Halo 3, 4 & Wars Microsoft Xbox 360 Game Bundle Xbox 360

Condition: Very Good. Halo 4 has no manual. Click Here for more details

Description

Halo 3

Halo 3 is the third game in the main Halo series. Like the rest of the series, it is a sci-fi/military-themed first-person shooter with an emphasis on vehicles and an extensive multiplayer mode in addition to the single-player campaign.

As before, the series’ signature shield system is used where, rather than health, you have a force field of sorts which loses power as you are attacked. You needn’t pick up anything to refill it, only take cover for several seconds. If you can avoid being attacked, the shield will recharge on its own.

Vehicles are again present. These are human and alien transport which can be driven or ridden in with another player or AI doing the driving. Halo 3 adds numerous new types of vehicles, notably a massive mobile command center called the Elephant and a human VTOL aircraft called the Hornet. Enemies with good timing can board a vehicle, kicking out the occupant.

Also as before, you are limited to one weapon in hand (or one in each hand for some of the smaller guns) and one on back-up with both human and alien weapons available. Weapons can be fired or used to club someone for a melee hit. There are several new weapons, including the gravity hammer, which is a massive hammer for one-hit kills in close combat. When using a single weapon, your second trigger throws grenades, which have a new spike type in addition to the basic sticky and frag ones from previous games. Turrets are back, which are mounted guns with a new missile pod variant and the added ability to rip them off their moorings and carry them around in 3rd person view.

There is a new feature called equipment where you get objects with particular effects, such as a gravity lift, a shield drain field, a shield recharge field, land mines and a bubble shield which can be penetrated by players, but not gunfire. One piece of equipment can be carried at a time and it can be deployed anywhere.

All the multiplayer game types from Halo 2 are back. This includes the standard fps games like slayer (essentially deathmatch), capture the flag, assault (reverse ctf), territories and king of the hill (territories with a single point). There are also Halo-specific games, like oddball, where you must hold an object the longest time and juggernaut, where one player gets specials powers. Only they can score points. If you kill that player, you become the juggernaut. Two new games are added: VIP, where you are tasked with killing a specific player on the other team and must protect your own VIP, and infection, which is a human team vs a zombie team and humans are infected and brought to the other team as they are killed. There are also dozens of variants of these, such as crazy king, which is king of the hill with a moving hill, mad dash which is a juggernaut games where the object is to get to waypoint instead of kill people and single-weapon versions of slayer. You can make your own custom game types by manipulating a a number of variables such as weapons, goals and player stats.

This is augmented by Forge, which is a map editor. While it doesn’t have the ability to change level geometry, Forge can be used to completely change object placements. This is not only weapons and vehicles and power-ups, but spawn points, crates, fusions coils (exploding barrels), etc. The map editor is actually a playable game mode with some players becoming the monitor and placing objects for use by their teammates. They can give give them a tank, for instance, or create a barrier and levitate it along as mobile cover.

The campaign mode contains a number of new features as well. The players now control distinct characters in co-op rather than the Chief just having an identical twin, the player limit has been expanded to four and it is now playable online. There is a metagame where you score points in the campaign (used for some of the achievements) and the skulls from Halo 2have been expanded with a checklist and additional features, such as unlocking extra armor for use in multiplayer and additional dialogue featured throughout the game.

The ability to customize your appearance has been expanded from Halo 2 with not only a longer list of emblems to place on your armor and the ability to pick a third color, but multiple armor variants which can be mixed and matched and the ability to use a female voice.

Other new features include a theater where you can re-watch games you or others played from the viewpoint of any player-character or in third-person or with a free camera. You have the ability to save films for posterity, take screenshots or edit films for highlight reels or machinima (multiplayer only). This is a multiplayer feature, so you can watch films with people in your online party.

All of these things (edited maps, custom games, films and screenshots) can be put in a new file-sharing feature and are accessible to other players or through any PC via the internet.

Halo 4

Halo 4 is a first-person shooter in the Halo franchise and the first entirely new game in the series without the involvement of the original developer Bungie Studios. It is the first title in a trilogy, dubbed the Reclaimer trilogy. The story takes place in a science fiction setting in the year 2557, four years after the events of Halo 3. It marks the return of the surgically enhanced super soldier or “Spartan” Master Chief, John-117, as a playable protagonist for the first time since 2007’s Halo 3, who’d been considered dead or missing in action by Covenant and UNSC forces since the end events of that game.

The game sets the stage for a new story in which Master Chief returns to confront his destiny and face an ancient awakened evil that threatens all life in the universe. The main campaign also heavily explores the relationship between Master Chief and his AI companion, Cortana. Cortana is nearing the end of her life, before devolving into a state called Rampancy in which an AI begins to think itself to death. The campaign features both first-person shooter and driving elements, and can be played either single player or co-cooperatively (either over Xbox Live or split-screen). It features new weapons and an entirely new class of enemy characters called Prometheans. 

The game also features a reach multiplayer experience called Infinity. The centerpiece of this experience is the UNSC Infinity, the largest starship ever built by humanity. The player controls a personalized Spartan IV which, as the player competes in multiplayer sessions, gains experience and unlocks new abilities, armor customizations, and weapons. Play is divided between two modes: Wargames and Spartan Ops. 

War Games is the traditional Halo PVP experience, but couched as training simulations for all the Spartans on board the infinity. In addition to classic modes such as Team Slayer and Capture the Flag, War Games also features some new modes, such as Regicide and Flood.

Spartan Ops is an episodic cooperative campaign which contains ten episodes, in which the player players as their Spartan IV character. Spartan Ops is set 6 months after the end of the campaign and continues the adventures of the Infinity’s Crew. Each episode is released weekly and contains a new cinematic along with 5 new missions to complete. These missions can be completed solo, but are designed to be played cooperatively, again over Xbox Live or split-screen.

Halo Wars

Halo Wars is a prequel to the the Halo trilogy, set 21 years before the events of Halo: Combat Evolved. In this real-time strategy take on Halo, the player leads the UNSC troops from the ship “Spirit of Fire”, as they fight war against the Covenant on the partially destroyed human colony planet Harvest.

Most of the familiar units from the Halo games are featured – on UNSC side, one can find anything from marines to the near-legendary SPARTAN-II super-soldiers, from Warthogs to Scorpion tanks. The ranks of the Covenant are well-represented from lowly Grunts all the way to the most feared Elites, Brutes and even the Prophets, with all the vehicles from Banshees to Wraiths and Scarabs.

The game offers both a single-player campaign and an ability to play through the campaign in co-operative mode. The player-versus-player Skirmish mode, which supports up to 6 players, also lets the players to take the Covenant’s side.