Features:

• Expands on the franchise and adds a wealth of technical and gameplay advancements
• Unparalleled first-person shooter experience and the most compelling story of the trilogy
• Builds upon the social multiplayer experience and innovative, evolving, online gameplay of Halo 2
• Loaded with high-definition visuals, enhanced AI, an advanced lighting engine, new weapons, characters, and challenges

Editor Reviews:

Product Description:
Halo 3 is the third game in the Halo Trilogy and the thrilling conclusion to the events begun in Halo: Combat Evolved. Master Chief returns to finish the fight, bringing the epic conflict between the Covenant, the Flood, and the entire human race to a dramatic, pulse-pounding climax. The Covenant occupation of Earth has uncovered a massive and ancient object beneath the African sands - an object whose secrets have yet to be revealed. Earth's forces are battered and beaten. The Master Chief's AI companion Cortana is still trapped in the clutches of the Gravemind - a horrifying Flood intelligence, and a civil war is raging in the heart of the Covenant. It's all been building to this -- a desperate, final war that leads to a soul-shattering climax of epic proportions. Take control of Master Chief to defeat the Covenant and destroy the Flood to prevent the annihilation of the human race.

Amazon.com Product Description:
Adding to Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo 2, the epic saga continues with Halo 3, the amazingly anticipated sequel to the highly successful and critically acclaimed Halo franchise. In this third chapter of the Halo trilogy, Master Chief returns to finish the fight, bringing the epic conflict between the Covenant, the Flood, and the entire human race to a dramatic, pulse-pounding climax.

Get ready. The Chief is back.

HDR lighting, self-shadowing, and more make Halo 3 look and feel realistic. View larger.

Mystery abounds with the return of Cortana. View larger.

Earth is conquered. The Covenant is everywhere. Halo 3 promises to be an epic journey. View larger.

The short presentation was delivered in real-time on the Xbox 360 using the current version of the Halo 3 game engine. That's right, no studio production video, Bungie and Microsoft delivered the real deal: what they showed at the announcement is what gamers will see when they play Halo 3 in 2007. The HDR lighting, self-shadowing, GPU-run particle system and many other effects are rumored to show up in full effect in the final game. Needless to say, the gaming community is salivating.

CJ Cowan, Bungie's director of cinematics discussed one of the most startling moments of the presentation: the return of Cortana. "Given the variety of character and story arcs at the end of Halo 2, we wanted to boil down our announcement to a few key threads. Cortana and the Chief being a galaxy apart is a situation we haven't seen before, and is something that is a powerful component to Halo 3. We are using her transmissions in the demo to give the viewer a few subtle clues to her situation and state of mind, without revealing any specifics we want to save for the game itself."

Graphically, the game closely follows in the tradition of Halo 2, although it has been upgraded to take advantage of the Xbox 360's more prodigious visual abilities. As art direct Marcus Lehto explained, "[The presentation] was intended to be an understated announcement of Halo 3 -- the tone is that of mystery and suspense -- the calm before the storm. I wanted to make sure that we reintroduced the Chief, showed that Earth was thoroughly conquered, with Covenant everywhere, and that there is a glorious, ancient artifact buried under the Earth's crust which will provide Halo 3 with the epic journey which we all want."

Taking full advantage of the power of Xbox 360, Halo 3 expands on everything that has made the franchise great, adding a wealth of technical and gameplay advancements. The game design has evolved with next-generation, high-definition visuals, enhanced A.I., an advanced real-time lighting engine, and, of course, new weapons, characters, and challenges. Halo 3 promises an unparalleled first-person shooter experience and, in the end, the most compelling and engrossing story in the franchise's history. Last, but certainly not least, Halo 3 builds upon the unique social multiplayer experience and innovative, evolving online gameplay of Halo 2. Rest assured, you'll still be able to run with your clan and battle with (or against) your buddies from coast to coast.

Rating : - Mediocre Campaign, Much better online
First of all, I was never a huge Halo fan. Could be for many reasons (I never had an XboX, I don't consider this Science fiction, wasn't good at First person shooters, etc.) In fact I was adamantly against it.

I think I warmed up a bit to it, when I started playing it a bit more and got a feel for it. However, when I got a 360, my friend brought over Halo 3, and showed me online multiplayer. That's what hooked me in. If you like playing online, this is a must buy. Now I didn't buy the legendary edition or anything like that, just spent $25 and bought the regular one used. By far it is one of the games I play the most, strictly for the online play.

What else I like about this is the Forge and Theater. In Forge, you can edit maps to creat new obstacles, and then share them online when playing with a group. Same goes for theater, in which you can go back through past games and take screen shots or video clips of any victories/cool stuff that happened and upload those onto you file share as well. Same goes for game variants. There are a lot of options to vary up the online experience.

There are drawbacks, most of which you have little to no control over. There will be a system lag at times, and you can't really do anything about the other players online. Remember this is the internet, and most people use it to slander others annonymously. For those that talk trash, there are muting options and you have the option to boot a player that is guilty of team killing, although you'll have to assess if it was an accident or not. Pass that, you have to ignore a lot of the small stuff.

All in all, the online play is what makes this game good, not really the story (in my opinion).