5/5 ★ – RawMetal's review of Halo 3.

System: Xbox 360 Started: September 2007 Ended: August 2010 Flashback Review The Hype Train for Halo 3 as you’ve possibly seen through dozens of old footage on YouTube was the real deal for its time. The Midnight Launch was so huge that it even got news and media coverage. Halo 3 was the main reason why I wanted to get an Xbox 360 in the first place. Thanks to a friend of mine who we still communicate with to this day, as every after school we played Halo 2 and that was my first major FPS game that I got to learn the ropes on how to play better. I pre-ordered Halo 3 and as I got my copy, I did not play the game until my friend was free to hangout at his place. By then, We played it on a Saturday afternoon, I brought both my copy of Halo 3 and the Xbox 360 console, we booted the game up, my friend, his brothers and I were all at the living room playing Halo 3’s story mode, fight through the remaining Covenant and Flood and watch the story unfold and we manage to finish the campaign mode in one single day. It was one of my favorite gaming memories as a teenager. Afterwards, I completed achievements and played multiplayer until it was time to move on. Halo 3 is supposed to be the end of the trilogy until Bungie spawns a couple games before the IP was sold off to 343. Continuing straight after the cliffhanger ending of 2. Well technically, the Halo Uprising Comic Book Series, The Master Chief regrouped with Marines as well as the Elites to stop Prophet of Truth in activating the Halo rings while dealing with the remaining Covenant Forces and The Flood. All the while finding and rescuing Cortana after the events from Halo 2. The best part is you can play as The Arbiter if you are the second player for cooperative mode. Halo 2 was rushed during development but in Halo 3, the Bungie dev team really outdone themselves and this time, it was developed for next-gen hardware as you noticed the graphics were enhanced from Halo 2 as it gives off this light flare look compared to Halo 2’s neon-dark graphics tone. They really developed this game and ended the trilogy like a Grand Finale at a fireworks show. Brilliant Level Design as there was always a challenge in certain parts of the level like when you have to fight 5 armored brutes in one room and you have to strategize on what to do. We can finally wield the Gravity Hammer and new tools such as the Bubble Shield and Trip Mine. There was so much stuff to do in this game other than Story Mode like both Online and Offline Multiplayer and the newly created Forge Mode that lets you build your own maps. And let's not forget Marty O'Donnell's Magnum Opus Soundtrack and it can be debatable that this is the best score not just the franchise but the entire video game entertainment medium. This game is considered to be everyone’s favorite Halo game, even my friend said this was his favorite. I really love this game but there are a few things that really hold it back from being number 1 in my list. I’ll start with the story of this game. Halo is well-known for its Lore, but If you decide to start playing this game as your first Halo experience, you will have a difficult time in knowing who the characters are and what is going on. Had the same vibes when I played Halo 2 and didn't even know what was going on unless I played the original game. Halo 3 is catered to its fanbase who already understood the lore and played the first two Halo games and there is no time to discuss what has happened previously. A few nitpicks are present like the whole Cortana fazed memory segments that literally slows the game down but that is for player and story interaction to know she is that important. They even did this again when you are at the Gravemind level and it gets mildly annoying when you want to breeze through the level. I have a love/hate relationship with the multiplayer of this game. I am fine with the Halo 3 community as a whole thanks to traditional Teabagging and Forge Mode. But I personally don’t like the Ranking system in this game. It plays like any other Halo multiplayer, but this one in particular is very strict with its ranking system. If you lose a match or leave mid game, then you get demoted. I understand that strictness due to players would often rage quit and you can identify who is the best player in a match due to their high ranking stats so you can let that player have the good weapons and vehicles to get a winning edge. But, leaving a match has other purposes besides playing a fair match, seeing your teammates goofing off and not actually playing, boosting for the enemy team, or even a power outage can demote your rank and it can be frustrating at times. I’m glad the ranking system was dealt with in the later games mostly for Halo Reach. Here is my personal, hot take opinion: I think Halo 3 was the last game to end the Golden Age era in video games. People have speculated and say the Golden Age of Video Games is late 90’s to mid 2000’s (Would count that as a “Golden Period”). But I say expand on that. The Golden Age started in September 1985 with Super Mario Bros right after the video game crash of 1983 to September 2007 just before the video game industry recession in 2008. Yes, we had good games from 2008 to the early 2010’s. But that is when we started to decline from its peak point when there was a rise of shady and greedy business practices of adding Microtransactions, Digital-Only Distributions, Day 1 DLCs, forced Political Correctness and Unfinished games upon release. Thanks to Halo 3 and the mass attention it garnered and the mention of record high sales of video games than current blockbuster movies, music and television combined from the Legacy Media, it does turn heads to those business-minded people who want to go for the green and jump into the video game market while the iron is hot. For sure this entry is In my Top 5 Halo games and this is my friend's considered favorite. Definitely recommend playing this game if you miss out on that Halo 3 hype train back in the day. However, this is honestly not a good game to start on the franchise, So I say play the original Halo, and work your way into 3 if you are playing it for the story campaign. I prefer playing this on PC for The Master Chief Collection. The PC version actually has a large player base compared to the Xbox One version since there is hardly anybody playing it. Also, it's way easier to play 4-player co-op for this game than playing this on the retro Xbox 360.