When folks speak in regards to the Halo collection, the second entry is normally the one spoken about with essentially the most reverence. But as its addition to Master Chief Collection on PC has jogged my memory, Halo 3 is the actual collection pinnacle.
I perceive the love for Halo 2. While the notorious cliffhanger ending is now banded about as a meme that highlights the weather of that game that have been clearly rushed to retailer cabinets, it’s additionally an extremely particular game. It’s onerous to make a sequel to a break-out hit, however Halo 2 is a confidant, sensible enlargement of the primary game’s concepts.
In some ways Halo 2 is daring. Think in regards to the bait-and-switch of getting you play the Arbiter, and having the participant expertise the intricacies of the politics of the Covenant. There’s a danger right here of going a bit George Lucas within the Star Wars prequels, shoving undesirable political bargaining and hostile takeovers into an motion franchise. But in Halo 2, it typically works. Players come to appreciate the Elites aren’t simply monsters – that there are two sides to this battle.
Despite this, to me Halo Three is the particular one. There’s all the time a hazard within the third of something; within the music business the idea of the ‘difficult second album’ looms giant, however the truth is the third is usually more difficult nonetheless.
You see, with two successes behind you, there’s all the time the danger of hubris. This is normally whenever you get ego-fueled and obtuse idea albums, or brainless, soulless recreation of what got here earlier than as creatives burn out. As the largest factor in video games on the time, it’s astonishing simply how good and sharp Halo Three is.
What you get in Halo Three is in a way a victory lap. It’s a best hits tour of the issues that made the primary two games nice. Bungie pioneered not solely a better-feeling class of console shooter, but additionally a distinct sort of sandbox, one thing that’s perfected in Halo 3’s memorable Scarab takedown sequences. In an period when many games have been embracing the on-rails, scripted sort of cinematic gaming, Halo Three provided these hair-raisingly cinematic and but solely off-the-rails segments, thrilling participant and AI-driven motion elevated by an much more thrilling rating.
It’s by means of this that Halo Three each avoids being obtuse and conceptual – for it’s a pure evolution of what got here earlier than – but additionally avoids feeling too acquainted. It advances the collection, and whereas the modifications it makes are much less profound than many provided by later Halo titles, every change, just like the addition of one-time-use tools expertise, feels important.
In multiplayer, too, Halo Three is an absolute pleasure. Just a couple of minutes into my first few matches of Big Team Battle on Valhalla and I really feel at house once more. I’m unsure Halo will ever really feel fairly proper on keyboard and mouse to me, however that’s a philosophical factor – it performs simply fantastic.
Part of that is undoubtedly rose-tinted glasses. When Halo Three first launched, I used to be simply gearing as much as begin college. I bunked off and skipped limitless lectures to grind out gleeful wins, close-fought losses and the occasional shaming curb-stomping on-line.
I used to be in deep again then; the hype, that incredible diorama advertisement, the cat helmet restricted version. In some ways, Halo Three defines a really particular interval of my life – however what’s particular is that in its newest incarnation on PC it stays pretty much as good because it ever was.
This realization comes at a vital time, for the hour of Halo Infinite’s reveal is now at hand. As Xbox Series X’s launch title, that is possible a very powerful Halo game since that tough second album – and coming off the again of fantastic however not beloved fourth and fifth entries, it doesn’t have the simple victory lap that Halo Three had.
Halo Three is essential to Infinite, nonetheless – as a result of it stays the bar to beat. It’s a assured, daring game that’s glad in its personal pores and skin, the results of a collection driving excessive, completely conscious and basking in its personal significance – the middle of the gaming world at the moment. It won’t even be attainable to achieve – however enjoying Halo Three in MCC has jogged my memory that’s what Infinite should a minimum of attain for.
Roll on Thursday, I suppose – the place the Halo Infinite campaign reveal will give us a primary take a look at the way it may stack as much as the perfect of the collection.
