Note: **spoilers**
It was only a year ago since the first trailer of Halo 3 came out and yet it feels like ages since that time.
Today I finally sat down and played it. The story is slow to get going although the great thing about the beginning is that you get reunited with the Sergeant Johnson and the Arbiter. Your are told that you have to save the world and rescue Cortana.
With this out of the way you get down to killing a small covenant army (devoid of elites) to reunite you with the Commander Miranda Keyes and the rest of the humans. From there the story continues with random transitions from Cortana.
As for the weapons the biggest delight to me was that the Assault Rifle (which was a for some reason or another was cut out of Halo 2) is BACK. The greatest in the new weapons that Halo 3 has to offer is the Gravity Hammer (used by Tartarus in Halo 2) which was as good (if not better) as having the energy sword in Halo 2..
For me the most revolutionary part of Halo 3 is its capture tool which allows you to replay your levels from any angle and to save movies or screenshots to your hard drive. This makes it easy to relive your best and worst moments. So expect to see more cinematic red and blue episodes.
The only thing which was disappointing is that the Limited Edition I had was scratched even before I got the disk out of the box. This is due to the inadequate box design. Its quite frustrating that Bungie and Microsoft spent millions testing this game and yet they don't test the box design. But at least I can play my copy - unlike the reported experience of some that is coming out the forums.
Overall my first impressions are good. After I have completely played this game I will definitely write a full review. Stay tuned...
