Why Halo 3 is Disappointing (To me) Part 1

Games Other Halo
1

Hello and welcome to this very opinionated topic. Yes, that’s right, what I’m about to discuss is my opinion, and you diehard Halo 3 fans don’t have to agree with me. Yes, you know who you are. But maybe Halo 3 isn’t the best thing since sliced bread.

Sorry if my introduction is a bit too sarcastic, but I’ve read through the Bungie forums too much to not use the above disclaimer.

And, for the record, my favorite Halo game is Reach… or Combat Evolved… It changes depending on how I’m feeling at the time.

I became a Halo fan in… 2011, so forgive me if some of my points are not entirely accurate for some reason.

Firstly, let’s take a look at the starry night trailer.

Do you get chills whenever you watch it? I certainly do. It's one of the best Halo trailers out there. It holds so much promise by itself, looks gritty and epic. But then what we got was so.. stale.

You start up Halo 3 with Cortana narrating. Okay, cool, that’s fine. Adds some style to the opening. Then, we’ve got the introduction, Arbiter acts like he wants to get shot, you get your flashback to Halo 2, and it’s all set for the start of Halo 3. But Sierra 117 is slow going, not a whole lot of action (besides the Pelicans getting owned) Just your basic forest level. Oh, and the Assault Rifle sounds like a popcorn gun. Nothing really remarkable besides the pretty graphics. Johnson gets taken captive for the second time since Halo 2. By Brutes. Okay, so we’ve got some copy/pasting going on. Nothing too serious. Then, we move on to Crow’s Nest. Now the really epic stuff starts, right? We get an awesome (but too specific to be useful) line from Keyes, and a chilling monologue from the Prophet of Truth. But wait, we’ve got to defend the base. Kill some Covenant, go to another area, kill some more Covenant, rinse, repeat. Oh, and those Brutes pushing at the Ops center? They’re just hanging out, waiting for MC to come kill them… or vice versa, if you’ve played through that area on Legendary.

But, oh, wait, there’s a bomb, in the base, and you end up using the bomb to annihilate a whole bunch of Covenant still inside. This totally isn’t Cairo Station from Halo 2. Nuh uh.

Then we move on through to Tsavo Highway. You’ve got your basic Warthog level, drive through and wreck (or get wrecked by) some Covenant. You’ve got to go through, help some Marines on your way (Halo from CE, anyone?) and then blow up some barriers to make your way to the next level, The Storm. The Storm shows some promise to be really epic, driving through the tunnel towards the level with a whole bunch of 'Hogs, ready to bring the fight to the Covenant, and it’s got variety too. Get out of your 'Hog, clear the way through an area in close quarters, open another tunnel, and drive out into the lakebed to fight some Ghosts, Wraiths, and infantry. Nothing too spectacular, and they won’t even let you hijack the AA Wraith. Okay, so deal with the vehicles, go through the next tunnel, then get on a Mongoose while your marine fires rockets at incoming enemies. That’s pretty cool. Then, we get a taste of something really epic.

The Scarab makes its way out into the lakebed, and you’ve got to take it down. By shooting it with missiles. From a fixed position. While it waddles around and occasionally shoots at you. Eh. There was an AA wraith in the lakebed, why couldn’t I have used that to take the Scarab down, while marines on mongooses distracted it? Heck, throw some drop pods down filled with infantry to add to the challenge.

Next, take down an AA cannon in the other area. Oh, and some lame Hunters try to attack you. If you picked up a rocket, or four grenades or so… They really aren’t a challenge. Worst hunters since Halo: CE. Alrighty, blow up the Mantis AA cannon, and then watch as an epic part of the game unfolds… in a cutscene. And it doesn’t even last that long. Come on Bungie, why couldn’t I have taken control of the Mantis and fought off Banshees and Phantoms while the UNSC vessels attacked the Forerunner Dreadnought?

Oh, and then we get the obligatory Flood level. It’s not bad, but it feels a little forced. Go backtrack through The Storm level, now called Floodgate, and fight off some Flood. That’s some AotCR/Two Betrayals crap going on there. Make your way through Floodgate to find the crashed Flood vessel, then overload the fusion reactor and cause it to go critical… Wait a minute, that sounds familiar.

Anyways, jump down into the crashed vessel, find Cortana (or just a message from her), who the Elites know of and are looking for… for some reason (I’m still not clear on this.) Oh! Then they decide to drop the Guilty Spark bomb on us. We’ve got an Oracle moment here. Okay, so Guilty Spark and Master Chief catch up on things, long time no see, and then Guilty Spark uses his eye laser to attack a Flood combat form. This alone makes me so angry, because 343 Guilty Spark COULD HAVE HELPED ME during The Library in Halo: CE. What a jerk.

Anyways, Glassing Ex Machina and we forgot all about making the Flood vessel’s fusion reactors go critical whilst the Elites glass Voi.

This concludes part 1.

2

> 2533274991067213;1:
> Hello and welcome to this very opinionated topic. Yes, that’s right, what I’m about to discuss is my opinion, and you diehard Halo 3 fans don’t have to agree with me. Yes, you know who you are. But maybe Halo 3 isn’t the best thing since sliced bread.
>
> Sorry if my introduction is a bit too sarcastic, but I’ve read through the Bungie forums too much to not use the above disclaimer.
>
> And, for the record, my favorite Halo game is Reach… or Combat Evolved… It changes depending on how I’m feeling at the time.
>
> I became a Halo fan in… 2011, so forgive me if some of my points are not entirely accurate for some reason.
>
> Firstly, let’s take a look at the starry night trailer.
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MapTlW80f6Y
>
> Do you get chills whenever you watch it? I certainly do. It’s one of the best Halo trailers out there. It holds so much promise by itself, looks gritty and epic. But then what we got was so… stale.
>
> You start up Halo 3 with Cortana narrating. Okay, cool, that’s fine. Adds some style to the opening. Then, we’ve got the introduction, Arbiter acts like he wants to get shot, you get your flashback to Halo 2, and it’s all set for the start of Halo 3. But Sierra 117 is slow going, not a whole lot of action (besides the Pelicans getting owned) Just your basic forest level. Oh, and the Assault Rifle sounds like a popcorn gun. Nothing really remarkable besides the pretty graphics. Johnson gets taken captive for the second time since Halo 2. By Brutes. Okay, so we’ve got some copy/pasting going on. Nothing too serious. Then, we move on to Crow’s Nest. Now the really epic stuff starts, right? We get an awesome (but too specific to be useful) line from Keyes, and a chilling monologue from the Prophet of Truth. But wait, we’ve got to defend the base. Kill some Covenant, go to another area, kill some more Covenant, rinse, repeat. Oh, and those Brutes pushing at the Ops center? They’re just hanging out, waiting for MC to come kill them… or vice versa, if you’ve played through that area on Legendary.
>
> But, oh, wait, there’s a bomb, in the base, and you end up using the bomb to annihilate a whole bunch of Covenant still inside. This totally isn’t Cairo Station from Halo 2. Nuh uh.
>
> Then we move on through to Tsavo Highway. You’ve got your basic Warthog level, drive through and wreck (or get wrecked by) some Covenant. You’ve got to go through, help some Marines on your way (Halo from CE, anyone?) and then blow up some barriers to make your way to the next level, The Storm. The Storm shows some promise to be really epic, driving through the tunnel towards the level with a whole bunch of 'Hogs, ready to bring the fight to the Covenant, and it’s got variety too. Get out of your 'Hog, clear the way through an area in close quarters, open another tunnel, and drive out into the lakebed to fight some Ghosts, Wraiths, and infantry. Nothing too spectacular, and they won’t even let you hijack the AA Wraith. Okay, so deal with the vehicles, go through the next tunnel, then get on a Mongoose while your marine fires rockets at incoming enemies. That’s pretty cool. Then, we get a taste of something really epic.
>
> The Scarab makes its way out into the lakebed, and you’ve got to take it down. By shooting it with missiles. From a fixed position. While it waddles around and occasionally shoots at you. Eh. There was an AA wraith in the lakebed, why couldn’t I have used that to take the Scarab down, while marines on mongooses distracted it? Heck, throw some drop pods down filled with infantry to add to the challenge.
>
> Next, take down an AA cannon in the other area. Oh, and some lame Hunters try to attack you. If you picked up a rocket, or four grenades or so… They really aren’t a challenge. Worst hunters since Halo: CE. Alrighty, blow up the Mantis AA cannon, and then watch as an epic part of the game unfolds… in a cutscene. And it doesn’t even last that long. Come on Bungie, why couldn’t I have taken control of the Mantis and fought off Banshees and Phantoms while the UNSC vessels attacked the Forerunner Dreadnought?
>
> Oh, and then we get the obligatory Flood level. It’s not bad, but it feels a little forced. Go backtrack through The Storm level, now called Floodgate, and fight off some Flood. That’s some AotCR/Two Betrayals crap going on there. Make your way through Floodgate to find the crashed Flood vessel, then overload the fusion reactor and cause it to go critical… Wait a minute, that sounds familiar.
>
> Anyways, jump down into the crashed vessel, find Cortana (or just a message from her), who the Elites know of and are looking for… for some reason (I’m still not clear on this.) Oh! Then they decide to drop the Guilty Spark bomb on us. We’ve got an Oracle moment here. Okay, so Guilty Spark and Master Chief catch up on things, long time no see, and then Guilty Spark uses his eye laser to attack a Flood combat form. This alone makes me so angry, because 343 Guilty Spark COULD HAVE HELPED ME during The Library in Halo: CE. What a jerk.
>
> Anyways, Glassing Ex Machina and we forgot all about making the Flood vessel’s fusion reactors go critical whilst the Elites glass Voi.
>
> This concludes part 1.

wow, that’s a lot of words

3

Im not sure why im wasting my time to say anything about your post but… halo reach was the begining of the end for halo… i mean sure it had some mildly fun parts… but armor abilities… no equiptment…bloom on ur weapons… no ranking system… NO BR???.. I could go on but I wont…but i could… yes i love h3…no it wasnt perfect… but it was Halo… this garbage that 343 is calling Halo is a joke… and yes i know bungie made reach…but it was obviously made as a transition game for microsoft… I love H1-3…including ODST and Aniv, well Aniv minus the multiplayer… Reach has a relativly fun campaign, some of the game types are cool, and forge world was the best…other than that,.,.,.,., it was trash… This is just my opinion.,.,.,. Every1 knows its all the truth, but an opinion none the less

4

You didn’t attempt to defend any of your statements, you just expect me to accept them because a portion of the community does. In my post, I talked about all of the ways Halo 3 failed to innovate and made past sequences feel stale. Funny thing is, I can play through Halo 1 and Halo 2 over and over and still enjoy the moments that Halo 3 borrowed and altered, yet when I play Halo 3 they feel stale and boring.

“Every1 knows its all the truth, but an opinion none the less”

If I had half a cent every time this was used to justify an argument, regardless of whether it were Halo-related or not, I’d be the wealthiest man in the world.

5

> 2533274991067213;1:
> I became a Halo fan in… 2011, so forgive me if some of my points are not entirely accurate for some reason.

You do realize the game was released way back in 2007, right?
Anyone could pick something up and tear it apart for every little thing they don’t like about it, but why choose a game that’s nearly a decade old?

6

You becoming a Halo fan in 2011 doesn’t really give you any credibility, sorry. For the OG halo fans like myself, you just don’t understand the Hype Halo 3 had! H3 lived up to everything campaign and multiplayer wise. An argument can be made that H3 is the best halo. Halo 3 was the last true halo game, yea Reach was fun but the campaign was so blah, for me at least and the multiplayer didn’t even compare to H3.

7

I know that Halo 3 came out in 2007, yes, but I’m just pointing out that there were things Bungie certainly could have done better, even back then. Halo: CE and Halo 2 were so good, I just expected Halo 3 to be so much better than it was… (please read part 2, contained in another thread)

@MONSTER PROPs: You’re stacking just-so stories on top of yet more just-so stories, just like @my iron fist. You claim there’s an argument that can be made that Halo 3 is the best Halo game, yet you don’t even attempt to make it. Isn’t there anyone willing to pick apart my points and respond to them in a clear, logical, professional fashion? No?

8

But that’s just it. Anyone that actually loves the game won’t even bother trying to make an argument over it at this point. Maybe if you were making these threads when Halo 3 was in it’s prime, or at least when the game was still relevant.
Today, most people are gonna read this and wonder why you’re trapped in the 00’s.
If anything, you could at least be arguing what 343 could be doing better, not Bungie (even though I think 343 is doing a great job with Halo thus far).
Also, why are you even searching for people to argue with?
Why do you think your opinion holds more merit than anyone who’s been playing since launch day?
Why do you even want to argue about opinions? Especially over an 8-year-old game?
It honestly doesn’t make sense to argue over the past.

9

The whole point of this section is to discuss classic Halo titles. I could go ahead and apply the same point about how Halo 3, and the rest of the older games for that matter, aren’t relevant anymore, but that erases the point of this section existing. I wanted to express my opinion on Halo 3 and get either a rebuttal or an agreement of some kind. Also, why would someone who played from launch day hold an opinion with more merit than mine? An opinion is an opinion, one isn’t objectively superior to another.

I also wasn’t trying to argue what Bungie should do better, rather what they should have done. Bungie isn’t even with Microsoft anymore, so there’s no point in arguing over their current path, at least on Waypoint.

If nobody wants to discuss this, though, then that’s fine. Internet debates always stress me out anyway.

10

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The campaign was great, the multiplayer was great, how could it possibly be disappointing? Would have read it all but you know, it was way to long so…