I got the game yesterday and I have some quick impressions, spoiler-free no less. I'm a Halo 1 nut so bear in mind, that's how I'm judging the game.
Since selling my Xbox years ago, I got my Halo 1 fix through the PC port. I've grown unaccustomed to playing Halo with a joypad so with Halo 3, it's like starting over. My problem is mostly mistaking buttons, particularly melee and weapon reload but I'm getting better at it.
Some of you may remember my Half Life 2 topic, played on Xbox (360). I was generally not too crazy about the game, but one thing I do miss is the run button while playing Halo 3. Everything else is better left in the Valve series.
Graphically, I have no problem with the game. The cut-scenes are very well made, with the hardware behind them and most specifically, special care and time to do them right, something missing in Halo 1 and particularly 2. I play the game on my LCD monitor at 720p and it is bright and colorful. I really like many of the finer details, like, for example, the snow on Valhalla. I can see some of the aliasing some people complain about, but it seems restricted to some structures against a constrasting backdrop. No biggie for me and certainly nothing as distracting as, say, Ridge Racer 5 on PS2. I do agree faces on characters is messed up; the admiral and Miranda look sick.
The weapons thus far are much better than Halo 2. Because I don't like dual-weilding, I find many of the weapons catering to that option useless so I mostly ignore them. But unlike Halo 2, the weapons you are left with are more than competent. Brute hammer is cool and I haven't even started to stop vehicules and grenades with it. I mostly stick with the Brute Shot, Assault Rifle and Convenant Carbine otherwise.
I do have an issue with the amount of ammo available in Campaign levels. I can understand restricting it to make the player try all weapons on their first playthrough, but in the long-term, this could prove annoying.
I like the support weapons and how you play changes, but the flame-thrower seems useless to me. The rest of these weapons work well.
I wasn't part of the Beta testing of Halo 3 so the first thing I did when I got the game yesterday was to play Forge and go through every single MP map. It was a way to ease me into the joypad controls (without the pressure of AI enemies), see what I missed last spring (and more) and try various weapons and vehicules.
I only got through two campaign levels thus far so no vehicule action for me yet. I wasn't particularly impressed with level 2, but level 1 was cool in many ways. The lush jungle is beautiful, I can see many hidden paths and ways to tackle this level and the way the music was handled in that level ruled. But neither level are really big so the sense of scale Halo 3 is supposed to be about, I haven't seen it yet!
The drones still suck.
I do hope I won't have AI friends with me throughout the
entire game. Taking care of your combat buddies was cool in Halo 1, but going all out and alone was fun too.
I have no real issue with the AI though. Not sure if I can call it smarter, but it doesn't seem dumber.
I do still miss fighting the Elites. And the Brutes, while improved in terms of gameplay from Halo 2 (I still prefer how they generally look in the previous game though), doesn't offer quite the same match fun-wise. And they appear easier to tackle than Elites. Maybe it's because I'm only playing on Heroic, but on Legendary Halo 1, facing 3 or more Elites was daunting, particularly with no vehicules or super weapons.
I do have another issue with voice acting in the game and the changes with voice actors that were made. I don't know how it pans out later, but when you first see Truth, the scene is almost comical. The actor can't match the one in Halo 2, the dialogue's silly and one of the few cut-scenes which doesn't work. I noticed the Arbiter was voiced by someone else, I didn't have a problem with it until he starts chatting with the drones, a another unintended comedic moment. And Miranda, well, she was never a strong-sounding character in Halo 2, but I don't why they changed her if the voice actress is similarly underwhelming. Was Bungie working on a tight budget, as far as that department is concerned?