Halo 3’s multiplayer mode, along with Microsoft’s entire strategy for domination in the console wars, can be summed up in two beautiful words: Endless replayability.

This is a desert island game–assuming you had an HDTV and Internet connection on the island, and didn’t use team chat to send out an SOS. It’s a game that you could easily spend weeks, months, and years perfecting without getting bored. The online matchmaking system ramps up the challenge so smoothly that after you learn the ropes “powning noobs” you’ll be experiencing a much greater difficulty playing against Halo experts.

And there’s no shortage of competition either. By hyping this game as the “biggest entertainment launch in history”, Microsoft brought nearly 3 million Halo 3 players into the fold in the first week. The result is that at any given time you can find between 250,000 to 750,000 people playing Halo multiplayer all over the world, and all of them want to kick your ass.

Halo 3 multiplayer options include slayer (deathmatch), team slayer, oddball, king of the hill, crazy king, capture the flag, and melee weapons only. Variations such as shotty snipers, where every player starts with a super-long range and super-close range weapon, require players to use the maps in different ways. And then there’s vehicles, like the new Mongoose which is useful for little more than making a getaway with the flag, or the Ghost, which is very deadly until it’s stuck with a couple of plasma grenades.

These “standard” multiplayer options are staggering, but it’s the custom games built using the Forge map editor that really gives this mode marathon legs. Bungie will feature some of the best level designs, so don’t be surprised if variations on racing, baseball, and VIP end up becoming popular hits.

Matchmaking uses two different types of scoring–an experience level, which goes up and up at seemingly random times, and a skill level which can go down if you’re not performing well. You are awarded medals and rankings for your experience and skill level, so everyone will be able to tell if you’re an easy target or a seasoned slayer. Plus if you’re really hardcore, you can review videos of every match played online.

It’s easy to buy Halo 3 and completely ignore the single player campaign, just because the multiplayer is so damn good. This makes multiplayer only games like Shadowrun look pathetic in comparison, and Team Fortress 2 and Call of Duty 4 will be hard pressed to match Halo 3’s brand of longevity. Halo 3’s closest comparison might actually be World of Warcraft–a massively multiplayer, mainstream experience that can entertain for years.

It could use more maps (but hey, that’s what downloadable content was made for), and some Xbox Live players need to come pre-muted, but those are literally my only complaints for this landmark achievement of an online console game.

Multiplayer - Reviewed by Andrew Podolsky.

Campaign - Reviewed by Rob Way. (click here to read)

Overall - Rob Way & Andrew Podolsky fight it out…results below.

Tags: Bungie, Halo-3, Master-Chief, multiplayer, Xbox-Live

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