Halo 3 picks up right where Halo 2 left off, with Master Chief falling from Truth's ship and landing in the Jungle, in that though I was kind of disappointed by a bit of a gap in the story, I mean, at the end of Halo 2 Johnson and the Arbiter were still on Halo, and Chief was still on Truth's ship when it slipspaced above Earth, I just feel like in the time between Truth slipspacing to Earth and Johnson and the Arbiter finding Chief in the jungle something was missed. Unfortunately I have a few similar issues with Halo 3's story, but first I'll start with what I liked. I thought the characters were still really cool, particularly Chief and the Arbiter, as Chief tries to save Cortana from the Gravemind and the Arbiter seeks revenge for Truth's betrayal. Johnson is less amusing here, but towards the end of the story he has a few really awesome scenes, same with Keyes. And in a very good turn, Spark is much more relevant in this game, given that he's my favourite character from the first Halo, that's good, Gravemind returns too, and he's as creepy and poetic as ever. Meanwhile, Cortana is absent for most of the game, which I don't really know how to feel, on one hand, it makes sense in the story and it gives Chief a personal motive to save her, but she's a really cool character, so to have her only appear at the end feels a bit weird. Something I'm really happy to see is the return of the Covenant civil war, which by the start of this game is in full swing, while this game does lack the politics of Halo 2, the Arbiter and the Elites' crusade against the Brutes is really cool to see. And the cool doesn't stop there, with the friendship between Chief and the Arbiter, and we finally see the Ark, which is absolutely awesome, as everything Forerunner is. And I do like the ending of Halo 3, while it is left open, I felt that it concluded the story of the Halo trilogy in a very fitting way. Now for what I didn't like, the Flood, and some minor spoiler ahead, but I was fine with them on the Ark, I however don't like how they showed up on Earth, I thought that it just felt out of place and forced. But as the game went on from there I thought the Flood was fine.
Now for the part of this review that will divide opinion, from a gameplay standpoint I feel that Halo 3 is the weakest in the trilogy, which isn't to say that gameplay is bad, because it's not, but one criticism I have is that the guns just don't have the same punch as they did in Halo 2, the assault rifle and needler in particular, the guns in Halo 3 just feel nerfed. that said, the new guns and vehicles are pretty cool, I really liked using the Spike rifle, and the flamethrower is pretty sweet, turrets can also be detached from their mounts now, letting you effectively become an unstoppable killing machine for as long as you're carrying the turret. The new vehicles are also really cool, while they feel a little clumsy to drive, the Chopper and Prowler are formidable in battle, the Chopper in particular, with which you can simply ram your way through most enemy vehicles, while the Hornet is very cool, and huge fun to fly. The game even further mixes things up with huge Covenant Scarab battles which I must admit are completely badass, and a creative new Flood pure form that can change form from the fast and agile crawler to a bothersome wall hugging form that can use ranged attacks to just straight up walking tanks. Unfortunately my issues with Halo 3's game play include the guns feeling nerfed, the backtracking, which is more frequent here than Halo CE and Halo 2 combined. And most difficult to explain, the length, which just feels short. It's true that all the games in the trilogy can be beat in a very short amount of time, but even with Halo CE and 2, even during a speed run, they didn't feel short, but when I don't speed run Halo 3, it still feels really short. The level design fortunately is pretty cool, with a wide variety of locations ranging from dense jungle to massive dried lake beds, snowy mountains and sandy deserts to let loose with vehicles, to indoor spaces in which to go wild with the nerfed guns. One such open vehicle section is the final sequence, but it just lacks the intensity of the final Warthog run in CE, and it ultimately isn't as fulfilling. Finally, this game got no special treatment for the Xbox One, and while the ingame graphics still look good, the cutscenes really don't, they show their age, and look pretty clumsy.
There are things in Halo 3 that I really like, I think it's story is a sound conclusion to the Halo trilogy, and I like the things it does with it's characters, but unfortunately Halo 3 just doesn't do it for me, it's guns feel weak, the game feels short, even when it's not, and the big finale falls flat when compared to CE's finale. The new guns and vehicles are pretty cool, but over all, while I don't dislike or hate Halo 3, I still think it's the weakest in the trilogy.
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