That phrasing really isn’t appropriate. A more suiting question might be, why isn’t halo 3 so good? Halo 3 offers a stunning campaign with refreshing storytelling and a competitive yet ludicrously fun multiplayer element. That is what I salivate over when it comes to first-person shooters, and I think I speak for a large portion of the gaming community too.
My experience with Halo 3 is an uncommon one. I played the game when it was first popular like many, but not enough to allow myself to understand why it is so loved. However last year the game became available on Xbox Live’s “Games With Gold” and was free to download. Of course I jumped at the chance to replay the classic shooter. And within a week I had finished the campaign on the hardest difficulty. I dived into the Halo universe head first and I am so glad I did. I finally got to see why Master Chief is such a popular character, for his unfailing endurance and a healthy amounts of luck make Master Chief very easy to root for. The campaign was an epic finish to a lovingly constructed trilogy that blew me away from the first combat scenario to the adrenaline fuelled final driving mission.
However, you need not simply take my word for it. Did Halo 3 deliver for other gamers when it first arrived? Well… A score of 9.5 on IGN.com and a 94 on Metacritic do all of the talking. The third Halo game is acclaimed to be the best game of the Xbox 360 generation, and I could certainly get on board with that.
Halo 3 was my first FPS game. I loved the campaign, the characters, all the little secrets and easter eggs that just aren’t seen in games all that often anymore. However, as great and memorable as the campaign was/is it was the multiplayer that earned it a permanent place in my gamer heart. It was hard but not unfairly so,if you died it was simply because you were the inferior player in the confrontation. There were no special upgrades for leveling up and your rank was a badge of honor instead of an inevitability.
I can’t even count the countless hours spent fighting across it’s wonderful maps with my friends, looking forward to the end of each week for the Double XP playlist (ROCKET RACE 4 EVAH!!!), and setting aside an entire day each year for the annual “Bungie vs. The World” event.
Halo 3 had it’s problems, of course. All online games do. It made up for them many-fold though. From the usually-balanced gameplay to the real sense of community that it cultivated. Halo 3 truly was something special that no other online shooter has managed to match nor even come close to (the sequels included). The day that game fell out of the spotlight in favor of Halo: Reach really felt like the end of an era…
However, now that Bungie’s all geared up and psyched for their new IP: Destiny, hopefully at long last we’ll once again see that spark which made Halo 3 so special…
A very insightful comment, just a testament to why the game is adored the way it is. I really hope an up and coming next-gen game can one day match Halo 3 as well. A tall order but we can all hope. Either way.. Halo 3 has a special place in almost FPS gamer’s hearts and with good reason!
*Almost all
Reblogged this on CAIN'S DESK.
Loved this! I couldn’t agree more with you. Now I need to play Halo 3 on multiplayer for old times sake.
Halo is a pretty awesome series. It’s the main reason I buy Xbox consoles.
Yeah I know what you mean. At the beginning of this year’s E3 I was still in between buying a ps4 or an xbox one. However once I watched the awesome trailer for the remastered edition… I just can’t lol I need a one