According to ESRB, this game contains: Blood and Gore, Mild Language, Violence
Parents, I know you're not going to take the M rating seriously—to quote The Simpsons, denying your children this game is like not letting them watch the moon landing. The gory, blood-soaked moon landing. Please, though, just promise me that you'll take a little time to play it with them so that you can explain the difference between fantasy and reality, and that they shouldn't go around shooting people in real life. Also, don't let them cackle when gunning down cowardly foes running away from them. That isn't one of the fifteen signs that someone is going to be a serial killer or anything, but it certainly doesn't bode well for their ethical development.
Halo fans, sure, you've played this all before, but if you liked it then, there's no reason you won't like it now, especially since it's 50 percent shinier than before.
Multiplayer gamers, your grail has arrived. The simple fact is that this is what most people are going to be playing for the next two years (at least), so if you want to deathmatch online at all, you have no excuse for not buying it. In addition to great gameplay, Halo 3 offers an elaborate replay feature that allows you to recreate matches and film them at any angle or speed (other than rewind, for some reason), then upload the resultant videos and screenshots to the internet. Bungie obviously cares about building a community around Halo, and they're doing a great job of supporting it.
Co-op gamers are also in for a treat, as the game allows players to enjoy the entire campaign with up to three friends. The one drawback is that because the difficulty isn't scaled up for co-op mode, the game is very easy with four competent players, even on the Legendary difficulty setting.
Michael Wincott fans be warned - he does not appear in this game. Halo 2's Prophet of Truth has been replaced by Terrence Stamp, of General Zod fame. I don't know what the explanation for this change is, but it's very disappointing.
Deaf and Hard of Hearing gamers are going to have some problems. While the levels are simple enough in design that just walking forward will generally get players to their next objectives, there are all sorts of gameplay tips conveyed through in-game dialogue, none of which are subtitled. All of the cut-scenes have subtitles, so at least the story will be accessible, but deaf gamers won't hear anything Cortana or the Gravemind have to say, which will make the way the game stops dead to allow them to speak something of a bewildering experience. Sadly, gameplay is affected more than normal—the lack of a decent radar makes hearing all the more important in spotting enemies, and although arrows appear onscreen to tell the player where enemy fire is coming from, on the higher difficulty levels many Covenant weapons are one-shot kills, so the inability to hear the Fuel-Rod gun's distinctive report will likely prove fatal on a number of occasions.
