The third chapter of the trilogy keeps what worked in “Halo 2″ and added some new features (“Ripping the plasma cannon off the turret and going Rambo on the grunts? Sure!”). There’s also a new “accessory” slot for things like portable shields and regenerators, which are nice but take some getting used to in terms of using. They are not mandatory by any means however – my first run-through from start to finish on normal difficulty saw me never use one of them.

Grenades have changed slightly – there are two more kinds (anti-personnel shrapnel and incendiary), but as an equalizer you can now carry only two of each kind now. You can see how many of each you have at all times now, which is a bonus.

I also like how the Skulls are now in Normal and Hard difficulties in addition to Legendary, because although I’m not a Halo freak I like some of the variations the skulls let me play with.

A drawback to this game is that it’s more linear when it comes to mission design – usually all you can do in rush in headlong and slug it out. I would have liked to see more sniper rifles/rocket launchers lying around – you do get chances to use them, but they are few and far in between – to give those of us who like to “soften up” an area first or to do some sneaking around to have some fun. That said, the sheer amount of in-your-face frenetic action is a blast sometimes, especially as you run around in a platoon of grunts with a gravity hammer

All in all, this is the best of the 360 console to date, wrapping up the original trilogy of what has become THE video game franchise of the decade. It’s not perfect, but it’s close and a lot of fun: what more do you want from a game?

Ok, now to talk about Halo 3 online play. One word, WOW! Absolutely incredible, breath taking, insane (Ok, I’ll stop rambling on about words describing how fun Halo 3 online play is ). Basically it’s the best online FPS I’ve ever played as far as rankings go, different matchmaking types, the maps, and even the kind of games to be played on the maps.

That’s right. You don’t just kill each other online, there’s modes like the capture the flag, and king of the hill mode, which when you read the titles are pretty self explainitory, and all of the online modes are a lot of fun. This game may have came out in mid 2007, but it is still very playable in mid to late 2009 and adleast 3 more years I would say in my humble opinion. So, what are you waiting for? Go pick up this game already, and get in on the action!

In stark contrast to this, Epic has just released Gears of War 2: “Game of the Year” edition which includes all downloadable content for FREE (19 additional multiplayer + deleted chapter) out of the box.

I have to tread carefully here because I can’t help but think anything but a 5 star review of this game is going to make me a bullseye for fanboy rage. The thing is, I did not find Halo 3 to be the diamond encrusted gift from the gods many of my friends made it out to be. It certainly is far from bad if it got a 4 star rating, but it is not great either.

I played but did not finish both Halo and Halo 2 by mooching off friends. I (at the time) was one of those mildly protected teenagers who’s parents did not think their child needed an M rated game about an armored space commando putting bullets through aliens who couldn’t seem to decide if they wanted to be a formidable threat or just comic relief. I’ll try to keep the plot summary as short as I can: You’re an armored dude who starts the game by falling through the atmosphere and through sheer manliness is able to get up and begin clearing the earth of all the aliens you don’t like with some help from aliens you do like for some reason I can’t really explain because I was shooting at them in Halo 1. Anyway, the bad guy aliens want to use some alien technology buried under earth that we haven’t noticed for millennia to make some rings shoot lasers everywhere but instead it opens up a portal then some more aliens come who are basically the zombie apocalypse in that they just want to kill you then eat and reanimate your corpse and you have to go through the portal the aliens opened up to stop them from shooting their ring lasers and find a way to stop the zombie aliens without blowing up earth…yeah so I don’t entirely get it. I don’t even know why I bother, chances are if you want story you’d play an RPG. When I want to play a FPS all the story I need is “Here are some aliens for you to shoot”.

Now for the important part of First Person Shooter, the shooting. Combat in this game isn’t anything special. The weapons are all human/alien versions of your generic Machine Gun, Shotgun, Melee weapon, Sniper Rifle, Pistol, Rocket Launcher, and BFG6000. The small squishy aliens are very receptive to bullets and the large aliens can take an alarming amount of ordinance to the face which can be a real problem when one of them is running you down with a hammer. Then there are the zombie aliens of whom there are such ridiculous numbers that I didn’t have enough ammo to kill them all on single player, and co-oping legendary with a friend we kept having to kill each other so we’d respawn with all our ammo. And here is the “but” the fanboys have been waiting for, just because it isn’t special doesn’t mean it is bad. Ultimately the shooting works and the only real issue I have with gameplay is that it was short. Even on legendary it only took my friend and I 7 hours to complete the game.

One of the things that brought this game up from 3 to 4 stars was the music, and I’ll keep this short since I know not that many people care. Its hard to describe though, at one moment you could be listening to haunting vocals as you gaze upon some mystical alien structure, then the alien heavy armor rolls in and we switch to a fast paced guitar track with an orchestral accompaniment, and then they mix both together which created an effect that gave me chills the first few times I heard it. This alone brought the immersion factor up 2 fold. Unfortunately I can hardly recommend you buy a game for the music alone so we must move on to…

The multiplayer is why I believe most people recommend this game. The Xbox Live support for this game is top notch, and there are a variety of maps with a variety of objectives to ensure that boredom is difficult to accomplish. They even have separate ranked/social matches so the casual gamer can find refuge from the hardcore. After testing the waters a bit in social slayer, I decided it was time to show off my manliness and dive headfirst into ranked matches. And that is when I discovered 90% of the online content requires you to spend another $20 and hour of your time to download all the various map packs they’ve added so be prepared if you want to enjoy playing online with the best of them. Truthfully without the online play, this was a 3 star game for me.

To sum this up, Halo 3 is nothing the world hasn’t seen before, and without the online play I wouldn’t recommend it. If you’re looking for a single player first person shooter, go buy Half Life 2. If you’re looking for good online play, I had just as much fun with Team Fortress 2 for a LOT less money. And if you’re going to get both you might as well get The Orange Box so then you will also get the game that IS a diamond encrusted gift from the gods also known as Portal.