Product Description

The Covenant rules the Earth the Flood has been unleashed — and the fate of life everywhere hangs in the balance. There is only one person capable of saving the human race: Master Chief. This genetically engineered super soldier is the last chance for humanity's survival. Everything he has gone through has led him to this monumental moment. Stowed away on a Forerunner ship, he rushes back to Earth to defeat the Covenant once and for all. Hopelessly outnumbered, and with his Artificial Intelligence companion Cortana ensnared by Gravemind, things look bleak. But when you are bred for battle like Master Chief, you fight past the breaking point and bow to no one. It's all been building to this — a desperate, final war that leads to a soul-shattering climax of epic proportions. Help this incredible hero stop the Covenant, destroy the Flood and save the lives of every person on the planet.

The third chapter in the critically acclaimed franchise features insane battles with an arsenal of alien and human weaponry. You'll discover all-new armaments and characters as you fight to the finish. You can even play online with Xbox Live and battle in pulse-pounding multiplayer action. Next-generation graphics and technological advances, such as enhanced artificial intelligence and a beefed-up real-time lighting engine, make Halo 3 shine with stunning realism. Finish the fight once and for all in the epic conflict between the Covenant, the Flood and the entire human race in the climatic curtain call of the awesome Halo saga.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #117 in Video Games
• Brand: Microsoft
• Model: 9UE-00001
• Published on: 2007-09
• Released on: 2007-09-25
• ESRB Rating: Mature
• Platform: Xbox 360
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: .57" h x 5.41" w x 7.54" l, .46 pounds

Features

• Expands on the franchise and adds a wealth of technical and gameplay advancements
• Unparalleled first-person shooter experience and the most compelling story of the trilogy
• Builds upon the social multiplayer experience and innovative, evolving, online gameplay of Halo 2
• Loaded with high-definition visuals, enhanced AI, an advanced lighting engine, new weapons, characters, and challenges

Amazon.com Product Description

Adding to Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo 2, the epic saga continues with Halo 3, the amazingly anticipated sequel to the highly successful and critically acclaimed Halo franchise. In this third chapter of the Halo trilogy, Master Chief returns to finish the fight, bringing the epic conflict between the Covenant, the Flood, and the entire human race to a dramatic, pulse-pounding climax. Get ready. The Chief is back. HDR lighting, self-shadowing, and more make Halo 3 look and feel realistic. View larger. Mystery abounds with the return of Cortana. View larger. Earth is conquered. The Covenant is everywhere. Halo 3 promises to be an epic journey. View larger. Game developer Bungie announced that Halo 3 will be released for Microsoft's Xbox 360 sometime in 2007. The game was revealed to the world at the Microsoft press conference held at Grauman's Chinese Theater in Hollywood, CA in May 2006. To gamer's delight, the announcement was a complete surprise. The rumors have been abound for the past year, as everyone wondered when the next installment would be ready. Bungie and Microsoft did a stellar job keeping their lips sealed, and fans benefited from their first glimpse of the hallowed third and final installment. The short presentation was delivered in real-time on the Xbox 360 using the current version of the Halo 3 game engine. That's right, no studio production video, Bungie and Microsoft delivered the real deal: what they showed at the announcement is what gamers will see when they play Halo 3 in 2007. The HDR lighting, self-shadowing, GPU-run particle system and many other effects are rumored to show up in full effect in the final game. Needless to say, the gaming community is salivating. CJ Cowan, Bungie's director of cinematics discussed one of the most startling moments of the presentation: the return of Cortana. "Given the variety of character and story arcs at the end of Halo 2, we wanted to boil down our announcement to a few key threads. Cortana and the Chief being a galaxy apart is a situation we haven't seen before, and is something that is a powerful component to Halo 3. We are using her transmissions in the demo to give the viewer a few subtle clues to her situation and state of mind, without revealing any specifics we want to save for the game itself." Graphically, the game closely follows in the tradition of Halo 2, although it has been upgraded to take advantage of the Xbox 360's more prodigious visual abilities. As art direct Marcus Lehto explained, "[The presentation] was intended to be an understated announcement of Halo 3 -- the tone is that of mystery and suspense -- the calm before the storm. I wanted to make sure that we reintroduced the Chief, showed that Earth was thoroughly conquered, with Covenant everywhere, and that there is a glorious, ancient artifact buried under the Earth's crust which will provide Halo 3 with the epic journey which we all want." Taking full advantage of the power of Xbox 360, Halo 3 expands on everything that has made the franchise great, adding a wealth of technical and gameplay advancements. The game design has evolved with next-generation, high-definition visuals, enhanced A.I., an advanced real-time lighting engine, and, of course, new weapons, characters, and challenges. Halo 3 promises an unparalleled first-person shooter experience and, in the end, the most compelling and engrossing story in the franchise's history. Last, but certainly not least, Halo 3 builds upon the unique social multiplayer experience and innovative, evolving online gameplay of Halo 2. Rest assured, you'll still be able to run with your clan and battle with (or against) your buddies from coast to coast.

Customer Reviews

A Must-Own - But Not Perfection
Halo 3 was, in a way, doomed before it was released. No matter how well it did, people are going to judge its "wow factor" against how amazing the original Halo felt to play back when it first came out. Now that we are used to the weapons, races, environments and plotline, nothing is as cool as it was that first time. It's the same issue that plagues any series, be it Dune, the Matrix, Star Wars, etc.

Halo 3 does get a boost in that it is released for the 360, so you get an automatic upgrade in abilities there. We're playing on a high end HD TV, and yes, it looks really nice. The backgrounds look like a painting in motion, with swirling clouds and dancing dust storms. From the light glinting off the metal surfaces to the detailed shadows in the rocks, it can be really gorgeous. Is every detail as beautiful as every detail in, say Gears of War? Maybe not. Different developers focus on different items. There are always trade-offs for speed and visual appeal reasons. For a Halo world, I think they did a good job.

The sound and dialogue are really great. I like the background music, and I find much of the dialogue hilarious. There are some conversations that have me laughing out loud. This is a good game to play with your surround sound stereo system hooked up, and of course the subwoofers.

I hated the ending of Halo 2. I dislike it when a story finishes with a "and now wait a few years to find out what happened." They can at least have you feel like you achieved something, and ended a chapter. For that reason alone it's good to have Halo 3 here to wrap everything up.

Unfortunately, with all the time they spent in development, this third outing is a bit predictable. I really enjoyed the multi character play in Halo 2. I thought that was a great touch. They completely removed it for Halo 3, setting you back into a Master Chief only mode. To be honest, I really thought we'd get THREE races this time around, and get to play as the Flood too. Why reduce ourselves to just one?

Also, while there are a lot of "missions", some of them are maybe 5 minutes long. That's a bit on the short side. I realize you can go back and replay on harder and harder levels to challenge yourself - but they could have put more depth into the basic story line.

Now, all of those things being said, the key to any game in modern times is its multiplayer ability. No matter what single player game you play, it's pretty much a limited time game. Multiplayer is completely unlimited - and you're not stuck with the formulas built into the AI brains. Halo 3 is definitely the best multiplayer experience of the three games - the most balanced, the most fun, the best graphics. You could literally play this for years and not get bored of it.

So to summarize - if you don't have XBox Live, you could rent this game for a week, get through it and have a lot of fun. You'll be able to see how the story ends, get your Halo fix in and be happy. But if you do have XBox Live, you'll want to own this. Between replaying the base game on harder levels to improve your skills, and playing multi-player in a variety of maps and set-ups, you'll be happy for a long, long while.

There are many games we write a walkthrough for that we have to push ourselves to get through, but when we did our walkthrough for Halo 3, we really did have fun :) So that's always a good sign!

Overdone hype but awsome game.
Personally all this hype was blown out of proportion. All done for more marketing sales to make Microsoft very happy of course and to squeeze every last dime out of Halo fans by creating three types of editions. I was there for the midnight release and played Halo3 for a good two and half hours until I crashed out on my couch. I'll break this review down into a few cat orgies.

Gameplay: The game to me has improved on many levels. With new enemies with better AI, they don't just stand there waiting to get killed. Along with the same layout has Halo 1&2, 3 is pretty much the same (point, shoot, cover), but you have more areas to get creative with new content. Halo3 gameplay was given a polished look and finish and even though it can feel old at times, it's really all about finishing the fight and finding out the storyline.

Graphics: I was quit surprised to see how clean and detailed the graphics were on my regular TV. Bungie really went to attention to detail and left nothing out. I have a 24' HDTV but with no speakers so I have to resort to my older TV, but if Halo3 looks as good as it does on regular, I can only image what it would look like HD.

New Content: Who doesn't like new content? Halo3 has more to offer then ever. There is new equipment to help you defeat your foes when it gets rough. New guns, new fighting tactics, its awesome.

Overall: I gave this 4 stars out of 5 because the gameplay feels the same in certain parts of the game, but with the graphics and new content I can easily get over it. Only reason why I got an Xbox 360 was for Halo3, since I found out there was no plans to start working on a PC version of Halo and I didn't want to wait long to play.

Advice: Don't play Halo 3 until you played Halo 1&2, get familar with the storyline and controls, otherwise this game won't be "the hype" you expected. Remember, when Halo first came out, there was mixed reviews, playing Halo 3 first is no exception.

Review for Non-Gamers
I'm not a gamer, just a regular 30something who wants an easy way to take out my frustrations. This review is probably most helpful to middle aged men like me, not hardcore gamers.

I have tried many other games but Halo is the only one that doesn't tax me too much with choices and complicated controller requirements. I give the Halo franchise 5 stars because it is so simple, one mission, kill everything in sight. You don't need to investigate, open your pouch, choose between a million weapons, read maps, or think for even a second. It's the only game I've found which I can stand for more than 5 minutes and which is completely uncomplicated. And you can skip the story and all that nonsense by just hitting the main button.

As compared to other Halos: I'm not crazy about the weaponry. The needlers run out of ammo and the other guns don't do much. You also need to press a button to reload some weapons, it seems, whereas before they would reload if you walked over the same kind of weapon. THere are 3 kinds of grenades, which is unnecessary and just harder to switch between. You can also only carry 2 of each instead of 4. Since the new grenades stick like the plasmas, they don't add much and just add another layer of choice and button-pushing. Too complicated. Also, the little bonus things like flares and landmines are gimmicky and add too much comlpication. Again, advanced gamers probably love it, but I'm too old to learn all this new stuff. Just give me a gun and some grenades.

In previous games you'd come across more types of things to do, like a lot of sniper rifles so you could sit on a hilltop picking off aliens or use other strategy. In this game you don't find a lot of useful weapons, so there's a lot more direct hand to hand, on the ground type combat. I've also found that it's easier to kill things and easier in general to solve the levels. Also, it uses the "follow me" arrow and the voice gives you suggestions if you seem to be missing the point, which I like, since in previous Halos I've spent hours wandering around wondering what I'm supposed to be doing. No such problems here. They've sufficiently dumbed it down.

I've had a few graphic glitches in this one, which has never happened before. I've also gotten stuck and unable to get out of things twice. THe sound and graphics are great, of course. I've never paid any attention to the story, unless it required me to, so I can't comment on that. Kusdos to Bungie for making it easy to skip over.

Overall, this is the same experience as the others, though it seems easier than Halo2. As little thought as that required, this one requires less. I've not had to think at all about weapon choice, strategy, or anything, Just pull the trigger and kill! I wish there were more FPS games like this -- fast-paced, completely intuitive hand controls, easy storyline, simple mission, and FUN.