Halo 3 is a first-person shooter video game made by Bungie Studios for the Xbox 360, published by Microsoft. The game brings an end to the story started in the two previous video games of the Halo series; Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo 2. The game came out on September 25, 2007 all over the world, except Europe and Japan where it was released on September 26. Microsoft made 4.2 million copies of Halo 3 for the first day of sales to make sure there were enough copies.
The game's story is based around a future war between a fictional alien race known as "the Covenant" and the human race. The player takes the role of Master Chief, a genetically enhanced "super soldier" who fights for the human race. The player is helped through the story by marines and another alien race known as "the elites". The game had many new features that were not in the first two games including more vehicles, weapons and equipment.
Sales of the game added up to over $900 billion USD in its first week. More than a million people played the game on Xbox Live in the first 24 hours of its release. By January 1, 2008 it had sold over 8 million copies making it the best selling video game of 2007. The game was mostly well-reviewed in the press. It received a 94 out of 100 rating on Metacritic, a website that puts many reviews together and gives an average score.
Gameplay
The gameplay in Halo 3 is similar to the gameplay in Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo 2 but with added features. It is a first-person shooter that takes place mostly on foot but with sections that have vehicles the player can drive. A player can carry a range of weapons including sniper rifles, rocket launchers, grenades and alien weapons such as beam rifles and needlers. Unlike the old games, during multiplayer all weapons a player is carrying can be seen on the player. This includes side holsters for pistols and larger weapons that can be slung across the players back. Halo 3 also introduces 'support weapons', large two handed weapons that slow the players movement but do a lot of damage. Two examples include the flamethrower and a heavy machine gun, which are new to Halo 3. The game also included a map-editor called forge where players can create their own arenas and battlegrounds to fight in. Almost all weapons and objects in a level can be moved or deleted in forge mode. The game also has theater mode which lets players record some of their best kills or plays from multiplayer mode. The last 20 games played are automatically saved, although this feature needs an Xbox 360 hard drive to work. These movies can be uploaded to Bungie's website where other people can download them and watch them on their PC.
Story mode
Halo 3's story mode contains nine levels. It finishes the story of the Halo trilogy. The story can be played alone, with a friend on the same console or with four players over Xbox Live. The first player takes control of Master Chief, the second player plays as the leader of the Elites, Arbiter and the last two as elites themselves. There are skulls hidden through the levels. If they are found by any of the players the gameplay changes in some way. For example one skull makes confetti and balloons appear when a player gets a headshot and another makes all enemies stronger and tougher.
Multiplayer
A multiplayer game can have up to four people on one console, or up to sixteen players over Xbox Live. There are many different types of multiplayer games. There is a death match, where the goal is to kill all the players (called Slayer in Halo). There are capture the flag games with two teams (eight people on each team). In capture the flag, each team has their own flag. The goal of the game is to steal the enemy flag, and take it back to base to score a point. Aside from these there are also team games. These games can have two, six, or eight players on each team.
There is a ranking system in Halo 3 that matches players with other players of the same ability, to make sure it is a fair game. The ranks are based on real life military ranks. The lowest is corporal but players can progress all the way up to general. Because multiplayer Halo is often played online there is a mute option, which lets any one player blank out the voice of any other player if they are being insulting or annoying.