2007 was better (Gaming)

by uberfoop , Seattle-ish, Thursday, January 04, 2024, 22:21 (113 days ago) @ cheapLEY

Halo 3 is still the best Halo game, and I honestly don’t even think it’s close.

It's up there.

If I were to rank the games by how easy it would be to argue that the encounter design is the best in the series, Halo 3 would definitely top my list.
It's also very clear that a lot of impressive effort was made tuning the sandbox.

However, I think a lot of that effort happened farther downstream in the design pipeline than it should have, and the solutions couldn't always be perfect. It also grapples with baggage carried from Halo 2, particularly how to deal with regenerating health. (The benefits that ODST had from going back to non-regenerating health are a big part of why I hold it in similar overall regard to Halo 3, even though I think that Halo 3 has largely superior level design.)

I still regard CE as being a step above Halo 3: it's not as impressive in areas like encounter design, but I think the elegant underlying mechanics preclude it from needing to be.