If I was apprehensive about anything in Halo 3, it was the Flood.

Halo 1 has reached a certain legendary status amongst fans, but even it has a sore spot for many: the Library, where you navigate endless repeating dark corridors with endless hordes of only four enemies to fight: Human Flood combat forms, Elite Flood combat forms, Carrier forms and Infection forms. The level goes on a floor or two longer than it really has to, and only has a few tricks up its sleeve to make it seem fresh.

If Halo is built on a foundation of "thirty seconds of fun" then the Library was built on six helpings of five seconds of fun: shotgun a Flood form in the face, run away, repeat.

Of course, other Flood missions fared much better; they had better unit mixes, more varied terrain and encounters, as well as vehicles. 343 Guilty Spark had atmosphere oozing out of every pore as the Flood gave you the first real scare of the game. Two Betrayals gave you the dark side of Assault on the Control Room as Flood, Covenant and Sentinels took aim at each other and you while you tried to stop Halo from firing.

The Maw mixed it up by varing your objectives a bit, and by allowing you the chance to watch some interesting fights play out. The Flood themselves, though, were interesting to look at, but not so much interact with. When they didn't see you, they gurgled. When they did see you, they charged straight at you, firing whatever they had. If you had superior firepower and room to maneuver, it was no problem. If you had only one of those, or neither, you'd be in a world of hurt, not because the Flood outsmarted you, but because they overwhelmed you with numbers and clogged up your travel lanes with dead bodies. Or even dead Grifs.

Halo 2 added a significant twist to the Flood, but the game could only get so much mileage out of it. Instead of merely giggling with glee as you set off cascading explosions of popcorn Infection Flood, this time around the little devils scurried around more unpredictably, and raised dead Flood from the battlefield to face you once more if you didn't dismember them with a sword or blow them up with a grenade.

Once so raised, though, they were still the same old Flood. Four flavors, and one tactic.

How, then, would Halo 3 handle the Flood? More of the same?

It's tired cliché that you never get a second chance to make a first impression.

Despite rampant accusations of having a story that's derivative pulp, the first half of Halo 3 is not a tired cliché, nor does it need a second chance to make a first impression.

Hearing from a number of reviewers and community members who played through the game in a single sitting under Bungie's purview, I've decided to play no more than two campaign levels a day in order to savor the experience. To get my Halo 3 fix the rest of the day, I watch films of those levels, hunt for skulls, or play around in Forge. I understand why those people wanted to get through the game right away, and why Bungie wanted reviewers to play the whole game. Community members knew they wouldn't be able to go on much longer without someone spoiling the ending for them. Bungie knew it would be best for reviewers to have a complete experience-- at least, the most complete experience you can get from 8-15 hours of a game that probably has as much if not more replayability value as Halo 1 and 2 combined. However, I refuse to be rushed.

This is [allegedly -ed.] the last cutscene in Halo 3. Personally I've only watched it a little bit through just to make sure it wasn't some big prank. I didn't finish because I'm trying to wait till the 25th. Anyway, I thought I would post it.

WARNING: Obviously if this is legit, it contains spoilers! --ed.

I've captured screens from many, but not all, of the individual scenes within the Halo 3 E3 2007 Campaign Trailer. Some contain things of note that have yet to be confirmed, and others show new versions of familiar objects from the Halo universe.

There appear to be three distinct kinds of scenes in the trailer. Straight gameplay footage is recognizable because HUD elements are present, and gameplay is shown either from the first person perspective if on foot, or in third person if using heavy weapons or a vehicle.

Cinematic footage, or footage of scripted events, is usually recognizable because it presents events that do not occur within the scope of gameplay and are not presented from the perspective of the player, and no HUD elements are present.

It is likely that there is a third kind of footage shown within this video: that is actual gameplay events, presented without a HUD and from an arbitrary camera position, using Halo 3's Saved Films feature. When the events shown are actual gameplay mechanics, such as infantry or vehicular combat, but the perspective is even further away from the action than when using a vehicle or heavy weapon, and no HUD elements are present, it is likely this is the kind of footage we're seeing. Rather consistently, Halo cinematics have not included significant amounts of combat, or events that could have been part of actual gameplay, with very few exceptions (the confrontation between Johnson, Keyes, and the Arbiter, for instance).

Click "read more" from the front page for the entire text, which is quite image-heavy.