Characters
Main article: Characters in the Halo series The Master Chief again returns as the main protagonist, with the Arbiter making several major appearances. Master Chief and the Arbiter are controlled by the first and second players during co-op gameplay. Two new characters, N’tho ‘Sraom and Usze ‘Taham, represent the third and fourth players in co-op respectively, but are omitted from cutscenes.
Plot summary
The game does not begin right where Halo 2 left off. The comic mini-series, Halo: Uprising, will bridge the story gap between the ending of Halo 2, and the beginning of Halo3.
When the game begins, Master Chief is back on Earth, where the Covenant loyalists (Brutes, Drones, and Jackals), led by the Prophet of Truth, have laid waste to most of the planet. Covenant ships are hovering over an excavation site a few miles from the ruins of New Mombasa and have uncovered a large artifact.
The Master Chief, along with Sergeant Major Johnson and the Arbiter, make their way through the jungle towards a UNSC outpost. During this time, the Master Chief seems to experience disturbing broken transmissions from Cortana. Shortly after they reach their destination, the Covenant mounts an attack on the facility. After a brief struggle, in which the outpost is lost, the Master Chief receives orders from Commander Keyes and Lord Hood to clear a way into the African city of Voi, and destroy all anti-air Covenant defenses in preparation for an all-out assault on Truth and the artifact.
After the Master Chief and the Arbiter destroy the defenses, Truth activates the artifact and creates an enormous slipspace portal, into which all the Covenant ships retreat. As the humans weigh their options, a Covenant ship controlled by the Flood arrives by slipspace and crash-lands nearby, the parasite within quickly spreading throughout the city.
The Master Chief and the Arbiter attempt to fight off the Flood, aided by the arrival of the Elite fleet, which proceeds to glass areas that have been infected. Keyes, the Master Chief, the Arbiter, and the Elite fleet decide to follow Truth. They leave Earth via the slipspace portal and find themselves near an immense artificial structure, which is soon revealed to be the Ark. They find that the Ark is in fact positioned outside of the Milky Way galaxy. 343 Guilty Spark arrives by an Elite dropship and promises to help the Master Chief in any way he can, since he has no more pre-programmed duties now that his ring has been destroyed. Guided by Guilty Spark, the Chief and the Arbiter push their way to the control room of the Ark, where they barely manage to stop the Prophet of Truth from activating the rings. Commander Keyes dies during the struggle.
In the meantime, a flood-infested High Charity arrives by slipspace. After executing the Prophet of Truth, the Arbiter and the Master Chief discover that a replacement ring has been constructed by the Ark to replace the one destroyed by Master Chief. The Chief decides to activate the ring so as to destroy any chance the Flood has from spreading even further. However, the Chief and the Arbiter first take a detour through High Charity to recover Cortana, who is still in the custody of Gravemind. After rescuing her, they destroy the Covenant homeworld as they make their escape, apparently killing Gravemind in the process.
When they arrive on the newly built Halo, they soon discover that Gravemind is still alive, and attempting to reconstruct himself on the new Halo. The Chief, the Arbiter, and Sergeant Johnson quickly make their way to the control room, where they attempt to fire Halo. Guilty Spark realizes that this will destroy his new ring because it is not fully ready yet, and kills Sergeant Johnson as he tries to activate the ring. At this point he exclaims to the Master Chief, "...you are Forerunner, but this ring is mine!". The Master Chief destroys Guilty Spark, activates the ring, and barely manages to escape with the Arbiter to The Dawn, a UNSC ship. They launch, and cling desperately to the ship as the installation fires. The screen fades to white, leaving the player to wonder if they escaped or not.
Back on Earth, a memorial service is held, and it is implied that the Master Chief did not survive. When Lord Hood mourns his loss, the Arbiter answers him cryptically, "Were it so easy," and then departs for his own homeworld.
If the player waits through the closing credits, a scene reveals that Master Chief and Cortana have in fact survived, after being separated from the Arbiter as a section of The Dawn tore off during the slipspace jump. Drifting helplessly through space, Cortana enables a distress beacon while Master Chief climbs into a cryo chamber to await a rescue which Cortana warns may take "years." If the game is completed on the highest difficulty level (Legendary), the hulk of The Dawn is seen after an unknown period of time drifting towards a planet.
Graphics
Work-in-progress Halo 3 screenshot of campaign mode originally captured for use in The Wall Street Journal.Halo 3 utilizes a proprietary, in-house graphics engine, often referred to as the "Halo 3 Engine". This engine builds upon the technologies of the Halo 2 Engine (and previously the Halo Engine) and is re-optimized for the architecture of the Xbox 360.
As detailed on the Bungie Studios website, it will employ advanced graphics technologies such as High Dynamic Range, global lighting, real-time reflections and depth of field effects within cutscenes. Certain surfaces, including the Master Chief's visor (when visible) and the armor of a Ghost, will have real-time reflections (these were not present within the Beta). Most of the dynamic objects in the game will cast real-time shadows on themselves and the environment around them, including the game's plant life. Halo 3 will use normal, bump, and parallax mapping to give surfaces more detail without dramatically increasing the number of polygons.
Bungie has also stated that the draw distance of the game will be in excess of 10 miles (16 km). Sophisticated new atmospheric models are used in the game to replace the traditional skybox, allowing several layers of cloud and atmospheric cover, and even a pseudo "space" beyond that.
Water effects are also dramatically improved, as water can now reflect and refract images simultaneously. In addition to being able to simulate effects such as waterfalls, water will visually flow around objects in its path and splash when players, vehicles, or other objects travel through it.
Physics
Halo 3, like Halo 2, uses a version of the Havok physics engine for much of its physics calculations (although parts of the physics, like melee, are done with custom code on top of the middleware).
A wide variety of objects are affected by physical interactions in Halo 3. Crates, canisters, objective objects, dropped weapons, characters, bodies, vehicles, and some parts of the world geometry all interact with each other and the world around them in generally more believable physical ways. Trajectories of thrown objects are also affected by the gravity lifts in the game (including the "Mancannon").
Some of the foliage in the game is physically reactive; it not only moves in the simulated wind, but actually reacts to the player's (or other creatures) presence and bullet fire, as well as explosions. Some flora in the game will also be destroyed after receiving enough damage.
Audio
As with all titles on the Xbox 360, Halo 3 fully supports 5.1 surround sound audio. In the game, there are over 50,000 pieces of audio, with nearly 40,000 of those being NPC dialogue.[8] This is many more than in either of the preceding Halo titles; Halo 2 had over 15,000 pieces of dialogue. The AI controlling this dialogue is designed to ensure the exchanges flow naturally and convincingly.
Separate recordings have been made for nearby and distant gunfire to make for a more believable sound experience. Distant gunfire sounds, which may first seem like prerecorded ambient sound, may often be the result of an actual firefight happening somewhere in the game. Marty O'Donnell is again composing the original score. Some pieces of the game's music are produced with a much larger real orchestra than anything in the prior two games. For example, the music for the announcement trailer was recorded with a 60-piece orchestra and a 24-piece choir.[5] Halo 3 is the first game in the series to feature custom soundtracks, allowing players to replace in-game music with their own choices.[29] Voice actors returning to reprise their roles in Halo 3 include: Jen Taylor as Cortana and Steve Downes as the voice of Master Chief. Actress Julie Benz, however, is not voicing Miranda Keyes for Halo 3.[30] Celebrity presenter Jonathan Ross has also done some voice acting for Halo 3.[31]
Development
Halo 3 was officially announced with a realtime trailer at E3 2006.
Marketing and release
Main article: Marketing for Halo 3
Mountain Dew Game Fuel.Various marketing techniques have been employed in promoting the release of Halo 3. This has included various trailers of the game; real-time cinematics, recorded gameplay sequences, pre-rendered CGI and even live action film. Throughout the course of development several "developer documentaries" were released, which explain the processes behind creating parts of the game. A large scale multiplayer Beta test was played on Xbox Live with many members of the public being able to take part and experience the game for themselves. Beginning in June 2007, Iris, an alternate reality game, began on the internet, designed to create hype for the game while involving players in slowly revealing some background information for the game.
In addition to high profile events, Bungie often talked about the game in its Weekly Update, occasionally releasing media of the game on their site. Numerous interviews with Bungie staff have been conducted by many gaming press establishments, covering a vast range of subjects. Magazines and journals also occasionally ran stories revealing new information. Pepsi-Cola have announced a new line of soft drink, a variant of Mountain Dew named Game Fuel. The packaging reflects Halo 3, sporting images of Master Chief. As Halo 3 draws nearer to completion and release the marketing drive is set to increase. Much of the advertising to date has focused on appealing to the general public, rather than just hardcore fans of the game. Microsoft announced on August 9, 2007, that pre-orders for Halo 3 had exceeded one million in North America. Some 7-Eleven stores have recently begun advertising Halo 3 and will be selling copies of the game, as well as special collectible drink cups. On September 12, 2007 the "Believe" Halo 3 ad campaign, focused on the epic nature of the story and heroism told through dioramas and third party accounts of Master Chief's service, began with the video "Museum". The same video which aired as the second Halo 3 commercial during NFL football on September 16, 2007.
More than two weeks before Halo 3 was due to be released, full retail copies of the game complete with photographs of the open game box started to appear on the internet auction site eBay. A week before Halo 3 was due for release, major UK catalogue retailer Argos accidentally released some of their final retail copies of Halo 3. Microsoft's Entertainment and Devices division were quoted as being "disappointed that it happened" but that "it was just an honest mistake" and that Microsoft had no intention of punishing Argos for the error.
Months before the release of Halo 3, the game's final testing copy before its gold release (codenamed Epsilon and confirmed by Bungie to be 99.9% complete) was leaked to the Internet. Microsoft reacted to this leak by having the Xbox Live accounts of gamers caught playing the Epsilon copy banned until the year 9999. Halo 3's final retail copy was leaked online over a week before its official release. The 6.14 gigabyte file of the game was hacked and downloaded by "thousands" of people within 24 hours of the leak. Videos of the ending of the Halo 3, obtained from the leaked copy, were captured and posted on popular file sharing sites, such as YouTube.
On September 23, 2007, Microsoft released the game manual online, to promote its new browser plug-in, Microsoft Silverlight.
Despite the prerelease leaks, over 4 million copies of the game were in stores by the release date; Microsoft expects to sell "about three quarters that amount in the first 24 hours."
Versions
Halo3 Legendary Edition box and helmet.Halo 3 was released in three separate versions. The Standard Edition contains the game disc and a manual. The Collector's Edition, contained in a metal case, contains the game disc, manual, interactive Xbox 360 bonus disc with several featurettes, and "Beastiarum", which is a "hard cover, bound collection of information and art covering the species, cultures and civilizations of Halo 3. The final version was marketed as the "Legendary Edition", which contains the game disc, manual, interactive bonus disc, Beastiarum, Legendary DVD containing special content exclusive to the Legendary Edition, and a scale replica of the Master Chief's Helmet as a case for the three discs.[44] Gamestation stores in the UK also offered a limited edition Master Chief figurine only available to the first 1000 pre-orders.
There have also been some early reports that in the Collector's Edition version of Halo 3, the hub that is supposed to keep the game discs in place is faulty. This may lead to scratched game discs. Microsoft has confirmed the problem and offers to replace scratched Halo 3 game disks free of charge.[45] However, this does not appear to be a problem in either the Legendary Edition or the Standard Edition.[46]
Critical reception
Publication Score
MetaCritic 96
Game Rankings 96
1UP.com 10 of 10
Eurogamer 10 of 10
Famitsu 37 of 40
Game Informer 9.75 of 10
GameSpot 9.5 of 10
GameSpy 5 of 5
IGN [1] 9.5 of 10
Critical reception of the game has been positive. On Metacritic, the game had an average score of 96 out of 100, based on 26 reviews.[47] On Game Rankings, the game also had an average score 96%, based on 25 reviews.
Famitsu awarded Halo 3 a "Platinum" review of 37/40. In a leaked review of the Australian wing of Official Xbox Magazine, Halo 3 was again rated with a score of 10. IGN awarded Halo 3 a 9.5 in its review. GameSpot's Jeff Gerstmann gave the game a 9.5 rating.[51] UK-based review website Press Start Online gave the game a Gold Award, the first in the web site's history. Dan Hsu awarded Halo 3 a perfect 10 for 1UP.com.
Pro-G claims, "Halo 3 transcends video games. It is a global entertainment experience. Just as Lord of the Rings: Return of the King and Spider-Man 3 brought to a close two of the most lucrative and epic film trilogies of all time, Halo 3 brings to a close perhaps the most complete, engaging and downright fun video game trilogy of all time." Eurogamer stated, "The best game yet in one of the best FPS franchises of the era," while Games Radar reported, "The single player is bigger and brawnier than anything that's been attempted on a console before." Of multiplayer play, IGN praised, "There's no first-person shooter on 360 that can equal Halo 3's blend of cinematic action, adrenaline-pumping shootouts, and male- (and female)-bonding gameplay." The Forge level editor and saved films features were singled out as particularly strong features.
GameSpy noted one of the game's shortcomings in its review, "[The] single-player campaign is somewhat short." Hilary Goldstein's review on IGN is also critical of the Campaign mode, stating that "the penultimate chapter is so bad, just thinking about it puts a rotten taste in my mouth. It's the kind of level where, if playing through Halo 3 again, I might just stop once I reached it and not bother finishing the skirmish, much less the fight.
HALO 3 WALK THROUGH and FAQ
