Halo 3: First Impressions

When it comes to Halo, it seems like people either love it or hate it.
I think I can officially say now: I am with the 'love its.'

But I understand where all of the controversy comes from. The game has gotten more attention, more hype, and more die-hard fans than any modern series I can think of. The reviews for the first installment were stellar, and I don't think the sequels have been much worse. So with so many people loving it, naturally the question everyone wants to answer is: why?

So you get the legions of skeptics, critics, competing developers, and that last group that I used to be in, those who don't own an X-Box and therefore hate to admit X-Box has good games.

After a lot of hands-on time with Halo 3, I have to say my views have changed. First of all, to all those afore-mentioned critics and skeptics, yes, it is over-rated. It is a great game, one of the best multiplayer shooters I have ever played, but it IS NOT THE ONLY GOOD GAME. The problem comes from gamers who buy or play nothing BUT Halo, who act like it is the ONLY game worth playing. It isn't.

That said, I'd like to fondly reminisce about the many hours I've recently spent with this game, and in the process help answer that nagging question the skeptics pose. Note that I do not own Halo 3, or an X-Box 360, so my experience is from playing on my cousin's system at family get-togethers. So if there are things I've missed, forgive me. But I 've played enough to see that Halo has managed to get almost everything right.

I love the fact that they incorporate the 'nades and the beat-downs so that they are a part of every fight. I don't think I played a single boring shoot-out, because there was always a lot of movement, 'nade throwing and dodging, and the possibility that if one of us got close enough we could beat the other guy down. It kept things VERY interesting. I recognized during the first block of time I had with the game (Thanksgiving break) how important nades were to each and every fight, so I worked a lot lately on this. I can say now that my nade placement is very good, it allowed me to beat my cousins in a lot of fire-fights where I had less health or inferior guns.

The beat-downs I haven't really gotten the hang of yet, the button placement to do them just doesn't work well for me. I used my brother this morning though as a test-dummy, he's too slow and inexperienced with shooters to be serious competition. So after practicing my beat-downs on him, I was able to use the technique more frequently during actual matches, and I think with more practice I'll get more used to it.

While I still haven't gotten good enough to beat my cousin who owns the game, I have improved drastically in the 4 or 5 days I got to play. I consistently get around 2/3 as many kills as he does, and I think I've passed up all my other cousins who don't own the game. I had a few close matches last night where I almost beat my cousin's team. I hope I can find more people at college to play with, until I can save up enough money to get a new system of my own.

But anyways, it's been an enjoyable couple of days that I've spent with the world's best-known shooter series.

- Scott