Nadia and I beat Halo 3 last night. It is the first game in the series that we completed, never getting more than halfway through the other two games. The story was told in such a way that if you were not familiar with the story in the other two, you would be hopelessly lost in this final chapter. All you really need to know is that humanity is in danger, and you have to shoot a lot of aliens to save it.

DANGURO5 snipes JBug (click to enlarge)

The “Halo 3 Essentials” disc that came packed with the Legendary Edition was really helpful in filling in the blanks. I think I have a decent grasp of the story from beginning to end, but I won’t go into detail here to avoid giving any spoilers. I will say this: the ending given when you complete the Normal difficulty leaves much to be desired, with an obvious and gaping plot hole. I have heard that finishing it on Heroic or Legendary will tell more of the story, so Nad and I will give it another shot soon.

DANGURO5 snipes JBug (click to enlarge)

We’ve enjoyed the multiplayer mode so far. As is true with any LIVE game, it is only as fun as the people you play with. There are so many jackasses on LIVE that it is easy to run into someone that will totally ruin the experience for you. Some will spawn camp, others will exploit game glitches, and still others will scream out racial slurs (these are the worst). Lucikly, we avoided the scum of the internet and played with several good people last night:

• Captain Betty
• catwalk7775
• DANGURO5
• JBug
• littlesoldier02
• original killah
• Ryvul
• ServiceGames

If you come across one of these gamers on LIVE, then you will be in good company.

Edit: We beat it again on Heroic. I’m more satisfied with the ending shown at that level of difficulty. Now we are looking for a third (and perhaps a fourth) to go through the last part of the game on Legendary to see that version of the ending. Any takers?