online are the reason that Halo 3 is one of the best online multi-player games around, and will continue to remain popular.
  Halo 3 online is designed for anyone to play, and offers a different gaming experience from other online games like Battlefield and Quake Wars, with less focus on tactics and more run and gun type gameplay. And while the rank system isn't bad, some people might prefer a system that contains more unblockable content or a leveling system as seen in many other online shooters. While Halo 3 is fantastic online, it's not drastically different from Halo 2, and at some point, the same online gameplay will become stale, especially with all the new online shooters available.
  Overall Halo 3 is a decent end to the epic, and a great online shooter. Beautiful, but not stunning graphics never quite achieve the level of a top tier game, and the gameplay is tight and responsive, but doesn't bring anything new. With a throw away story, Halo 3 falls back on its multi-player, which retains almost the same style of play that Halo 2 had. Bungie seemed to be afraid to mix up the formula that had made the Halo franchise so fantastic, and in the end, made another good Halo game, but not one that innovates in any real area. Halo 3 is a great game, and a must buy for owners of the Xbox 360, but it never reaches that next level that would make it 'Game of the Year' worthy.
Overall Score: A+ (93%)