Xbox 360 Halo 3: Underwhelming?

You mean you aint dropped a trip mine and blew the **** who is about to splatter you with his warthog and laughed your head off at him. Or a bubble shield when your gettin owned and then throw a grenade and run out of it as they run in and boom, cheap but funny kill.

 

Trip mines should be good, but I find on anything but level ground, the over enthusiastic physics engine means they cartwheel beyond where you put them or into the scenery.

 

Look at the ground when you drop it. Little tip you'll see what I mean.

 

I tried that. One bit that sticks out in my mind was the section when you are being assailed by Covenant monkey-men coming from dropships, and you're holed up in a little shack on a hill, with a few marines. Seems a great place for mines? Well everytime I tried dropping them they'd flip end of end down the hill and miss the choke points I was putting them in.

Oh and EDGE have awarded this 10/10.

Now considering the game launched this week, and EDGE must have had the review to the printers last week at the latest, then this score is from the single player campaign as multiplayer was presumably ungradeable until this Tues/Wed. I just can't see how they have come to that decision. I would give it a solid 8.5/10. Then maybe bump that to 9/10 based on the multiplayer goodness (don't bother pontificating about scores please). But a 100% score? That's putting the game into pretty elevated company that I don't think it deserves to be in.

 

It's ussually worse than that. Magazines tend to operate about four-six weeks in hand, which means they must have had their review done and dusted and sent off to the printers about 3 weeks to a month ago at the latest. They were more than likely going on preview or beta codes. As opposed to ourselves who are a little late, true, but we won't put the review up until we've played every game mode and completed the campaign on single and co-op in order to give a full review.

This is worse than when PC Gamer reviewed BioShock and had their review out before the final code had even been given to critics. It's why their review says that the big daddies and little sisters aren't as big an element of the game as everyone thought they would be - which is just wrong.

 

And what I found more annoying was that seem to have fallen into the same trap as other reviewers, and used what look like hi-res, colour-popping shots that don't match up to the reality of the game (see the screenshots on the game box).

 

I'm only now at the part where

Spoiler

you fight 2 scarabs, I beat the one by jumping off a Hornet as it flies past and taking out the core a bit sharpish, I then took over a warthog and jumped it at the second using a nearby cliff face and destroyed it's powercore only to be run over by a warthog while running to the first scarab to pick up a needle gun I spotted earlier

There's gotta be an easier way

 

Spoiler

I thought that was quite easy. Shot the first ones knees out, landed, jumped aboard and blew the core. Second one, landed on it in the Hornet and blew the core.

Just completed it on Heroic. Still not the Game Of The Decade, but damn that was fun. Halo always did the cut scenes/music bit brilliantly and I was really grinning when I finished. I'd say a good solid 9/10 from me. Brilliant game, but not earthshattering. Nah, I loved it.

Note: DO NOT SKIP THE CREDITS AT THE END. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

 

Without a debug console, that's pretty much unavoidable with console games. Copyright laws stop us stealing pics and we can't screengrab without an authorised debug console which, even then, will only play debug code and not full retail code. You'd be hard pressed to find a site which didn't use shots provided by Microsoft/Bungie, even if they look like they are from in game.

 

Spoiler

I did the same as mook, took out the legs of the first scarab with the help of the guys on the ground, landed, took out the core, then jumped from my hornet onto the second one to take it out quicker.

That part is fantastic on 4 player, first time we tried it, we had two people to each hornet (pilot + passenger) the passengers para dropped onto each scarab while the hornets provided air cover. We died doing that the first time, so the next time, I hung back in a tank and took out the turrets on the backs of the scarabs while two passengers from the hornet stormed one scarab, then got lifted to the second. It was like watching poetry , but with 'splosions.

 

Spoiler

We did 4 player with the scarabs aswell, it was exceptionally fun on legendary when a hornet was downed and we had to use the tank to blow the back out to expose the core and then destroy the core with a perfectly aimed shell and then everyone screamin "RUN RUN RUN ****ING RUN!"

 

XD that's the best bit, it's a shame the recordings don't have the option to play the communications as well, I remember for one of the scarabs we didn't actually run away but all cowered underneath it in a bubble shield hoping it would not run out before the scarab exploded.

 

Aw man. 4 player co-op? I didn't even know that was possible! Neeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeed.

 

lol thats alot of hope

 

I just collected the first four skulls on Normal playing right through the first two areas (Sierra 117 and Crowsnest), and I didn't get killed once. Either I got some mad skillz completing it on Heroic, or Normal is stupidly easy.

 

Normal is stupidly easy

 

Yeah normal is pretty easy, although with some of the skulls on now I'm finding I die a lot more than I normally do on normal, and it's about as hard as heroic now, double enemy health makes a huge difference, especially on those chieftains.

 

http://www.joystiq.com/2007/10/04/zero-punctuation-reviews-halo-3-hates-it/

says it all

 

I was pretty shocked when I saw the 10 in EDGE. I think this is a solid game, the multiplayer in particular is great fun, but it is by no means perfect. There's nowt this game does particularly well you couldn't have done competently on the Xbox. It's genuinely put me off the magazine.

 

Edge didn't even give BioShock a 10 I don't think and, like most print magazines, would have based their review on a guided hands on because of actual printing deadlines. Unlike websites they don't actually wait to play the full game themselves.