30. 2D cutscene backgrounds
Not only are these inconsistent with the rest of the 3D art direction of the Halo series, they don’t show up until the last quarter of the game. What happened? Did the development team run out of time?

31. The devices
With all the hubbub around the mysterious use of the X button before the game launched, we were expecting something as cool as, say, a chainsaw. The central problem with the gravity lift, bubble shield, deployable cover, tripmine, glowing field deployer, robot squirrel, or whatever, is that it’s easier to shoot people than figure out how to use the equipment.

32. Marines climb up the rocks in the first level
It's the first level of Halo 3, before we've even fired the first shot, the rock soundtrack is blasting and we can't wait to turn our first Brute into a big furry rug full of bullet holes. Our squad of marines starts climbing up a small rock embankment, eager to fight for humanity. As we get to the wall to follow them over, we wonder, "Where the hell is the climb button?" If you haven’t figured it out yet, Master Chief has to walk around the cliff while the Marines climb up it. This ingenious bit of level design took five minutes out of the lives of everyone who ever played Halo 3.
 
33. Picking your color
After taking 15 minutes to design our green Spartan with a pink trim and unicorn decal applied to her left arm, we were assigned to the blue team.

Above: Our team in action! That's us holding the rifle

34. The pistol
Oh sweet pistol, how we loved you in Halo 2. Now you can’t fire while zoomed in, and you do damage slower than high cholesterol. Hang on to your MAC5 Assault Rifles, everyone, because in Halo 3 you spawn with a better weapon than this pea-shooter.

35. Ducking under radar
The UNSC can design a suit of armor that will shield you from the absolute zero temperatures of space, falling through the atmosphere and landing on your head in the middle of a jungle, but it can't install a radar system that's advanced enough to detect someone who's ducking ten feet behind you.

36. Cortana and Master Chief are in love
No, it's never explicitly stated, but pay attention anytime they speak to each other, and we're sure you'll agree the writing is pretty much on the wall. Hate to break it to you, Chief, but she’s a computer program, and most of the time she’s about six inches tall. And she lives in your armor. There are a lot of reasons this relationship won’t work out.

37. Downloadable maps
We coughed up 800 Microsoft points for the first Halo 3 Map Pack and got ready to experience the first 36 reason we hate this game as if it were our very first time. Then we played the old standards Construct and Snowbound four time each. Again, There's no way to pick the map you want to play on Xbox Live (see reason number 2).

Mar 28, 2008