And that's not all, multiple players can actually go into the various levels and play a strange Meta game that is all about scoring the most points. Throughout the game's nine levels you will find a number of hidden skulls. These various skulls will allow you to actually change the way you play the levels. For example, you can turn on a skull that will make all of the enemies harder, or remove the heads up display or make your weapons invisible. Not only will these skulls make the levels more challenging, but they will also act as a multiplier for your scores. The object is to have as many of these skulls on and kill as many enemies as you can, doing so will net you a high score and maybe even an achievement or two.
But there are a lot of people out there that could honestly care less about Halo 3's campaign. These gamers are only interested in the online multiplayer support. Much like Halo 2, this is where the game really shines. If you're one of the millions of gamers who have still been playing Halo 2's online mode long after the game's 2004 release, then you'll feel right at home when starting up Halo 3. For the most part Bungie has taken an "if it ain't broke" approach to their newest game, deciding that the best course of action was to simply add to the game's already amazing online modes.
Pretty much everything you've come to know and love return this time around, including the matchmaking servers, the ranking system, and the various game types. Thankfully Bungie has decided to improve just about every one of these features, giving us one of the best online experiences currently available for any console, not just the Xbox 360. The most obvious addition to this year's game comes in the way of new levels, which are mostly solid entries in the series. While most of the levels look a lot different from those found in the first two Halo games, there are some common themes that seem to link all of the multiplayer levels together.
While some have voiced their concerns about the originality of the new levels, there are some brand new touches that I'm intrigued by. For example, I'm a big fan of the brand new doors that are see-through but have a force field separating the action. These transparent doors add a lot of tactics to the multiplayer, since your enemy can see exactly what you are planning on doing but can't shoot you until you enter the room. I also like that Bungie is experimenting with different textures, such as snow and sand. Not only does the snow look cool as you walk through it, but it also affects the bounce when you throw a grenade. Another interesting addition is the way Bungie has taken out a lot of the invisible walls. Instead of just giving us walls we can't see that won't let us through, if we go too far outside of a level you will probably fall to your death or be shot at by the Guardian's cannons. This allows the multiplayer levels to feel massive, even if you are only fighting in a small area.
Beyond the levels is a brand new ranking system, a second ranking that tracks your entire progress and not just how well you do at one certain matchmaking server. This new ranking is great for those times when you feel you are being matched up with players who are much better than you, even if their server ranking is lower. I'm interested to see how these rankings come into play in the long run of the game; I hope that six months from now people who are just picking up the game will be able to have a fair battle and not have to deal with those gamers who purposely ranked down there character to beat up on neophytes.
The best of the additions has to be the brand new weapons, which feature everything from a Brute hammer to these cool spiker guns that you can dual wield. I'm definitely impressed with the amount of new weapons found on the maps, I think that these new guns will change the overall dynamic of the game once everybody starts to figure out how to use everything for maximum damage. Along with the standard new weapons, you also have these larger weapons that actually take you out of the first-person perspective and turn the game into something of a third-person shooter. These weapons include a completely useless flamethrower, a missile gun and the turret gun we've all used in Halo 2. While these weapons are powerful, they also tend to slow you down and make it almost impossible to dodge. I'm not a huge fan of these weapons, but I'm sure that there are people out there that will figure out how to use them effectively and prove that they really are more useful than I give them credit for.
And that's not even close to all of the new features found in Halo 3. There's one new addition that has the potential to change the way you play the game. I'm of course talking about the brand new items that are scattered around the level. For months Bungie hinted that the "X" button would be used for something brand new, and now that we have the game we learn that the button is used to deploy various items that you find lying around the level. At best these items will affect your gameplay for only a few seconds, but if you use them correctly they should be able to give you the upper hand ... even if it looks like there's no way to survive the attack. These new items include everything from a bubble shield (that deploys a force field that enemies can't shoot through) to a power drainer to a power recharger to an item that actually jams the radar. While you can use these items in the single player mode, it seems clear that this addition is made more for the multiplayer than the campaign mode.
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