Whilst Halo 3 day was dawning a few weeks ago I was sat in a train on my way to London clutching a cup of coffee. Having woken up to mass news coverage not only on the BBC Breakfast news but also in a raft of newspapers sat in the train station WH Smiths, it was fair to say that by the time I’d taken my seat and begun staring out of the window I was pretty much aware that this was the day that Microsoft’s number one system-seller would be unleashed upon the slavering, impatient world. Yet, something inside me didn’t spark. The tingling sense of excitement that I felt strolling into my local videogame store on the Friday of BioShock’s release just wasn’t happening, and by the time I stepped off my ride at Paddington I’d practically forgotten that Halo 3 had been released at all.

Possibly not the most promising way to start a review, I am sure you’ll all agree. I’m also sure you’ve noticed that this review is a good few weeks later than the rest of the internet’s Halo 3 explosion, which is entirely intentional. You see, I have spent many an hour with the game now in both single and multiplayer modes. I wanted time to chew over my thoughts and to give my gut feeling a few weeks to ferment. What follows, then, is my final, considered and knee-jerk clear review. If you must scroll to the bottom of the page and check the score then do so, but give me a chance to explain myself first.

Let’s put the single player campaign under the microscope first. Picking up from the point where the second game rather abruptly left us, you resume the Master Chief’s quest to save mankind from the menace of the Halo rings. The immediate surroundings you find yourself in – a dense, sunny jungle - are packed full of Covenant nasties and pretty much from the get-go you’re plunged straight back into the classic Halo formula of mixing up the gun-blazing antics with hiding and taking time out to allow your energy shield to recharge. For all intents and purposes it is Halo 2, but tweaked ever so slightly with some deployable items such as shields, jump pads and energy draining mines to use when you see fit.

If you liked the last few Halo games then this is obviously great news. In fact, if you enjoyed the previous few Halo games then it’s almost a given that you’ll thoroughly enjoy Halo 3’s campaign. Everything - be it the musical score, the level settings and the enemies - follows a pretty familiar path, never risking too much of a leap away from the formula. Moments of quiet trepidation lead into epic multi-person battles in the most cinematic way imaginable, with nerve-tingling operatic tunes backing your every move. Halo 3 is, as Halo 2 was, FPS Goes To Hollywood.

There is also the option to play through the campaign mode with a buddy on co-op, or should you have three willing partners (not too much of a hassle, I can assure you) go full on four-player through the entire thing. It’s as great as you’d think, with the open nature of some of the game’s areas allowing you to tackle the enemies in a number of different ways, be it bundling into a Warthog and gunning it whilst your mate slews around like French lorry driver or all legging it towards the enemy vehicles and hijacking them when they attack. Things get even more intense on the higher (particularly Legendary) difficulty levels, and as such having four friends to chew the tactical fat with is a superb way to experience the story.

Yet, having played through the game both co-operatively and singularly, watching the end credits roll past left something of a mixed sensation in my brain. As mentioned above there’s plenty of positives to take away from the Halo 3 campaign experience, but there are also a fair few negatives that I just couldn’t ignore.

The main thing that I came away from Halo 3 thinking, as I had with Halo 2, was that I couldn’t actually recall too much of the game itself save a few moments. In co-op mode this is less of an issue as there’re plenty of larks to be had, but playing the game through solo saw most of the storyline and the environments I was in just float on past me without really making an impact. Whereas having finished BioShock and Half Life 2 I could sit back, open a can of beer and reminisce about my favourite moments in each, finishing Halo 3 left me trying to piece together exactly what I had been doing. It just didn’t feel as memorable – as engaging – as other shooters I had played, possibly due to its similarity with its predecessors. Given the hype that the game had come with and the emphasis that it would epically complete the trilogy, I couldn’t help but feel disappointed.

The second issue that bothered me was the difficulty curve, which jumps around like an electrocardiograph (unless you’re flat lining, obviously). On easier difficulty levels this isn’t so much of an issue, but ramping up the challenge saw some sections become vastly easier than others, whilst selected portions became virtual death traps. This problem is nowhere more apparent than when you suddenly realise that the last boss – the one that has taken you three games to reach and engage – is actually easier to defeat than practically any of the normal enemies throughout the game, leaving you with a distinct ‘is that it?’ feeling. In fact, the first time I played through it was so startlingly easy that I spent the last vehicular portion of the game trying to convince myself it couldn’t have been the last battle.

As you’ve no doubt seen and read for yourselves, Halo 3 isn’t exactly pushing the graphical boundaries either. It runs smoothly, sure, and the lighting effect when you emerge from a dark tunnel is eye-narrowingly authentic, but for the most part you would swear that you were playing a – yes, you guessed it – slightly polished version of Halo 2. By now there’s been plenty of debate on Bungie’s admission that the game doesn’t run at 720p but at 640p instead, so I will avoid flogging the dead donkey here. Suffice to say, graphically the game isn’t exactly ugly and yes, Bungie did have a load of things going on all over the screen at the same time, but it’s still all rather underwhelming.

If it had just been the single player campaign alone, Halo 3 would have completely fallen short of its own lofty aspirations. We all know hype in this business is a double-edged sword and that it can cast an unfair shadow on what is actually a pretty reasonable game, but in Halo 3’s case you can’t help but feel disappointed when it comes to the solo stuff. This wasn’t meant to be a ‘good game’, or even a ‘great game’; this was supposed to be ‘the’ game. As it is, Master Chief’s tale doesn’t complete with a bang or a whimper; it merely carries on through to its conclusion as you’d have expected it to. It’s good, but it’s not great. It’s enjoyable, but it’s not remarkable.

Then we have the multiplayer section of the package, which is hard to fault at all. As we already saw glimpses of in this Spring’s beta test, things are a little hectic to say the least. With up to sixteen people legging it around the levels popping caps in each other, getting used to the new maps and new deployable items is a must if you’re going to become an uber Halo 3 legend.

Those worried that the introduction of the deployable items would somehow affect the beautiful balance of Halo battling need worry no more. Said items merely add a tactical skin on the onion, allowing veterans and newcomers alike the chance to do various things to help themselves. Whilst seasoned Halo players will no doubt realise quicker than others how to use some of the items to their advantage – grav lifts give you excellent opportunities to reach sneaky sniping points, the bubble shield is excellent to prevent sudden ambushes from all angles – the same opportunities are available to everyone, and pretty soon you’ll pick up there dos and don’ts appropriate for each map.

This has as much to do with the map design as it does the items themselves. Going back to old favourites from the beta such as High Ground and Snowbound feels like walking into your parents house after a tough term at Uni and kicking back to watch some TV – both are excellent for both sniping and close-quarter combat, leading to all sorts of larks. For those who enjoy more quieter, smaller battles, Narrows and Epitath offer great environments for the very welcome four-player splitscreen mode to be put to best use, whilst those who love massive multi-person wars will no doubt get their fill at Last Resort, which is a remake of one of Halo 2’s levels and is ideal for annoying sniper types like me.

It’s easy to see why Halo 2 was the most popular Live title for a good few years, and it’s equally easy to see why Halo 3 is going to take that mantle. Everything’s been catered for, be it muting annoying players (and there are plenty, believe me) with the press of a button, the massively user-friendly lobby system that finds a game for you to play almost immediately. Be it partaking in tactical team skirmishes or rather messy all-for-one death matches, it’s highly addictive and hugely enjoyable. Given the total of eleven maps and countless match types and combinations, this’ll last every bit as long as Halo 2’s multiplayer experience. The added bonus of stat tracking via Bungie’s website just piles an extra cherry on top.

Hence, it’s something that no doubt ups Halo 3’s value as a package. Elsewhere there’s a fabulous movie option that allows you to analyse your performance in single and multiplayer antics from a third-person perspective and zoom, pan and focus on different combatants throughout your levels and battles. You can also save your favourite clips and capture epic screenshots to post and share throughout the community and online, which is something that should hopefully become a common feature in games from now on.

Scoring Halo 3, though, is a tricky matter. As I sit here I am hovering between an eight and a nine, and to be honest I could justify going for either. For all the disappointment I felt during the single player mode, I can’t help but be impressed and continue to enjoy the multiplayer aspect. As a solo experience it doesn’t match up to the thrills and spills of BioShock by quite a margain, but it has the added – and excellent – bonus of a superb multiplayer mode. Thus, I score this game with a proviso. If you’re going into this wanting a superb solo experience and you couldn’t give two hoots about the multiplayer side of things (and there are those of you) then you can knock a point off the score quite easily. For anyone else, feel free to take the score as read. Halo 3 isn’t the be-all and end-all of single player games; it’s just a good one with a number of flaws. For value for money though, and for all the multiplayer fun it’ll provide long after we all forget how Master Chief’s tale ended, you can’t help but appreciate what it does.