Halo 3 also comes with one of the only games where the environments look absolutely fantastic. While the game doesn’t rely on graphics, it does its job rather well through great looking water, mountains, valleys, and other forms of scenery. The weapons and characters look great and they are easy to see. The facial expressions of humans like Marines or Sgt. Johnson look pretty mediocre compared to a few other graphical aspects in the game, however,but luckily, you don’t see them that much.

One of the best graphical advantages is the framerate. I’ve played a lot of games via multiplayer and singleplayer, and I have yet to see the framerate drop. Even when playing splitscreen, nothing can hurt the framerate. Loading is quick and easy, as it sometimes loads between levels and in the lobby before a game.

The Halo series has also been praised for its awesome sound effects and music, and Halo 3  is no disappointment. Whether its a SMG or a plasma rifle, the sound effects sound lively and real. You will shiver when you hear the exploding grenade right next to you, or flee in cowardly way as you hear a rocket coming straight at you. As I said before, the voice acting is superb and desrerves a big applause, it sounds not only realistic, but exciting.

Bungie decided to use the same theme again, and I can’t blame them because it’s a great main theme. The theme is actually so popular that Guitar Hero III  has it as downloadable content. The rest of the music is recognizable as well, though Bungie could have added a lot of new tracks, they didn’t. I was a little sad with this, as I have always loved great music on games, but the soundtrack is still distinct and true to the Halo nature.

The controls and gameplay are very similar to the older titles, but you know what the say: "Don’t change what works!".  New features include new weapons like the Brute’s Mauler and Spiker, and equipment mapped to the X button. Equipment is a little "special power" that does something unique to help you out in those close call situations. Examples are the Power Drain, which drains the shields of everyone around it in seconds or the Regenerator, which does the opposite. Equipment are a really cool idea and they help a lot on balancing  the gameplay, and now the "sword guy" isn’t invincible like in Halo 2.

Well, we are finally here, the multiplayer, and everything about it. Halo 3 ’s best part and the only reason millions of people play it. It’s addicting, fun, and has inifinite possibilities. Now with the two add ons, the Theater and Forge, it makes a great experience.

With the Theater, you can easily record your best moments, your funny pics, and any awesome stuff you’ve done. You can save it and then share it with your friends and everyone else. It’s a great addition because you will want to play more to get more awesome videos of yourself killing your friends.  There is nothing quite like sending you friend a video of your amazing grenade stick you had on him across the map, or the time when you used one sniper shot to kill two friends.

The Forge is a wonderful and useful addtion, and one of the most often overlooked pieces to Halo 3. With it, you can actually edit (not make) maps. You can alter your favorite maps and put weapons, walls, anything you want on them. It can be a great deal of fun to make a special map and then play it with a specific gametype. The only drawback is not being able to play it online or publish it, and that you can’t start a map from scratch.

Halo 2 ’s multiplayer experience on Xbox Live completely redefined what it meant to play a console game online. Bungie, in all its wisdom, designed that game’s matchmaking process so elegantly that it entirely streamlined tasks which had formerly been somewhat painstaking (like getting and keeping your friends together for a series of matches, or navigating around for a game with enough room for everyone to join).

For all its grace, though, playing Halo 3 via matchmaking feels clumsy in one important way: it’s not possible to choose a specific game type or map to play on. It’s certainly understandable that Bungie wouldn’t want gamers sticking to the same handful of setups while playing ranked games, but even social matches randomly assign game combinations. There isn’t even a type of people-finder search for like-minded gamers to fill rooms for their own preferred game types, which could have ameliorated the confusion without changing the system up. What this will ultimately mean for gamers is that, if those thirty or so people on your Recent Players list don’t like Infection as much as you do, you’re plain out of luck. Needless to say, it feels almost antiquated for the game to tell the player what they’ll be playing, and it definitely feels out of place in a game known for its advanced approach to internet play.

However, the game is a lot of fun to play, espeically when you are with your friends. Nothing can beat ranking up to Level 50 with your buddies, or going solo and owning everyone in Lone Wolves. The maps are very balanced and even though people may complain about cheap weapons, the game makes it fair by positioning other weapons of similar power near you. The maps are limited, and with downloadable content coming for the second time in April, you’ll have plenty to play in no time. Guardian is perfect for almost any kind of game, and Narrow’s Sniper capabilities are just amazing. You will cry out of joy when you and your buddie win on Team Doubles in The Pit, one of the maps that show weapon placement can be a strong point for Bungie at times.

Sure, Halo 3  has its flaws, but no matter what people may say, it’s a fun, easy to pick up and play experience every gamer must put himself into.

Jc Soto says "Good One, Chief" to Bungie.