The Poet’s Corner - Why I like Halo 3

Poet's Corner
Written By Ryan

Welcome to the poet’s corner!

I intended to talk about this a while back, so here we are. Since the game was released on steam on July 13th I think it’s a good topic to discuss.

So today I get the honor of talking about one of my favorite games: Halo 3.

This was mostly inspired by the fact I had a Halo 3 custom games night a few weeks back, so I have a few things fresh and on my mind.

Halo 3 was my first Xbox 360 game. But you see you probably don’t get it, it was literally my first game:

And that other game…

And that other game…

Like “it came with the console and I didn’t have it buy it” first game. For those that are confused, Halo 3: ODST is a follow-up spin-off to Halo 3 which also featured Halo 3’s multiplayer with all the DLC maps in disc format. Boy that was a long a sentence for an explanation in short: It had all the multiplayer maps for Halo 3.

For me, getting an Xbox 360 was a really big deal. It was there first time I was buying a console that wasn’t made by Nintendo, quite late in comparison to other people my age. So after playing a few times at gatherings in my friends’ houses, I managed to save up enough money to ask my mom to pay for most of the console but get enough ownership to say it was mine, rather than mine and my sister’s (Ahhh… the lies we told ourselves back it in the day). Imagine. Finally picking your console after saving for so long and getting the game you wanted to play with your friends so badly as a bonus! They also added an extra controller and an HDMI cable for free, which was nice.

From there I played Halo 3 extensively, inspiring myself to later acquire Halo 2 and the original Halo 3 and get an extremely modded copy of Halo: Combat Evolved from a friend for PC. To this day I can proudly say that this has been the game I’ve played the most multiplayer on, with Super Smash Bros being a close 2nd.

“I get you like this game Ryan, but why is Halo 3 so great?” Ho ho ho. Let’s start.

You put the disc in, you start your game and ….

Those were the days…

Imagine being in 2007 and having a game sounding like that! Halo won many people over with its soundtrack, which continues to be in the hearts of people in more ways than one:

11 Years after Halo 3’s release. 17 after Halo: Combat Evolved.

Reason Number 1: It’s (literally) award-winning soundtrack.

The original Halo Trilogy is a musical masterpiece, which was not common in gameplay-focused shooters in its time. Which brings us to the next point.

Halo 3 promises to be “THE STUNNING CONCLUSION TO THE HALO® TRILOGY”. Seriously it’s in the back of the box in different-styled font:

The ® is important!

The ® is important!

Halo states that it will conclude the Halo trilogy, which is natural given that a 3rd installment is the last member of a trilogy, and it does spectacularly well.

The story has a lot to offer, from battling a giant Scarab with a Tank, to the epic Warthog getaway on the end. I like to keep this kind of articles as spoiler-free as possible, so I won’t go into specific events. Nevertheless, the story, while a bit dated, is very engaging to the point where you can enjoy it thoroughly without playing the previous entries. The story is etched very well on to the gameplay, making the missions very easy to follow, fun to play and making you feel awesome when you do it.

Reason Number 2: A story that fits the game.

What else is there? Halo 3 was a game that had the Bungie’s (the studio that made it) love and seal of approval. Bungie at the time was very well known for being generally awesome and interacting a lot with their fans. As such it made a very great feel of community, despite how big a hit the game was, and loved to go the extra mile for their fans. The game housed a lot of easter eggs and secrets, but what made it cool was that they still had the old school idea of rewarding people who found them or made it through challenges. The 2 most notable were the skulls and the Vidmaster Challenges.

Skulls

You could actually hit enemies with the skull.

You could actually hit enemies with the skull.

There were hidden in not so obvious places throughout the campaign. They earned you achievements but, most importantly, they allowed you to change certain settings for the campaign. Most made it harder (like ‘Iron’ which made all players respawn in the last checkpoint if one died or restart the mission if you were on your own) so you could earn bragging rights, while others added fun gimmicks (like ‘Grunt Birthday’ which made confetti appear alongside a “YAY!” sound whenever you did a head shot to grunts).

Vidmaster Challenges

Imaging opening your account and getting this message from the devs after school.

Imaging opening your account and getting this message from the devs after school.

These ones were actually after Halo 3: ODST was released. There were a total of 7 achievements which once completed, would let you request the armor through the "Road to Recon!" in Bungie.net. I think there were other ways to earn the armor through competitions, but the real deal was to have the achievements. What were they?

Halo 3

  • Vidmaster Challenge: Lightswitch: Get the rank of Lieutenant in any playlist in the new EXP progression system.

  • Vidmaster Challenge: Annual: After 9/25/08, complete Halo (Final level) on 4-player Legendary LIVE co-op, with Iron, and everyone in Ghosts.

  • Vidmaster Challenge: 7 on 7: Enter into a ranked or social playlist with 7 EXP on the 7th of the month.

  • Vidmaster Challenge: Brainpan: Find all the hidden skulls on the Mythic maps.

Halo 3: ODST

  • Vidmaster Challenge: Endure: In Firefight, on any mission, pass the 4th set on 4-player Heroic LIVE co-op.

  • Vidmaster Challenge: Deja Vu: Complete Coastal Highway on 4-player Legendary LIVE co-op, with Iron, and no 'Hog or Scorpion.

  • Vidmaster Challenge: Classic: Finish any Campaign level on Legendary solo without shooting or throwing a grenade (Power sliding and honking the horn on vehicles will be counted as shooting/grenade throwing).

It’s ok if you don’t understand them all, but you can probably tell some were pretty damn hard. Specially those that involved Xbox Live connection with 4 players, as one dude always lagged out or got disconnected at some point. I spent a lot of time trying to clear them, but was ultimately unsuccessful due to unreliable internet connection. So while it didn’t happen to me, whenever you saw someone play with the recon helmet you knew he/she was a badass.

Reason Number 3: The little things.

And now for the final reason, the one that inspired to write about this: the multiplayer. Playing Halo 3 multiplayer is one of the best things you can do to yourself. There was a lot of cool events and a ranking system similar to popular games like Call of Duty and Battlefield, earning a higher virtual military status at the expense of many hours of matches. What was fun was that Bungie made it a point to include more game modes, so it wasn’t just a shootout or domination, but include fun games like Griffball. Even then I don’t think online competitive multiplayer could compare to the true Halo experience: Custom Games.

“Observe, Mr. Bond, the instruments of Armageddon”

“Observe, Mr. Bond, the instruments of Armageddon”

Custom Games were amazing, so much they deserve another paragraph. Custom games were ‘private’ player matches were people set up games and stages created by users. Here you could race in a rainbow-road like stage or have a zombie vs survivor stand off in a flying castle. The possibilities were truly endless as players found the most creatives ways to make fun games through Forge. Forge allowed players to add, move and remove items through all the maps, saving them for Custom Game matches. So you always had the option to play with your friends online, up to 4 players in split-screen in a single console or up to 16 if you used a LAN network and various xbox consoles. I spent so much time in custom games, I knew a lot of the custom maps by heart. Don’t get me wrong I was good at matchmaking (competitive multiplayer) as long as I had a vehicle, but nothing beat the fun of playing a creative player-made map and having fun. Sometimes we ran from a zombie in a locked circuit, others we played Jenga, or had a usual player shootout in a map with lots of guns and vehicles. The multiplayer was truly ahead of its time.

Reason Number 4: The amazing multiplayer.

So there you have it, the 4 main reasons why I like Halo 3. I hope I did my experience with the game justice and, if you played it, your’s as well. In case you haven’t ever had the pleasure, there are options for you. It can be yours for the limited price of $9.99 USD on Steam, or like $4.00 USD in the used section your local Gamestop for Xbox 360.

Steam Link: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1064271/Halo_3/

Gamestop Location: Look it up in google maps.


Still here? Guess you are looking forward to today’s poem! That makes me really happy :) .


And now this week’s poem:

***

117

A face unknown to all,

Achievements reaching the sky,

Mankind may rise and fall,

but Spartans never die.


“We’ll make it”,

And it rang true,

In the midst of space it sit,

Half a ship for me and you.


The Halos and the Flood were now gone,

A universe set free,

A voice in the empty Dawn,

“Wake me when you need me”.

***

Thanks for reading.

I wish you the best, see you next week!

Ryan

Head of Writing and Programming

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