Seven years later, Halo 3 is still the best Halo campaign

T

The Librarian

Banned
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Halo 3, arguably one of, if not the, most hyped games in history, released seven years ago today. Its release was massively anticipated, and for the month of September, the Xbox 360 just barely outsold the Wii – something it would not accomplish again until years later.

So how does it hold up? Very well – in fact, I think it's overall the best Halo campaign. What I've noticed here on GAF as the years go by is greater appreciation for what Halo 3's campaign was: level after level, sans Cortana and maybe "Halo (3)," of the best encounters in a Halo game, culminating in a scale not matched by any Halo game before it or since.

Think about it. From "Sierra 117" to "The Covenant," each level increases the scale and complexities of the game's encounters than the one before it. In "Sierra 117," you had the dam fight. "Crow's Nest" had the Brute hallway, "Tsavo Highway," had that bunker battle. and the valley fight with the hill in the middle. "The Storm" has you waging a war against a Scarab in a lakebed, and "Floodgate" is a short-but-sweet Flood level that acts like sort of an interlude. Things top off with "The Ark" and its Battle of the Cartographer and the Brutepack fight in the same structure, and "The Covenant" takes you from a beach landing, the skies, to a massive fight with two Scarabs at the end.

There are so many great encounters in Halo 3 – too many to mention – but those are my highlights.

Can't wait to play this game again when TMCC releases.
 
Agrd.

For some reason I really enjoyed the end of the final mission...
cruisin around on that warthog, while the ground starts collapsing, with some epic music playing!
Also, I wanted forever to set up my HTPC with a screen saver that was just the Halo 3 load screen with the big blue ring that sort of 'materializes' -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuKaWd6_Stg
 
It is true that those missions have nice set ups (hence why you reference the campaign and not other components), but I have played Halo 3 much less in my life due to how the audio/visual feed back from certain things in halo 3 are not the best.

The guns all sound pretty bad/weak somehow. I have played reach/halo 1 a lot more as a result even though the missions are probably not as good/varied/massive.
 
"Cortana". Legendary. The Flood turrets that can protect themselves and one shot you. All over the place. Fuck them and that level forever, haha.
 
I've now played Halo 3, Reach, and Halo 4. I've played every one of them in local co-op and enjoyed them all. So far, from the three, I would probably agree that Halo 3 was the best. Maybe because it was my first experience with it, but I still remember it fondly.
 
I'm sorry, but I really have to vouch for Combat Evolved.

Didn't like how some things had to be understood through my reading of novels years back.
 
Combat Evolved is my pick. I'll even take 4 over 3. I just didnt much care for 3. Better than 2 though.
 
I think it's the best overall 'package' in the Halo series but I felt the campaign itself was pretty weak personally.

IMO Campaign Only

Halo CE > Halo 3 : ODST > Halo 4 | Halo 3 > Halo Reach> Halo 2

CE is still my favourite campaign by quite a ways, and Halo 2 is the worst.

I know Halo 4 takes a bit of shit on GAF, but barring a few mistseps (fecking QTEs and disapearing weapons) it awakened that sense of alien mystery that I felt was lacking in 2 and 3.
 
I'm most excited to play this again in the Master Chief Collection.

I'd argue Halo 4's Campaign is the strongest point of that title, but the presentation of the story is terrible. The novels are prerequisite reading in order to fully enjoy it.
 
Halo 3 would be great if it weren't for the unskippable Cortana stall spots. Seriously bungie, wtf.
 
shinobi602 said:
Still Combat Evolved for me.
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Yeah, as good as Halo 3 missions could be, CE is still the gold standard for replayability and overall sense of purpose and really epic feel without getting lost up its own butt with the cinematic nonsense and a constant feeling that they're trying their damnedest to top the first game. Modestly-presented, relatively straightforward Halo is still the best Halo.
 
The worst of them all for me. Halo 4's campaign is easily the best.

Others may give it a pass for the quality of its overall narrative and its inability to take similar chances in the story department as past games - or even the inability to maintain the same quality of story presentation as Halo 1 and 2 - but I don't. Halo 3 played it way too safe. The whole game start to finish felt like "let's just get this thing over with."

Remember that whole bang and a whimper thing? Halo 3 didn't end out the original trilogy with anything that I would remotely describe as a bang. It went the other route.
 
the GOAT Halo campaign, with the best art, best weapons, best enemy encounter design, best level design, best vehicles, and best Grunt Birthday Skulls in the series
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fuck cortana tho
 
Halo 1 still has the best levels (Assault on the Control Room, The Silent Cartographer) and Cortana is a worse level than The Library, much, much worse.

Plus the story in 3 was dire, it wasn't that great in 1 either but the plot was designed around exploration and discovery so it worked from a gameplay perspective.

I prefer the Warthog run at the end of Halo 1 too, especially in co-op.

SenjutsuSage said:
The worst of them all for me. Halo 4's campaign is easily the best.
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Puh-leaze. Cortana is given too much focus, the new enemies are awful and the repetitive 3 objective mission structure just kills the fun. It does have the best told story out of all of them though, even if the story is still lame.
 
Certainly better than Halo 2 (what isn't?) but nothing matches Combat Evolved in my estimation. Any campaign with Brutes immediately puts me off.
 
I really need to replay the first 3 Halo's. I beat them all so long ago that I forget pretty much everything about the campaigns in 2 and 3.
 
I'll need to play it again. When it launched I was more focused on the disappointing graphics (when compared to games like Killzone 2) and it really distracted me from enjoying it.
 
My vote is Halo 2.... It just went places, the switching between Chief and Arbiter to different environments with different enemies kept it interesting.

Plus with remastered visuals, the Halo 2 Anniversary should be amazing.

To bad I'm not buying into consoles anymore... I yearn for a PC port, hell make it Windows 9 exclusive, I don't care.
 
Marcel said:
"Cortana". Legendary. The Flood turrets that can protect themselves and one shot you. All over the place. Fuck them and that level forever, haha.
Click to expand...

I just leg it wherever possible in that level and camo used to the max, sword, bruteshot. Awful level.

Halo 3 has a few stinkers like all Halo's. Never liked Crows Nest, Sierra 117 was so so until the end.
 
Sothpaw said:
3 was forgettable just like 2. I liked Reach and CE best.
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Reach had a pretty solid campaign. But honestly it never really hit the highs of the H3 campaign, but I don't think it had any "bad" missions either. (I hated the level Cortana)
 
The first Halo is still the best for me. The best story, the best levels, the best flowing game.
All the Halo games are good imo but, as it does happen quite often, the first game was the best overall imo.
 
For me it was better than Halo 2 but I preferred 1 and 4. Combat Evolved was my favourite because at the time the sense of scale and place was unmatched. Also I blazed through 3 in a single sitting on legendary with three of my friends.
 
During The Storm when the Lord Hood's fleet comes in and starts shooting the Dreadnought. The music, the feels, then the aftermath. Soo gooood.
 
Like hell it is. Halo 3 was the one that had all the Cortana garbage where control was taken away from you and you had to listen to her stutter and mumble about some garbage that the writers thought sounded badass.

Halo Combat Evolved is probably the winner here for Assault on the Control Room, Halo, and The Silent Cartographer. I'd say Reach might be better, but I'm not entirely sure. But the one thing I AM certain about is that those two stand tall over all the others. ODST should be third, THEN Halo 3, then Halo 4, then Halo 2.
 
Yep. H3 wins for The Covenant, Tsavo Highway and The Ark. Yes Cortana is terrible but its just one level in a game where every other level ranges from good to phenomenal.
 
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