Starting on Sunday December 2nd and running for a week Circuit City will be selling COD4:MW for Xbox 360 for $39.99. If you still don’t own this amazing game, then you don’t know what it’s like to call in airstrike after airstrike and helicopter after helicopter on helpless noobs, and you should buy it to get in on the fun with THX. We generally have 3-5 of us online in COD4 on any given weekday night and up to 9-10 on any weekend night. You won’t find me in Halo 3 as long as there’s a COD4 game available. J-up and get your game on with THX in COD4.

D15AV0W3D over at The Hushed Casket tries to put all three Halo games into perspective, but generally, he thinks Halo 3 corrected a lot of the issues in Halo 2:

Enter H3, the end of the trilogy, and Bungie’s triumphant redemption to the lackluster campaign on H2. Enter more user-customization than ever before. Map Forge, Theatre-mode, and more. It has possibly more bells and whistles than any other console game, ever. But are the multiplayer extras and customization enough to win over the H1 fans? The auto-aim was turned down, but is it enough to make the H1 crowd forget about their beloved scoped pistol?

In my opinion, H3 is better than H2, hands-down. Absolutely no comparison. I think most reading this will agree. The auto-aim was turned down significantly. I played some H2 last night, and after having played H3 for two months, was struck by how strong the auto-aim was. I like this about H3. Less auto-aim requires more skill, and rewards skilled players more than H2.

See THX for the complete text.

Halo has it’s own culture. It has been likened to Star Wars for it’s cult-like following, and market penetration. Whether you’ve been playing it since the first installment, or got swept up somewhere along the way w/ Halo 2, you can agree it’s one of the greatest games ever made.

But which one? All 3 have similarities, and although they have the same name, they are 3 very different games, each with it’s own nuances and nuisances alike.

Pre-H3, everyone seemed divided. H1 or H2. The early adopters of Halo seemed to favor H1 heavily after being subjected to H2’s dual-wielding, turned up auto-aim, and the infiltration of cheaters and screaming, pre-pubescent online players who ruined the experience for everyone.

H2 fans enjoyed the ease of multiplayer gaming over Xbox Live, as opposed to local LANs on H1, or the cumbersome (and unsupported) interface of Xbox Connect. Anyone w/ their mom’s credit card could connect to XBL, but LANs and XBC required more work, and more knowledge.

When comparing H1 and H2, the campaigns do not even need to be mentioned. If you’ve never played H1’s campaign, then you don’t know what you’re missing, and you’ll be satisfied w/ the campaign on H2. If, however, you have played H1’s stellar campaign, well, ’nuff said. Just mark that up as the biggest reason to prefer H1 over H2.

Enter H3, the end of the trilogy, and Bungie’s triumphant redemption to the lackluster campaign on H2. Enter more user-customization than ever before. Map Forge, Theatre-mode, and more. It has possibly more bells and whistles than any other console game, ever. But are the multiplayer extras and customization enough to win over the H1 fans? The auto-aim was turned down, but is it enough to make the H1 crowd forget about their beloved scoped pistol?

In my opinion, H3 is better than H2, hands-down. Absolutely no comparison. I think most reading this will agree. The auto-aim was turned down significantly. I played some H2 last night, and after having played H3 for two months, was struck by how strong the auto-aim was. I like this about H3. Less auto-aim requires more skill, and rewards skilled players more than H2.

Games are generally rated for their gameplay, both single-player and multi-player, their graphics, their music, and their replay value. Various other criteria could also be used, depending on it’s genre. In this case, some additional elements inherent of an FPS would be used, mainly weapons, maps and balance.

H3 wins in the Graphics category, but you have to factor in the platform (Xbox vs. 360), so it is arguable that H1’s graphics were just as good for it’s time. [edit]And, as Midnight pointed out, H2’s graphics were very advanced for the Xbox platform.[/edit]

Music/sound is a tie, in my opinion. It is very similar in all three games.

Single player, it’s hard to tell between H1 and H3. I was just as impressed w/ H3s campaign, but it was more original in H1, so perhaps the first one gets a slight edge here.

Weapons? In my opinion, this is very close between H1 and H3. They toned down H2’s auto-aim. The sword is no longer dominant like it was in H2. The noob combo is all but extinct, in my experience. Dual-wielding is not as strong as it was in H2. This seems to have brought life back to the “Golden Tripod” in H3, that we were so familiar with in H1. Guns, grenades, and melees. But again, perhaps a slight edge to H1, when it was still original. H3 has a greater variety of weapons, but again, the absence of H1’s scoped pistol comes as a great disappointment to H1 lovers.

Perhaps the only area H2 wins in my book is maps. It has the most maps, and some classics that I love, esp. Lockout.

In the end, I can probably give a slight over-all edge to Halo1. Mainly for it’s originality, and replay value. Not for the scoped pistol (I hate that thing, although I finally got decent at it), but for the balance brought by the “Golden Tripod” method.

That being said, H3 is a great game, and a tremendous improvement to the online experience via XBL when compared to H2. I will continue playing it for a long time to come, with the occasional break for games like COD4.