Xbox 360 Game News, Reviews, and Columns - XboxFocus

Why Halo 3 Underwhelmed

by Steve Wysowski August 21st 2008 2:58 PM CDT23 Comments

Due to a message from one of my readers (in which he derailed my self-proclaimed "Xbox Guy" moniker), I've been playing loads of Halo 3 over the past week. So much Halo 3, that Martin O'Donnell just recently mailed a degree in Halo Fanboyism to my doorstep.

According to the reader in question, I cannot possibly call myself "The Xbox Guy" if I have not even completed the Xbox 360's biggest game: Halo 3. After all, Halo 3 was just about the biggest thing to come from Microsoft since Windows, and to ignore such an important component of the game as large as its campaign would be blasphemy on my part. Nonetheless, as per my usual arrogance and narcissm, I ignored the poor bastard.

Then it struck me: the guy was right. For some particular reason, I could never properly finish Halo 3's campaign. Sure, I played a ton of Halo 3's multiplayer offerings (and loved every second of it), but so did every other Xbox 360 owner who has heard of something called "de internetz". So, in order to live up to the standards of my cognomen, I decided to try another go at the game's campaign, on legendary (imagine trying to swim with no arms while pelicans are nipping at your balls; that's legendary).


The past week I strenuously went into the depths of Halo 3's campaign. After long and exhausting nights of battling Brutes, flood zombies, and the rather perverted attractiveness of Cortana's ass, I came out of Halo 3's campaign with a feeling many hype-induced gamers couldn't have had eleven months prior: underwhelment. That's right Halo fanboys: underwhelment. Meaning I stared at the screen after the final fade-to-white cutscene and said "What the fuck?".

This second proper go-around with Halo 3 reminded me why I could never finish the game in the first place. For all the hype, excitement, leaks, and even arrests that built up Halo 3 prior to its launch; the game's scope simply did not live up to all of our expectations (or to the rest of the game for that matter). It just didn't feel right, and for a game with so much weight carried on its shoulders, it should have overpowered me with wonderment.

So what exactly made Halo 3's campaign so flat, so forgettable, so underwhelming? Here is a little list detailing all of the gripes, problems, and the sheer flagrancies that made Halo 3 what it was.

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The Arbiter wasn't the Arbiter

Whether it was his intricate backstory, deep characterization, Predator-esque design, or just the way he talked: the Arbiter was the best part of Halo 2. While Master Chief can go ahead and be as badass as he pleases, the Arbiter had the depth that we could all care about and root for. He was the all-American mandiblian hero, and I loved him.


Come Halo 3, the Arbiter's plot and purpose in the Halo universe got raped and mutilated. He hardly had any speaking lines, his role in the plot was minimal, and he went against his own, stubborn character by becoming BFFs with his biggest enemy in a matter of seconds (his only reaction to Master Chief putting a bullet to his throat was a snap with his mandible. That's right; he's a giant crab now). Not only that, but the game stripped you entirely of his beloved energy sword in co-op mode, meaning you could not use his signature weapon. Yet, the Arbiter keeps his sword whenever nobody is playing as him. It's as if Bungie thought about throwing us a bone, pondered about it, and then said "Fuck it. It's funnier when we dangle it in their faces."

The way how the Arbiter was handled in Halo 3 was frustrating to me, a gamer that appreciates well-written characters and motivational plots. It was his story that uplifted Halo 2 from the one-note sterility of Master Chief. The Arbiter's considerabley hollow role in Halo 3 was a major reason why the story was less of a motive to push you through the campaign, and more of a reason to put the controller down for a while.

The Co-Op Mode ruined continuity

When news came about that Halo 3's campaign would be getting a four-player co-op option, everyone did a celebratory jerk-off (wait, that wasn't just me was it?). The prospect of being able to play what was supposed to be the most epic game of all time with three of my friends almost mutated me into a Halo fanboy.


Gameplay wise, the campaign's co-op capabilities worked coherently and fluently with most of the Halo's elements. Story wise, it made no damn sense. The two characters added into the game don't even make an appearance in ANY of the game's twenty somewhat cutscenes. You'd figure these two bozos would be important enough to have at least one line of dialogue, figuring they're present in every single second of gameplay. This constant error exceedingly hurt the continuity of the game's plot, and when that same plot holds the balance to the fate of an entire fictional universe, you'd like to take it seriously throughout. I did not want to ask myself "Well, where did these two guys come from?" every cutscene.

The sad thing is, this opened a huge possibility to add two more deep, new-found prioritised, Elites. Instead we essentially received two tools.

Master Chief still was a stale character

I don't hate silent protagonists. My Legend of Zelda underwear would dictate otherwise. The point of silent protagonists is to immerse the gamer into the role of the character, so in essence the player feels as if they are one who is going on some grand adventure, not some pixelated cyborg. While that works well in cases of Link and Samus, it doesn't work at all in the case of Master Chief.


Master Chief often breaks that silent character wall. He has limited, but defiantly present emotions, he does speak to a certain extent, and he has some sort of love/interest/thing with a blue hologram. How are gamers supposed to relate to that? When he does speak, it's often unbelievable, and his emotions are barely noticeable. While this worked for the first two Halo games, which mixed in other plotlines based on far more interesting characters, it didn't work for the chief-centric Halo 3. He came off as empty and hollow; as if all there was beneath his helmet was air. No wonder why he never took his helmet off.

The Cortana Level

The Sultan of Crap. The Peak of Putridity. The Apex of Unbearableness. Hey, let's cut to the chase: it flat-out sucked. It's hard to think of a level or mission so universally hated and disgusted by as Halo 3's "Cortana". Hell, it even gave the character the level was named after a bad reputation.

If I had to think about everything that annoyed me in past Halo games and mix it into a one hour long juncture; it would look somewhat close to the Cortana level in Halo 3 (except it would include Brutes running into walls and Grunts throwing grenades at each other). You had pestilent flood zombies, bland and repetitive level design, pestering pop-ins from the Gravemind, butthole portals (yeah, that wasn't in Halo 1 or 2, but it still sucked), and worst of all: backtracking.


I found no enjoyment whatsoever from the mission in its entirety, and to think that Bungie was so secure with it that they willingly put it into their final product has me a bit worried about their current ability to design games. Hopefully the person who designed the level was either blind or had no hands (and maybe be a little retarded as well). In which case, he deserves a medal for effort.

Elites > Brutes

In my opinion, Elites were downright awesome enemies. They came in all different variations; whether it be by shape, speed, size, ability, class, etc. They were intricate, yet challenging, and while they didn't use as advanced tactics as some of the Brutes did in Halo 3, they were far more interesting and engaging foes than their successors.

Brutes got boring and repititious fast. The only variation true amongst Brutes is the amount of armor they can carry and how stupid they can be. Some are stronger, some are weaker, and some like the movie Rocketman. While they can dazzle you at points, and pull off such tactics as flanking and taking cover, other times they would stand still as you fire at their faces or they end up running dead-on into walls.


Their underbody physics felt unrealistic, and the flippant strategy to defeating them (by stripping them of their armor, then by blasting their frail torso) quickly grew tiresome. The Elites were the classic Halo enemies, and although their change of heart made a great plot device in Halo 2, it negatively affected the game on a gameplay front in Halo 3.

Newer, cooler weapons were under utilized

The Spartan Laser was undoubtedly the coolest new weapon to come out of Halo 3.... but we only got to use it twice in the entire campaign. Once to destroy a group of Brutes, and another to shoot a mini-boss that was about the size of my head (Screw that Guilty Spark thing. I know I'm not the only one who tried to kill it with a rocket launcher).

Weapons like the laser and the gravity hammer clearly were designed for the multiplayer more so than the game's single player. They both felt lacking and misplaced in the campaign, and while they both seem perfect fits for a good boss battle, there was no such thing in Halo 3 (rendering their purpose as moot).


The battle for Earth mainly takes place somewhere else

Going into Halo 3, I expected this final battle for the survival of humanity to ravage our home. I looked forward to fighting on different locations of Earth: whether it be cities, jungles, arctic shelves or whatever. It was one of the main "giv-ins" from the game I longed for prior to its release. The only fighting that actually takes place on Earth occurs at the very beginning of the game (in an overly bland section of the African savannah), and then you get shipped off to the Ark and never see our planet ever again. You know Bungie, you had some solid source material at your disposal with the entire planet. I figured you'd make the most out of it.

Your AI consisted of a bunch of dumbasses

Not only was the Arbiter stripped of his signature depth and characterization; but he was also a complete asstard. Repeatedly he would unthinkingly run into the middle of crossfire and charge with his sword, always dying in the process. He was of no help at all, and more of a distraction to you than anything else.


The same can be said for your band of soldiers that accompanied you. Clearly some form of stupidity virus ravaged all your team-based AI, or maybe Bungie just did a piss-poor job of coding them. What's worse, is that on some vehicle sections you actually had to rely on them to do such things as drive or control machinery. These people can't even walk properly, yet you have to rely on them to do something so critical as steering you to safety. It made the campaign ten times more frustrating than it needed to be (as if the legendary difficulty I was playing on wasn't painful enough).

It just wasn't as epic as we thought it would be

From the overly dramatic E3 2006 revealing, to the action-packed trailer, and even just by the powerful orchestrated score, Halo 3 was hyped as something that was going to be epic. Not just epic; the epitome of the world itself. Something so epic, that we would all forget Star Wars even exsisted for a day (just a day though, let's not go crazy).

Instead, Halo 3 was just a bunch of reconnaissance missions mixed together to make a campaign. Rather than battling in the large-scale, dramatized battles as portrayed in the award-winning "Believe" marketing campaign, we were instead forced to go through what was essentially a bunch of breaking and enterings. For a war that is supposed to hold the fate of all sentient beings in the universe, you'd expect to see bigger battles in space, full-scale land onslaughts on Earth, and major cities and civilians being ravaged by war. Apparently the entire Covenant city-planet got infected by the Flood at one point, killing millions. Too bad the game only mentions such a HUGE plot point for a split-second; as if the destruction of an entire civilization is an afterthought in the Halo universe.

The biggest battles in the game usually consisted of small bands of troops scuffing at each other; whether it be in the middle of nowhere or beneath a giant scarab. Nothing really felt dire or desperate, just Master Chief plowing through a small group of baddies repeatedly. That's not exactly how I imagined humanity's last stand to play out.


While the astoundingly orchestrated score in the background tried to convince me that what I was doing was in fact epic, I still could not escape the feeling of underwhelment by the limited scope of the game's levels. Not until the very last level do you feel like the world/universe is hanging in the balance, which was a feeling I believe we all expected to get the entire game. But even that final mission is eventually sunk by it's own undoing; as you're forced to watch a cutscene finish the game for you. Couldn't I trigger the final Halo's explosion myself? Did I really need movie clip to finish one of the biggest trilogies in gaming history for me?

It's lingering questions like those that caused Halo 3's knees to buckle under the level of hype thrown upon it. This was a game, or a campaign rather, that was supposed to set new barriers in what a single player can be. We didn't exactly want to be blown away by it, but we were told we would be. When you're expecting to be wowed and dazzled by something (regardless if it's Halo 3 or the next Hannah Montana concert), and you don't receive that, you're going to be even more underwhelmed and dissapointed had you went into it with no expectations at all. Now, Halo 3 was still fun. It was solid entertainment, and when played with friends, it was fucking awesome. But it just didn't feel right.

Halo 3 could not excel itself to the level of gaming Microsoft had us believe it would, whether it be through their marketing campaigns or their numerous promises. When the screen went to white, and my journey into Halo 3 had finally ended, a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction came over me. But when you mix in all of its faults and problems, that feeling of bewilderment and awe just wasn't there.

And that's what Halo 3 needed.