Welcome to another Smeep Review! This time I'm reviewing Halo 3 for the Xbox 360. If you'd like to add anything to the review, please comment on it! Thanks for reading.

Halo 3

-------- GRAPHICS --------
________ 9.5 out of 10 ________

I always start with the Graphics, as you should always start with first impressions.

The Graphics in Halo 3 are very well done. They are extremely polished and incredibly crisp. From the beautiful beaches and sea shores, to the depths of alien structures on to the absolutely amazing fire effects. The only two downsides really, are the people aren't quite as good as the scenery and unfortunately, though expectedly, the graphics are dumbed down ever so slightly in the multiplayer campaign modes.

The lighting is very well done, from the huge explosions of Scarab tanks to the way shooting one plasma rifle lights up the on in your other hand.

A big well done to the team on this.

-------- SOUND --------
________ 7 out of 10 ________

For me, the sounds lacks somewhat in this game. The guns just don't seem to have any power compared to many other games including the previous Halo games and the voice acting in some parts seems downright rushed, despite it being (As far as I know) The same actors from the original games. I think the best example of this is Johnson, who for the most part is fine, but sometimes (Especially of the radio comm) sounds like he can't be bothered.

Other than that though, the high scorers in the sound department are the musical guys who provide a great atmosphere for you to play in. House MD. Fans will appreciate one piece of music that sounds so much like something from House that I'm certain it is from House.

The Aliens sound just as good as they did in the first one, especially the grunts!

-------- STORY --------
________ 9.5 out of 10 ________

Let me explain my high score on this one. I don't actually think the story is all that good in general. Not that much happens, it's linear and expected. However, I still rate it high, because it's a very good conclusion to the Halo trilogy. It ties things up nicely and really hits home with original Halo fans.

The story does what it needs to do and keeps you imersed and gives you the need to finish the game, whilst sticking to the Halo story. Therefor, it gets a high score.

-------- GAME PLAY --------
________ 8 out of 10 ________

The game play is very smooth and very fun.

The controls are intuitive, you use left and right triggers for left and right hands, and left and right bumpers to do alternate things with those hands (reload, grab a different grenade, pick up a different weapon) and the remaining buttons are fairly FPS standard, though the X button allows you to use new tools, which I'll go in to later.

For the most part, Bungie have stuck to the 30 seconds rule. Way back when Halo was released in 2001, the bonus information that eventually came about Halo 1 had a comment stating something along the lines of...

"Great gameplay is all about 30 seconds of fun, and then you repeat it. You throw in a grenade, strart gunning, finish up and repeat. The key is getting that 30 seconds right and the rest should follow"

And to their credit, they have got that 30 seconds right. Running in to a fight is often suicide, especially in the later levels and harder difficulties, but still, you find your self low on Ammo but you've got a grenade or two. You chuck 'em in and deal with the aftermath, collect some new guns and repeat. Sounds simple, but it works.

To add to this, you have new equipment, such as Flares (Flash grenades, essentially), Auto Turrets (A deployable Turret that attacks anything and everything - you included!) Bubble Shields, which create a bubble for you to hide in and deployable Force shields that protect you from one direction. Also, there is a buff tool, which heals you and a de buff tool, which disables enemy shields and drains them.

Vehicles are back with a couple of new additions to the selection. Rather than covering the old vehicles, I'll just go through the new ones. There are plenty of Halo reviews out there for the old ones, as they're pretty much the same.

The Mongoose is a damned fun little quad bike, with enough room for a driver and a gunner on the back. In one scenario in the game, you're driving about with a rocket launcher guy on the back of your mongoose taking down huge alien tanks. Pretty fun. It's fast, agile and is great for barrel rolling on, but you're open and vulnerable.

The new warthog - Basically an APC, you can fit four people in it including the driver and all four can gun. Fairly agile, a lot more stable than a mongoose but slower.

The hornet is a flying craft, that's not as agile as the old Banshee, but can move along any axis at any time. They've messed up the controls a bit on this and could really do with an up and down controls, rather than just having to look up and down. This thing has a machine gun and shoots rockets.

The Chopper, Which is like a motorbike with a plasma rifle on the front, is pretty fun and is good for smashing through enemy vehicles.

There's another covenant vehicle, which I don't recall the name of (please post a comment if you do!) which is like a hovercraft, but with a driver and a gunner seat. It is incredibly well armoured and the turret does some real damage. Great for taking on pretty much anything.

I think that's all the new vehicles...

Which leads me to the bad points. When it comes down to the nitty gritty, despite the shiny new looks and new vehicles to ride, this is just a bog standard shoot. There's nothing innovative about its game play. One of the main features for me is that this game is more like Halo 1. That's how not new it is. It reminds me more of a game from 2001, than it does any new shooter that provides something I've never seen before. This clearly doesn't.

-------- MULTIPLAYER --------
________ 7.5 out of 10 ________

I'm very critical of Halo's multiplayer, I'll be the first to admit it.

But I simply don't find it that entertaining compared to the likes of Ghost Recon, Rainbow Six, Call of Duty.

Mutliplayer is the same as single player, but you fight each other. The general idea is to find the weapon that your best at using and use it to kill the others.

There are death matches (free for all or team based) and objective games where you have to either hold on to a certain object or stay in a certain area, or capture a certain flag and return it to a certain base. That's for certain. Certainly! Sorry...

It turns in to a fest of 'who can get the best weapon first' or seemingly unfair deaths based on who's the host, or closer to the host. I've won my fair share of games, and there have been games where I've one by a mile against the same players. It's fun, but it's nothing new, however the Forge mode allows you to really customise the game. A lot of people claim this as a saving grace, but if you ask me, you could do that on any PC game probably since before quake.

However, the multi player does have one thing going for it. The campaign is available on multi player, and it allows you basically play with up to for people through the campaing mode. Much more fun, you depend on each other and you can have some seriously hillarious or even tense moments.

-------- LONGEVITY --------
________ 7 out of 10 ________

If you're a true Halo multiplayer fan, this game might last you quite a while as you'll enjoy the MP. I find the that the MP side just doesn't hold my attention and so the single player is what I'm basing this on. You'll play through it quite a few times, which is a good thing. Especially with the campaign being MP compatible, but over all it won't last you forever. I'd give this one a month or two.

-------- SUMMARY --------
________ 8 out of 10 ________

This game scores nice and high for me. It's well put together and incredibly polished, however, it still plays like a standard shooter with nothing really new to offer. The term 'More of the same' comes to mind. I'm looking forward to the Halo based RTS game, but I think this should be the last game in the FPS series, otherwise it's going to die off the same way that most games do - because they try to make as much cash as possible, which ruins the games. (Sonic the hedgehog, or the one millionth Ultima Online expansion fore example...) You should get this game, because it is damned good, but it gets no more than an 8 out of ten.

-------- RECOMMENDED PRICE --------
______________ Normal: £30-35, Limited £35-40, Legendary £50+ ______________

I never pay full price for a game if I can help it, if you can find it at these prices, brilliant, but people bought up all the Legendary ones to sell on eBay, so don't hold out and just get the normal one. Or second hand if you can!

-------- EXTRA --------
It's a fun game, you should definitely get it. Thanks for reading, if you spot any mess ups or missing information, let me know. Also, if someone could get me back my Ciao surveys I'd love that - they took them away after I signed up for GFK TV stuff, And I didn't know that was in the terms! :( I even cancelled my GFK TV survey stuff!