Halo 3 is one of the best games of all time. To me it has no flaws. The campaign was perfection, and it was the pinnacle of console online multiplayer. RIP Halo.

Edit to add, I still play Halo 3 big team battle on MCC regularly. When I say RIP, I mean the future of the franchise.

Finish the Fight.

It was so damn good!

Who knew one of the best games ever designed, with an incredible story and epic soundtrack, that would come to nearly define an entire generation, was a first person shooter?

What a special time for video games. I'm still convinced Halo saved XBox in general.

That being said, Halo 3 was the better game overall play wise but I always thought Reach really showcased the soul of Halo even more. Even if it was a spinoff of sorts. Also biased though as I am a lore nerd and Reach was always the pinnacle in said lore.

I prefer Halo 3 multiplayer, but the Reach campaign might be the best in the series, or at least tied with H3. It is exceptional.

That trailer still gives me goosebumps to this day. The " daa da da da daa" notes have been my notification sound for about 10 years.

That whole ad campaign was a masterclass. They built a hype train and we rode that sucker to outer space.

This is the reason why Xbox dominated that console generation in North America. I think Playstation 3 eventually caught up in sales by the end of the generation (and they were still #1 in EU & Japan), but the 360 & Xbox Live were such a force with Halo 3 and COD MW.

I had forgotten how much marketing was done for Halo 3. The bubble shield reveal was crazy!

I remember being at A&M when Reach launched. The gamestop off of Texas had the midnight release. A couple hundred of us were there. They bought a **** ton of Double Daves pizzas for everyone. The mattress store owner opened up the store and GameStop manager set up 10 tvs and cracked open 10 copies of reach so people could try the multiplayer. It is a fundamental memory in my life

The only midnight release I ever went to was for Halo 3. I was with a friend so the overall experience was fun, but the gamestop was very lame. They were having a Halo 2 MP tournament while we waited, but they were very firm with the rules of "nobody can change the controller configurations". As a guy that plays with inverted sticks, I declined to even play and told the employees their rules were dumb!

I also remember there was this teenager who had a gimpy right hand... he talked crap about how he was going to dominate the tournament. My friend and I were trying to figure out how he even held a controller.

AozorAg said:

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I prefer Halo 3 multiplayer, but the Reach campaign might be the best in the series, or at least tied with H3. It is exceptional.

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It was the first game I played that I felt the darker theme. Not gore or scare jumps but in the hopelessness of it all. Everyone knew what was going to happen before the game was released. It's a pivot point in the lore. The endgame was already set before you turned it on for the first time, you just had to go through the motions of it all.

You have to fight a losing battle in a losing war and watch your team die one by one and all you can hope to do is draw it out and save what you can and buy more time. I finished the very last playable moment and was just left watching the scene as Noble Six made his last stand...

Such a poignant game with epic writing.

Live action trailer was something else too. Again, it hits those notes of hopelessness amid the vast scale of the greater losing war at that point in the timeline.

Agreed.

But that's all dead and gone now. Thanks, 343.

Saxsoon said:

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I remember being at A&M when Reach launched. The gamestop off of Texas had the midnight release. A couple hundred of us were there. They bought a **** ton of Double Daves pizzas for everyone. The mattress store owner opened up the store and GameStop manager set up 10 tvs and cracked open 10 copies of reach so people could try the multiplayer. It is a fundamental memory in my life

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We were there together. I remember people yelling "spoilers" like "Potter Dies!" "Halo takes off his helmet!" "Rosebud was a sled!"

Old midnight release parties like that were amazing!

Halo used to be, at its core, about a military conflict and was rooted allegorically in religion and heroism mythos. Reach was the ultimate tale of sacrifice in the series. Incredibly sad to see that the new devs hate the series' roots.

Waffledynamics said:

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Saxsoon said:

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I remember being at A&M when Reach launched. The gamestop off of Texas had the midnight release. A couple hundred of us were there. They bought a **** ton of Double Daves pizzas for everyone. The mattress store owner opened up the store and GameStop manager set up 10 tvs and cracked open 10 copies of reach so people could try the multiplayer. It is a fundamental memory in my life

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We were there together. I remember people yelling "spoilers" like "Potter Dies!" "Halo takes off his helmet!" "Rosebud was a sled!"

Old midnight release parties like that were amazing!

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Hell yeah