It's a game that requires no introduction. If you've picked up a controller in the past six years, you should at least have some idea who Master Chief is, why you wish he was your older brother, and what sort of structures he keeps landing on and trying to blow up. The third installment is finally here, and it's time to finish the fight. Halo 3.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it...

   Halo 3 picks up right after the massive cliffhanger that was Halo 2 and literally drops the Chief right into the fray. You'll meet up with some old friends right off the bat, including the seemingly indestructible Sergeant Avery Johnson, as well as someone the chief definitely wasn't expecting to be on Earth when he came home - the Arbiter. Though the two soldiers share a shaky moment in the beginning, you soon learn that the Chief and the Arbiter will be fighting side by side in order to finish what they started, and it is immediately apparent that in this chapter help in all forms is both frequently sought and necessary.

   As opposed to previous Halo games, where marines would mostly just shoot a few grunts and then yell obscenities at their bloodied corpses (not that there is anything wrong with that!), the allies in Halo 3 are all about lending a strong hand when you need it most. It's a welcome addition, as the game's battles are truly massive and widespread. That's not at all to say that the game's notorious difficulty has been toned down. Even on Normal mode, you'll face some challenges that require a second or third effort before you finally think through the proper solution. And the marines won't always be there to assist, either. There are a few moments when Johnson pipes in on the radio: "Don't worry, the Chief will handle it," or something to that effect. Great. Thanks. Just what I wanted. I traveled (insert number of light years between Delta Halo and Earth) just to deal with this s@$% again? It's just the kind of thing you want to hear when you are about to deal with a Scarab that wants to send a laser beam up your ass.

Bring your squad with you

Rough it up a little

   Sometimes, you just don't want to play nice with others. Sometimes you just want to bite the fingers off little girls who try to take your candy but never give you any when they have some. And sometimes you just want to join up with 15 of your closest friends - or random anonymous online players - and give your plasma-grenade-throwing arm a workout. Well, multiplayer is back in all its glory, and the matchmaking system that Bungie put in place is fantastic. There are more game types than before, with totally new levels, weaponry, and vehicles added to the mix, providing a solid, extremely fun atmosphere nearly every time you log on. And they didn't skimp on the visuals, either. It's quite normal to hear a recently fragged teammate comment, "Check out the water textures!" as his lifeless Spartan corpse floats down a mellow stream, while rockets explode in the background. It's a true Kodak moment.

   When starting a multiplayer game, you get two main options that will determine which type of players you're up against: social or ranked. Social, as you might imagine, is for more laid back folk (defined in Encyclopedia Insanica as "people who actually get laid on occasion"), and those looking to hang with some friends for an all-night brawl, perhaps. Teams are more likely to stick together, and you'll often find people with a less serious, more humorous approach to the game in this area. Be careful though: by this point, a lot of people have finished the game, and are very apt to talk about their experiences while waiting for a multiplayer match to start. If you haven't beaten the campaign yet, keep the volume control handy in case someone starts blurting out a spoiler or two. Actually, if you haven't finished the campaign yet, what are you waiting for? Stop reading and go finish! I'll wait until you get back. The internet's not going anywhere.

   The ranked playlists allow you to move up the ladder skill-wise in various multiplayer arenas, and are generally for the more serious gamers (i.e. 12-year-olds in their basement with Doritos and Mountain Dew - the Gamer Fuel edition, no less), those looking to prove how much ass they can kick and how well they can do it. One very nice addition about each area, though, is the option to choose your game style. You can stick with all-out slayer modes the entire time if you so choose, but you can also opt for some more team-oriented games or even pairs contests, where you have to rely on your squad to help with the fragging and strategizing. Whatever you're looking to do in the Halo multiplayer universe, odds are you'll find the perfect match when you play on Live.

She looks nice, but how does she handle?

   Overall, this game is gorgeous. The landscapes and lighting in the campaign mode create the perfect ambience that makes you feel like you're controlling a movie. Martin O'Donnell's stellar music is back again, providing the perfect balance of balls-out excitement early on, followed by fear and tension as you progress toward the game's climax. Remember the part from the E3 '06 trailer? Without the music, that part of the game wouldn't be quite so dramatic. And nothing helps gets the blood flowing more than a rocking version of the traditional Halo theme when you're trying to take down a Scarab. (Or driving to work in the morning... or maybe that's just me?) Although some segments of the music feel a little rehashed from Halo 2, you probably won't mind all that much, because it just works. The tone of the story is absolutely spot on, and it's very easy to forget about food, work, girlfriends, midterms, and other such "real world" trifles while absorbed in Bungie's masterpiece. Especially with a real world where the dollar is so weak that 60 bucks doesn't even get you decent oral sex anymore, but will buy you a kick-ass game to help you take out your sexual frustrations.

   The control scheme hasn't changed much from the original Halo, though with two slight exceptions. The first is due to the Xbox 360 controller being different from that of the old Xbox one, meaning there are no black and white buttons. Instead, grenade switching is done with the left bumper (when not double wielding). The second alteration is a bit more drastic, though it doesn't hamper the play very much. The blue X button no longer controls reloading. I'll give you a minute to take that in. Don't worry - it's totally expected that you will mess this up a few times early on. Instead, the right bumper reloads your primary weapon, and - you guessed it - the left bumper does your double wield weapon when utilizing that feature. Of course, there couldn't be an unused button on the controller, so the blue X now controls your deployable weaponry - entirely new pickups such as bubble shields (as made famous by the awesome CG commercial), portable grav lifts, and trip mines. It definitely makes for some interesting new techniques to combat strategy, though I found that I didn't use them very much during the campaign, as I often forgot they were there or didn't know which item I had. You know, kind of like when you go on dates to crowded places.

   As the Brutes are your main enemy in this installment, you'll find some new guns and grenades laying around as well. My personal favorite is the spiker, a dual-wieldable assault-rifle-esque death machine that works a bit like the needler, only with a lot more balls. There's also the spike grenade, which works a bit like the plasma in that it can stick to most surfaces, but tends to have a more frag-like effect when it blows up. I've found it very effective against enemy Ghosts, especially in multiplayer when some idiot is trying to run you over (gotta love the Death from the Grave medal). There are other weapons that don't have the word "spike" in their name, such as the Spartan Laser (no, you can't attach it to the heads of sharks), which is difficult to master but packs a wallop, and some new vehicles as well, both on land and in the air. There's just enough new stuff mixed with the old familiar materiel to keep it both comfortable and exciting throughout story or multiplayer.

Let's see that again!

   "Oh, dude, you should've seen it. I totally stuck a plasma grenade to this guy's foot just as I was falling to my death and then he blew up and I won the game for my team." Now you won't have to rely on your awful storytelling technique to share the glory of your most successful moments. Halo 3 includes a Theater mode which allows you to replay any recent game - campaign or multiplayer - and slow down, pan around, and freeze the best moments. It's a ton of fun to play around with (I can't wait for the nude edition), and you can even upload stills and videos to Bungie's website and then download them to your PC. In fact, each photo you see on this page was grabbed using the in-game theater, just to show a small example of what it can do. So that plasma stuck on the guy's foot can go from one-time glory to desktop background with just a few button pushes and clicks. The only thing I would've liked to see added to this mode was a rewind button; if you just miss the shot, you have to start the entire clip over (or go back to the last section, if watching multiplayer games) and find it again in order to get the perfect screen grab.

Debrief

   Halo 3 is amazing. It's as simple as that. If you're a fan of shooters, great science fiction, multiplayer mayhem online or off, or just plain killing some fools, you're going to love this game. It's got everything is should, and nothing extraneous to hold it back. The campaign mode wraps up the trilogy in perfect fashion (no spoiler, but make sure you watch after the credits!), and the versus modes make for highly entertaining ways to kill some time - and some friends. Get out there and finish the fight. And if you want to go for Legendary on co-op, look up Darthziggy16 and I'll be happy to lend a hand.

       ... Darthziggy