eat. sleep. game.

So because Chuf works at 1up, we hassa a early copy of the Halos. We’re sort of trading off playing it (although Chuf has already beaten it on normal for work) doing campaign and multiplayer. While he plays, I’m beta-ing Hellgate:London (which NDAed like crazy, so I’ll just say if you’re interested in the game already, it’s what you want it to be), which is great when it isn’t crashing my system and requiring a hard reboot.

So what do I think about Halo 3 so far? I like it. A lot. The game is beautiful, and yes, it looks better than the beta. It has wider scope and scale of battles than pretty much any game on any console of its type that I’ve seen previously. There are threats and skirmishes happening everywhere. Grunts, for example, are actually fucking dangerous this time around. They’re good shots, they take more damage, they’re as accurate with grenades as they ever were, and now they’ll go suicide bomber on your ass. They’ll pull out two plasma grenades, activate them, and run toward the Master Chief screaming. Which is awesome, but really annoying as well when you get pasted by a grunt. The game requires a rapid realignment of some of your Halo preconceptions.

The game, so far, is also fairly challenging, although I’ll admit I’m only most of the way through the first level. Complaints about no backstory are warranted, as it starts with you crashing into earth in the craft you were in at the very end of Halo 2. So far though, pacing is good, presentation is great, and really, all I want to do is play more. So I’m going to go do that. And you should be doing the same, come midnight in your respective time zone.