Reviews from

in the past


replayed via Master Chief Collection w/ co-op partner MagesticSapling on Heroic, check his review out too!

”...But you had something they didn't. Something no one saw but me. Can you guess? Luck. Was I wrong?”

Even a little over a decade and a half after its 2007 release, there's a grand sense of scale emanating from the package, a feat not many things can be able to behold over, heightened from when HD displays were becoming the norm. Compared to the morphs development of the first Halo went through and the drastic, heavy toll the crew faced for its sequel, 3 felt like a spiritual refresh, a hardened attempt at righting some wrongs with a more relaxed atmosphere and time to put together mechanics and ideas such as Forge in place while keeping the magic of 2 intact, albeit once again not without some wrenches in the mix. Despite events such as key figures like Jason Jones taking sabbatical after conflicts from higher ups, no one had a real sense of where to take the story for a while during the start which led to a different committee doing the outline, and some lingering splinters of group activity, the blemishes of Halo 3 isn’t quite as potent as the ones you’d witness in the prior two entries. Though, all the same, it was pretty clear some like Marty O’Donnell, Joseph Staten, and Jaime Griesemer to name a few were about ready to move on from the brand and hopefully try for something else, which once again you can feel during the title’s closing third where it unfortunately yet understandably had to rush the finalization of Arbiter’s, Keyes’, Johnson’s, Guilty Spark’s, Cortana’s, and Chief’s arcs within the last hour. Still, the fact this is the only major thing I have to complain about in regards to the writing shows I don’t have much friction with the rest of it.

”Tank beats Ghost. Tank beats Hunter. Tank beats everything! Oh man, I could do this all day!”

An important mark with Halo is that, at least during its prime, it was able to cultivate both the nerdy lore-heavy narrative geeks alongside the junkie gung-ho dudebro crowd. I haven’t elaborated much on the multiplayer aspect of the series, mainly cause I don’t exactly play much of it anymore aside from again co-op, but I remember a lot of the maps specifically in 3 thanks to my brothers and brief dabbling of Xbox Live back when I was able to, as well as when it was made available to play on PC thanks to the MCC. Maps such as Sandtrap, Snowbound, High Ground, and Valhalla are about as etched into my brain similar to those who know the back of Dust 2 and Nuketown like the back of their hands. Anyway, I bring it up because the campaign this time around is when it starts to relish in its bombast appeal, bringing everyone in to bust some guts metaphorically or literally. Doesn’t matter if it’s the Red vs. Blue easter egg regarding passwords, or if you intentionally have the IWHBYD Skull on, or taking part in the many, many setpieces, or listening to yet another masterpiece of an OST by previously mentioned Martin O’Donnell and Michael Salvatori, it wants, no encourages you to partake in the vigor and spectacle, to march on and press the fight onward. Dismiss its lulls of action or convexing moments, right around the corner will be something to push you back up on your feet.

They outnumber us three-to-one! Then it is an even fight.

What helps in this regard is the weapon balancing this time around. My experience with shooters has since dwindled over recent years, but even still I’m pretty confident in saying this is likely my favorite set of guns of the genre, at the very least near the apex of its long-spanning history. Old reliables return and receive much needed tuning such as the Needler, armaments that still needed an extra kick received them such as the Plasma Pistol, ones that needed a nerf got hit with the right amount such as the Energy Sword, and don’t even get me started on the new inclusions. The Spiker. The Mauler. The Flamethrower you can pick up in certain situations. Being able to rip apart then use the mounted turrets and newcomer missile pod. Abilities such as shields, flares, and the insanely questionable for campaign radar jammer. The Spike and Incendiary Grenades. Incoming vehicles such as the Hornet, Chopper, and Mongoose. The Spartan Laser. The Gravity Hammer. With the open-ended philosophy being tuned justly at last, and nearly every single level having their own unique quirk to make them stand out amongst one another, it’s such an ease to get into a power trip, plan accordingly and strike back when pushed against the wall, and really, just throw shit together and see what’ll make them tick. Or, to put it more bluntly, “blowing shit up has never felt so good”. Also helps that the movement and checkpoint system are the best they’ve ever been as well, with jumps and the degree in which you’ll be able to carve your assault being all the more tightened as you go along. Time seems to continuously escape me here, as what feels like five hours of fun instead happened in a mere two.

We’ll make it.

The ad campaign was, and truthfully still is, something that’s become a notable attachment of 3’s success. A faux interview between UNSC veterans and other minor adverts to help sell the idea that the struggle of finishing a fight was real. At least several instances exist of either battered soldiers, congratulatory banter between both the humans and a newly made alliance with the Elites, or hostile tension as to what must be done to wrap it all up and start preparing for a fresh future. Though, in a specific case, during Cortana - the level, I mean - the setting of High Charity had become a wreck of rampancy and turmoil. Commonly cited as the low point due to its perplexing layout and, reiterating, persistent onslaught of enemies hurling bullets, other projectiles, or even themselves towards you, it’s ironically something that perhaps pushed this aspect the hardest, at least to some degree; something that was once a high point of a species reduced to rot and decay, as you deal with an onslaught of the returning Flood to retrieve Cortana and finish the fight. A diatribe brokered between a being struggling to accept their demise, and an intelligence struggling to maintain their sanity. Even from this, however, someone was still resisting. Someone was still etching forward despite what the scenery had told them. Someone was, although rather awkwardly and hastefully, able to reaffirm someone’s mentality and stand back up from the scene of it all. The mask of their intention murk, it was him who was still able to keep everyone together even from way back in the initial start.

It’s from this, specifically, where a meek 8-year-old had begun to crystalize an emotion they didn’t quite understand yet: the feeling of a belief.

We ain’t trying to do geometry, we’re trying to play some games

"they best rename that shit to GAYlo 3. that shit mad gay."

The perfect end to the original trilogy of the Halo franchise. Leaves every character and arc with a satisfying conclusion. The level design is vast and unique with each mission (apart from Cortana) being extremely fun to play. Soundtrack gives many callbacks to the original games with remastered tracks and brings many new iconic tracks as well. Graphics are still very good for a game that came out in 2007. Multiplayer is still as good as it always has been with each map and weapon in the sandbox being very fun, unique and complimenting one and another. It does not get much better than this in a video game.


Beaten: Feb 02 2022
Time: 8 Hours
Platform: Xbox Series X (via MCC)



There was a tweet, a few days ago, that said something like “Halo’s whole thing is that it’s got the best gunplay and then every few minutes someone says something that doesn’t make sense but sounds like it came out of the Bible”. I read it on Monday, and it got stuck in my brain as I finished FF8 and An Outcry. This morning, I booted up a playthrough of Halo 3 I’d started at the beginning of the month but dropped when I got way too into FFXIV, and now I can in fact confirm: That is Halo’s whole thing.

It also struck me that the second part of that tweet, the way that the original Halo trilogy is written, might’ve impacted me more than I ever thought? I mean, “someone says something that doesn’t make sense but sounds like it came out of the Bible” is kind of my whole thing with games these days. What that means, at least to me, is specific kind of grandiosity to dialogue. In my favorite games, this serves the tone of the game, adding a sense of poetic uncertainty to every word as it drips out of a character’s mouth. 

In Halo I’m pretty sure the idea was “how can we make this feel more epic”. This isn’t unique to 3 by the way, but 2 and 3 are the games with the largest focus on your enemies, the Covenant and the Flood, which gives them the most speaking roles. The humans in Halo don’t talk this way. Just the biblically-referenced Covenant and the just, large and ancient and near-all knowing Flood.

This “epicness” feels like the base idea behind the game. The music sounds lush and large and rich, the sound effects echo off canyon walls like they’re too big to crack, like the explosions just can’t be contained by your speakers. The levels are generally large too, leaning on battles in open valleys and absurd, outsized scale. Rather than trying to be cinematic in a grounded way, an Oscar-ey way like loads of modern triple A games aim for, Halo just wanted to be big.

That’s most of what I wanted to say I think. I wouldn’t call the writing here great or even all that good in places, but I just don’t care. It works tonally and atmospherically, and the more games I play, the more I realize those are what’s most important to me. 

I will say that I uh, haven’t loved any of the post-Bungie Halo games. As to why, it’s kinda weird to put my finger on. I think the gunplay is just a bit off-feeling? Bungie’s gunplay has this thickness, this heaviness to it, and that heaviness gives me just loads of tactile satisfaction? The Destiny games also have fantastic gunplay imo, though the business aspect of those games makes it tough for me to get into them (I’d love to start Destiny 2 from, like, the beginning? Not allowed tho lmao).

Anyways that’s my disorganized set of Halo thoughts. Halo 3 is loads of fun, just like it was when I was a kid, but now I’m also just in awe of the theming and presentation


Halo's long flirtation with self-importance herein becomes a full blown, pompous, melodramatic nonsense plot in which a one liner spitting joke character ripped off from an 80s action movie dies with the gravitas of a hero of an epic poem. it owns

End of the legendary trilogy.

Halo 3 (the series as a whole) is by far the best game I've ever played and is one of the few pieces of fiction to greatly impact my life. This is Something that I'll never forget for as long as I live with the memories it gave me, the incredibly dark times it helped me through, and the relationships I strengthened through this game. The multiplayer is still unmatched for me, and it had a phenomenal campaign to add on to the God-tier multiplayer. Halo as a series/franchise saved my life, and I couldn't be more grateful. Thank you, Bungie for creating this timeless masterpiece.

Arbiter and Master Chief you have done miracles on me ! !

This is the pinnacle of Halo as far as I am concerned. Singleplayer and multiplayer FPS absolutely perfected. At the time this came out, I had read every Halo novel and had tons of Halo merch and bought the collector's edition which came inside a Master Chief replica helmet. And it still managed to exceed my every expectation!

343 guilty spark is the nagito komaeda of halo

Probably the greatest video game ever made. Hard to describe the 07-09 Xbox Live era if you weren't there but playing multiplayer was a near magical experience. You'd randomly get invited to custom games after matchmaking and end up playing some of the wildest forge maps I've ever seen with a bunch of people you've never met and no game has ever come close to recreating the community feel that Halo 3 had. Perfect video game.

where men were born, and women spent the most money on toilet paper so i could keep shitting on scrubs on the mlg guardian 1v1 playlists

This review contains spoilers

Dun-dun-dun-duuuuun, dun-dun-dun-duuun-dun-dun-dun.........ok I’ll stop.

This game actually reminded a lot of Return of the Jedi, in that although I don’t think it’s overall as good as what came before it, (Empire Strikes Back and Halo 2 respectively) I overall prefer it for the emotional impact, being that’s it’s the big capstone on the first Halo trilogy.

The chief (heh heh) difference between this and Jedi however this is also a video game, and a damn good one at that. This is easily the most fun I’ve had with this series so far solely from a gameplay standpoint, from the standard combat to the more big set pieces like the Scarab fights and the final Warthog run, both of which being my favourite sections if you’re wondering. Also I cannot begin to emphasise how big a Godsend it is to actually be able to melee the Flood, it results in encounters with them being way less cumbersome.

Now as for the story, as mentioned I do think it’s a slight downgrade from 2, but only really when it comes to the villains, more specifically the Prophet of Truth. I know it’s a tired criticism to bring up the inferior new VA or how he’s now reduced to just a raving lunatic, but it’s gotten to that stage for a good reason. Fortunately that’s my only major gripe with the story, otherwise I think it overall fares really well. Seeing Chief and the Arbiter properly team up was awesome and a great culmination of the latter’s arc, the character deaths like Johnson feel earned and satisfying, and you finally get to kill that Guilty Spark prick!

Overall I’m quite pleased with this series so far, and I’m looking forward to hopefully checking out ODST and 4 soon, and of course Infinite whenever that comes out. 10/10

Halo 3 knows what it means to be cinematic. If something blows up or there is a landscape-altering event, you are in it driving/flying/running and always in control of Master Chief. When there is a scene that is not as glamourous and mostly dialogue, only then will the cutscenes take over and elevate the conversation with striking cinematography straight out of a $100000000000000000 blockbuster. Halo 3's atmosphere is heroic. The emphasis placed on sweeping acapella vocals and long strings empower the Chief such that both he and the world feel equally threatening. It balances a borderline patriotic leitmotif with soothing, otherworldly ambiance. It never makes the player feel overpowered by their character or the world. Halo 3 is the epitome of the series. It is immortal. It demonstrates a level of modernism and sincerity in knowing that it is the conclusion to the most important trilogy in gaming history that makes it a warm and inviting experience.

I can’t think of another game that I didn’t own that I was so obsessed with growing up. I remember those incredible trailers, those Neil Blomkamp shorts, the Believe ads, hands down the greatest marketing campaign for any entertainment product ever, nothing comes close. I remember all the machinimas for it online, Go Halo Go, Red vs Blue. And I remember desperately coping with the fact that I couldn’t play it by telling people, and myself, that Uncharted is better, Resistance is better. But they weren’t better. They were fine, they were good, but they weren’t THIS. Halo is once in a lifetime and we’re very likely never going to see anything like it again.

I’ve played pieces of the multiplayer and forge mode at friends’ places over the years, but it’s only now that my brother has a refurbished Xbox 360 that I finally have a chance to play through this game’s campaign myself. And it’s easily one of the greatest shooter campaigns I’ve ever played. It’s epic in scale, open ended, full of unique weapons, enemies, vehicles, varied areas, incredible art direction and it has maybe the comfiest gamefeel of any fps. What I love most about it though is how freeform it all is. The levels are wide open and you decide what weapons, what vehicles to use, what routes to take, how to get over the hurdles the game throws your way. While it has lots of incredible scripted moments, most of this game’s moments happen organically. I was honestly a bit mindblown when I realized the massive Scarabs were organic entities within the level, not just stuck to a railroad like they would be in almost any other game. The AI is also easily the best I’ve ever experienced in a shooter. Enemies will act in character, push up, try to flank you, some will panic and retreat when you take out their leader, others will make a desperate final bull rush when they’re low on health. Allies will push the objective, scavenge enemy weapons when they’re low on ammo, hijack vehicles, and hell I can’t think of another game where I’ve felt so comfortable in the gunner seat with an AI driver. Then there’s the story. It has the resonance of something like the original Star Wars trilogy, in that you take it seriously when you need to, you’re interested in all parties and buy the dire stakes, but there’s always a certain fun loving pulp to everything. Fun loving is how I’d describe everything in this game. It’s so unpretentious across the board and never loses sight of the fact that it’s a video game above all else.

Every part of this game I’ve touched is so lovingly crafted and carefully thought out. It’s everything I want in a shooter, a true AAA masterpiece if ever there was one. I only wish I could’ve been there to be part of the community and the hype while it was in its prime.

Im giving your favorite videogame a 0.5/5 in Backloggd.com if you say Cortana isn't a Vtuber.

Aggressively chugs Mountain Dew

what i believe to be a nearly-perfect game. the levels are all TONS of fun (yeah, even cortana) and the sandbox is bigger than ever with tons of cool new vehicles and weapons added from halo 2's already vast and exciting sandbox. the gameplay feels as good as ever, and the story is super enjoyable (i just wish we saw more shipmaster)

if i had to say ONE bad thing about halo 3's campaign, it'd just be that i wish we had health again, so it could pave the way for a more balanced legendary difficulty, and considering legendary is still eons better than halo 2's and tons of fun, it's hardly a bad thing.

Did an all-nighter with my friend in college to play through the entire campaign on Legendary. Good memory. Great game.

Three games into this franchise and I finally understand why it is beloved by so many. Halo 3 maintains the fantastic soundtrack, gunplay, variety and pacing which made the previous entry so memorable. However, improved level design, enemy design and some surprising emotional beats in the story help elevate this experience. The final levels in this game are sheer bliss and are among the best I’ve experienced in an FPS campaign. Though there is still some room for improvement with the repetitiveness of facing seemingly endless waves of enemies and the lack of engaging bosses. However, this is still an incredibly satisfying conclusion to the original master chief trilogy, excelling both in its gameplay and story.

2007 Ranked
Ranked Shooter Campaign Recommendations
Halo Ranked

I've never loved an in-game weapon as much as I loved the Gravity Hammer in 2007.

they let me pick. did i ever tell you that? choose whichever spartan i wanted. you know me. i did my research. watched as you became the soldier we needed you to be. like the others, you were strong and swift and brave. a natural leader. but you had something they didn't. something no one saw, but me. can you guess? luck. was i wrong?

Amazing game. Though you needed game fuel to play it.


Halo 3 owns. Even 13 years after release this game managed to grab me with such a tight grip that I finished the game in one sitting with a few breaks, and it was a blast.

The semi-tactical sandbox combat envisioned but not fully realised by previous 2 games just finally worked without reservation. Halo 3 is the Halo that suffers the least from the rut of point-and-click midrange hitscan since nearly every weapon is good for something and the balancing is just right. You find close quarters combat and rush attacks to be a viable approach for a lot of situations, and that's something I felt was lacking from previous games. It owes a lot here to revised brutes who succeeds at being the enemy with interesting AI and behavior patterns to play around yet also be massive sacks of meat willing to charge at your position and engage in melee combat.

And Halo 3 didn't only find solid footing in combat, the campaign itself is a rollicking gautlet of great levels. It's varied, it's perfectly paced, level layouts make for intense and fun combat scenarios, venicle sections are always there for a good gameplay reason and they never drag it down. Not only it avoids almost all issues I had with other campaigns, it also managed to blow me away with certain set pieces that weren't just great visual feast, they also provided incredible gameplay scenarios that perfectly complimented game's combat framework. Kudos for pulling off the thing most action games try and fail at.

Sadly it's not all perfect. After peaking in The Covenant mission the game dwindles a bit and hits you with two pretty monotonous (though not bad) levels instead of taking it even further with intensity of encounters. The story has the right tone going on and new allies are fun but plot isn't worth separate discussion. Still I didn't expect a Halo game win me over so much. A new fav.

There will never be a game release like Halo 3 ever again. The entire gaming landscape has evolved so much in over a decade that a single game release could never possibly have the same scale of launch Halo 3 had.

While Halo 3 had a somewhat satisfying campaign mode, everyone will only remember the game for its multiplayer. And at it's peak, it was like nothing else. Yes, there was already a good variety of multiplayer games on PC in '07, but for consoles there was only 1 top game that everyone would gravitate around, and that was Halo 3.

Everyday, turning on the console, logging into Xbox Live and opening your friends list you'd just see an endless amount of those playing it. You probably forgotten when exactly you added most of these people, but you know Halo 3 was the way you met.

Maybe you spent your time in Matchmaking, trying to improve you true skill ranking and got trash talked from people when you end up losing.
Or just joining anyone's open Custom Games lobby to play the classic infection/mini games that have been passed around within the other peoples File Shares.
Or trying to make a new map with Forge to share with others, and who knows, it could be featured on the Bungie Favourites that week or added to one of the different Matchmaking playlists for others to play as well.
Or using Theatre mode to capture those amazing plays you got to put on your File Share so others could see that amazing Overkill with 4 Sniper rounds you got in the Lone Wolves playlist.

So much of Halo 3's design has gone to shape the online multiplayer landscape we have all found ourselves in over the last decade, it's legacy forever implanting itself within the gaming world as a pillar for others to build off of to refine and improve. But I will always come back no matter what.

I'll always remember the friendships I made that are long since gone. The custom game nights where we played the same version of 1 map for over and hour. The number of attempts to create a Forge map only to give up half way through. And my endless fight to improve my online ranking until I hit my own skill ceiling and admitting defeat.

"Finish the Fight" was the tagline that was plastered everywhere for Halo 3 up to release. I thought it was just a 3 worded way to sum up the story but now I know it doesn't mean that. When I 'Finished the Fight'? It was the Fight in my life before I got to play Halo 3. Were it so easy I'd forget this game and move onto the next, like many others.

But I could never do that. Spartans may never die, and all go Missing in Action some day, but Halo 3 will always live on through out time so long as I and many others will stand. Because now this is my Fight, and that's only Finished when I'm no longer standing.

master chef kills a bunch of monkeys

And so, after never getting past that damn mission where you have to go save Cortana when I was a child, I've fully finished Halo 3. No surprise, it's fantastic.

Another strictly campaign review here

Halo 3 does a good job of bringing a modernized Halo 2 to the 7th gen, everything feels renovated though not innovated, which is a tad bit disappointing but it's the finale to a trilogy so what can you expect? I will say I think they should've expanded upon a lot of the ideas they were cooking with in Halo 2, such as the boss fights, those were neat.

weapons such as the pistol, shotgun, and battle rifle feel pretty damn nerfed and not as good as in the previous games, but with new abilities and weapons such as the gravity hammer, it's made up for.

Levels are pretty expertly crafted though some levels play it a bit too safe imo. The campaign is also quite short, so I'm wondering if there was some deadline crunch there honestly. Again I'm not saying these are bad missions some just lack unique ideas. The tank level on the ark is probably my favorite.

I'm a fan of the story and vibes though I would've liked to see a bit more personal story-telling, I think the chief staying a blank-slate works but I think the arbiter should've gotten more lines and just more to do in general, though it is a plus he is now player 2 in coop for immersion, rather than just two chiefs lol.

There's not much else to be said about Halo 3 that hasn't already been said, Halo 1-3 is just untouchable. I would say this is probably the weakest of the trilogy, but that's nothing negative, this is the best trilogy in gaming right here.