… But Halo 3 is finally completed.

Finish(ed) The Fight

It’s not strictly true that it took over a year.. It took a few nights playing it 4 player over Xbox Live with some friends from a forum I frequent, Boat-Drinks, with fellow blogger, Jen (Halycopter), Daz and Leowyatt. We were led by the battle-hardened Daz who had already completed it, but needed a few of the hidden skulls which he’d missed on a previous run through (there are skulls hidden on every level – these are just Halo’s version of hidden items – but with added gameplay bonuses) and it was an onslaught of action, laughter and at some points, terrible playing skills, but we made it through okay and I must say that it was a fantastic laugh.

Much like Halo 1, a game I never completed on my own, it was muchly enhanced playing it co-operatively, though this time over the Internet rather than playing through it Splitscreen. Halo games have always struck me as rather social games as opposed to intense, action hungry shooters and for that reason it works – they are clearly marmite games with most PC gamers I know hating it as they have only been able to complete it in solo mode where I understand their frustrations.

We collected all the skulls, completed all the levels and then, once completed, went back and got the Vidmaster challenge for completing the last level in 4 players co-op over Xbox Live, on Legendary difficulty, finishing in Ghosts (a vehicle) with the Iron skull active, which meant that should any of the four of us die before reaching a checkpoint, rather than respawning when your teammates are in a safe location as is normally the case with Halo, you all die and return to the previous checkpoint – anyone who’s played Halo 3 will know that on the last level there is one rather tasty battle which took us a good chunk of time to get done – a section where my multiple teamkills with the Shotgun wasn’t the most beneficial action.

The achievement took us 2 hours to get and is worth a staggering ZERO points, but I’m rather proud of it, though sadly despite it unlocking on my console (viewable through my gamertag) it hasn’t unlocked on xbox.com, so I’m hoping that it comes through with the next achievement I unlock.

All in all it’s a great game that I under-appreciated originally and in co-op, just like the first game, it shines. To think you can pick this game up for £10 then I’d recommend it to anyone and everyone if you can get someone to play with – it will go down as one of the great co-operative games of all time alongside titles like Halo, Crackdown and Sven Co-Op for me (the latter of which I hope a massive re-make is made for Half-Life 3).