The third game in the main Halo series is Halo 3. It is a sci-fi/military-themed first-person shooter, like the rest of the series, emphasizing vehicles and a substantial multiplayer mode in addition to the single-player campaign.
As before, the series’ unique shield system is used, where instead of health, you have a type of force field that loses power as you are assaulted. You don’t need to pick anything up to refill it; only take cover for a few seconds. If you can avoid being attacked, the shield will automatically recharge.
Vehicles have reappeared. These human and alien vehicles can be driven or ridden in by another player or AI. Halo 3 introduces several new vehicles, including the Elephant, a prominent mobile command center, and the Hornet, a human-powered VTOL aircraft. Enemies with good timing can board a car and kick the occupant out.
As previously, you can only have one weapon in your hand (or one in each hand for some of the smaller guns) and one on standby, with both human and alien weaponry accessible. Weapons can be fired or clubbed to land a melee hit. The gravity hammer, a gigantic hammer for one-hit kills in close combat, is one of the new weapons. When utilizing a single weapon, your second trigger fires grenades with a recent spike type in addition to the standard sticky and frag spikes from previous games. Turrets, mounted cannons, have returned with a new missile pod type and the ability to pull them from their moorings and tote them around from a third-person perspective.
There is a new feature called equipment that allows you to obtain things with specific effects, such as a gravity lift, a shield drain field, a shield recharge field, land mines, and a bubble shield that may be penetrated by players but not by gunfire. One piece of equipment can be transported at a time and deployed anywhere.
All of the multiplayer game modes from Halo 2 have returned. This contains classic first-person shooter games such as Slayer (basically Deathmatch), Capture the Flag, assault (reverse ctf), territories, and King of the Hill (parts with a single point). There are other Halo-specific games, such as Oddball, in which you must retain an object for the most significant amount of time, and Juggernaut, in which one player gains special abilities. They are the only ones who can score points. You become the Juggernaut if you kill that player. Two new games have been added: VIP, in which you are tasked with murdering a specific person on the opposing team while protecting your own VIP, and infection, in which humans are infected and brought to the opposing team when murdered. There are also dozens of variations on this theme, such as Crazy King, which is the King of the hill with a moving elevation; mad dash, which is a juggernaut game where the goal is to get to a waypoint rather than kill people, and single-weapon versions of the Slayer. You can create custom game kinds by adjusting weaponry, goals, and player attributes.
Forge, a map editor, supplements this. While it cannot change level geometry, Forge can change object placements. This includes guns, vehicles, power-ups, spawn sites, crates, fusion coils (exploding barrels), and other items. The map editor is a playable game mode, with some players taking on the role of monitor and putting things for their colleagues to use. For example, they can give them a tank or build a barrier and levitate it as a mobile cover.
A lot of new features have also been added to the campaign mode. In co-op, players now control different characters rather than merely the Chief’s identical twin, the player maximum has been increased to four, and it is now playable online. There is a metagame in which you score points in the narrative (used for some of the achievements), and the Halo 2 skulls have been enhanced with a checklist and additional features, such as unlocking extra armor for use in multiplayer and other dialogue featured throughout the game.
The option to customize your appearance has been enhanced from Halo 2 to include not only a more extensive selection of emblems to place on your armor and the ability to select a third color but also different armor types that may be combined and matched, as well as the ability to utilize a female voice.
Another new feature is a theater where you can re-watch games you or others played from the perspective of any player-character, in third-person, or with a free camera. You can store movies for posterity, take screenshots, and edit them for highlight reels or machinima (multiplayer only). This is a multiplayer feature; you can view movies with folks at your online party.
These items (modified maps, custom games, films, and screenshots) can be stored in a new file-sharing function and accessed by other players or any PC connected to the internet.
