Just got done with just shy of 24 hours of Halo 3. The midnight launch was much better organised this time - Halo 2 was a nightmare, wheras this time the store opened early to allow people to pre-pay and grab a ticket. I ended up getting there half an hour before launch, and only had to wait about ten minutes after the release time before I secured my legendary edition.
Extras are a bit of a disappointment. The promised 4 discs mysteriously shrank to three, and the content on them isn’t anything that special. The helmet itself, however, is gorgeous. For those who care, mine is #548108. Following the launch, myself and three buddies immediately sat down and played through the entire campaign on Legendary 4 player co-op. I won’t spoil anything except saying that the campaign is much more enjoyable, though I still hate fighting the flood as they’re some of the most tremendously boring adversaries in the game, so the overall experience takes a slight dip when they show up. However it’s still a much better experience than Halo 2 was, and probably edges out Halo as there’s no backtracking through previous levels, and there’s no repetitive geometry a la The Library. The campaign itself feels very tight and polished as well. And the ending is quite satisfactory. That said, playing co-op with four players makes it very easy to finish and we pretty much steamrolled our way through. I think it will be a deeper experience when playing solo.
Multiplayer seems excellent, but I haven’t really had a chance to check it out in depth. Overall, it was very much worth the wait, and pretty much manages to meet expectations, though it falls a little short of its potential.
Did you have any problems with your helmet scratching your discs like a lot of people seemed to have? I wimped out and only got the collector’s edition, but I’m happy with it. I ended up calling one of my mates around and played through it with him, luckily the game seems very replayable so I don’t think it’ll be hard to get my moneys worth out of it.
How on earth did your helmet scratch your discs?
I haven’t watched my extra disks yet, I sat down and played through the first I dunno…5 levels I believe by myself before I went into multiplayer. I’m not so hyped up about the graphics, I think they fell short of what they could have been. While the graphics are better than Halo 2, I just don’t see them being THAT much better than it. Still awesome to look at, got to love watching it in 1080i (or is it p, I can’t remember haha).
It’s true that the graphics don’t compare to Bioshock or Gears of War. However they are a massive step up from Halo 2. Aside from the fact that the resolution is heaps higher, the textures are better (and without pop-in) and the geometry is more complex, the main difference is in the lighting. The way Bungie have used HDR - using the full dynamic range - is stunning. I guess it’s a bit of a technical thing though, you really appreciate it more if you understand what is so significant about it (for starters, HDR is not the same as bloom lighting). Seriously, put Halo 2 alongside Halo 3 and you really will see how good Halo 3 looks.
>>How on earth did your helmet scratch your discs?
I didn’t get the legendary, but Halo 3 has gotten a bit of attention as apparently the discs were coming loose inside packaging and scratching themselves in transit. The reports I’ve seen were vague as to whether it was the Legendary or Collector’s Edition that suffered from it though.
That was the Collector’s Edition. Legendary comes with the disc in a bog-standard plastic case. The problem with the CE is that it was in a tin, and the tin is aluminum and very soft. Give it a bit of an impact on the front and it would buckle and the disc would pop out.
But the bulk of the Australian releases had foam put into them to avoid the problem.
If anything, I have trouble getting my discs out of the case.