After two long years the final installment in the Halo trilogy has arrived and I was more than anxious to get over to the store this morning to pick up a copy. I wasn’t alone either as there was already a line forming outside the local Best Buy. While dozens marched to the counter to purchase the overpriced Legendary Edition I was satisfied to pick up the lowly $60 version promising me all the gameplay I needed sans the extra disc or unwearable MC helmet. Would this highly anticipated sequel live up to its expectations? While I haven’t gone all the way through this one yet I’ve definitely got a few impressions of how it has turned out.

First up, of course, are the graphics. This is the first game in the series that was created for the XBOX 360 versus the original console, so I was fully expecting everything to be top-notch. For the most part I think the graphics are very impressive. The lighting and environmental effects (water, etc.) look really cool and are a definite improvement over the predecessors. There’s a mental obstacle though as the game was designed to appear very similar to the previous versions which kept making me think the graphics hadn’t changed as much as they really did. There are definite improvements here though, creating an impressive and beautiful game.

The gameplay hasn’t changed much from the past two, but that’s good as I hate it when things gets shifted too much. With the two new thumb buttons there were a few differences, but nothing too tricky to quickly pick up. One of the changes I noticed first was the rounding of the HUD to simulate the effect of Master Chief viewing all this information from within the display of his helmet. The life bar has changed around from the circular display to an actual bar, which was likely changed due to limited real estate in the HUD. The flow from area to area and chapter to chapter hasn’t really changed either, so you’ll still be able to get lots of cheesy one-liners as section titles. So yeah, the good stuff is all still there and what’s changed hasn’t hurt anything.

When I launched the game I was really hoping to get a strong story introduction, but that didn’t happen. After two years I’ve forgotten a lot of the little details, so a refresher would have been very helpful. I remembered Cortana stayed behind, and that comes up, but I couldn’t tell you why. Considering the level of involvement she gets in the story so far makes me think they should have done more to build her up here again. While the story has been pretty straight forward in the past it seems to be getting a little murkier this time around. As I mentioned, Cortana keeps reappearing, but this time in strange little flashbacks alluding to a deeper story. I’m definitely expecting a big story here to round it all out and it looks like this should not disappoint.

The weapons have had a lot of upgrades than the previous jump from H1 to H2. You can still dual wield, which is fun to keep constant shooting with one firing while one reloads. There are some new hand guns as well as rifles and such. My favorite new weapon so far in the game has to be the turret mini-gun which you can “detach” from its stand. So you fire away on unlimited bullets with it on the stand, then rip it off and walk around with a limit of 200 shots. It’s big and bulky though, so expect to be slowed down. You can check out all the other details here in this Halo 3 new weapon guide.

So far things look good with Halo 3 and I’m pleased with what I’ve seen through the first few chapters. I’ve read the game only has about 8 hours of play time so I plan on taking this round in strides just like last time. My biggest warning is to stay away from spoilers on this one. It didn’t bother me too much to hear the outcome since this isn’t a movie or book series and I’m in it for the action not the story, but all the same you might want to avoid it. That aside, Halo 3 looks like a definite winner and worth adding to your collection if you’re a fan of the series or the genre.