The secret's out: "Halo 3" is a real blast

If you took the day off school or work or rehab to spend quality time with "Halo 3" (Bungie Studios, rated M, $59.99, Xbox 360), you should have taken two or three days. Not only does it deliver on its massive expectations, but it's one of the few games so well-rendered and thrilling that it's even fun to watch someone else play it.

No advance copies were available for review, but I test-drove the highly anticipated first-person shooter science-fiction adventure for several hours at Bungie Studios' intentionally nondescript headquarters in Kirkland. By "several hours," I mean they had to kick me out at 2 a.m. when the staff wanted to leave and I could barely see anymore. And maybe that's all the review you really need.

If Bungie is treating the game as if it were the Manhattan Project — invited guests continually having to be let into the locked play room got comical fast — they're treating its storyline like "The Crying Game" and asking that details not be spoiled. I can tell you that the Master Chief isn't secretly a chick. Actually, since I didn't have time to play all the way to the end during my test-drive, I can't even tell you that for sure.

Try this: You play as the legendary armored super soldier who blows the living daylights out of evil Covenant aliens that have destroyed Earth, while all sentient life in the universe hangs in the balance. And you've got plenty of new weapons and equipment to get the job done.

A little background: The first one, "Halo: Combat Evolved," put Microsoft's Xbox on the map in 2001 and built a gargantuan following for its well-realized universe and solid action (which I have to say now seems a little repetitive). "Halo 2" raked in a staggering $125 million on its first day of release in 2004, adding online multiplayer action but leaving fans with a storyline many complained was disappointing. To date, the franchise has sold more than 14.8 million units and logged almost a billion multiplayer hours on Xbox Live.

The third and final chapter is only available on the Xbox 360 for now (the others were eventually available for computers), and seems sure to bolster the console's position against Nintendo's gender-crossover hit Wii and Sony's prohibitively expensive PlayStation3. If you've been hanging back and waiting to choose — and frankly, if you're a guy — this may be the game that tips your hand. With its numerous online options — Xbox's strong suit — it seems infinitely playable even after you've fought your way through the single-player campaign.

Visually, the game's a home run, filled with light, shadow, textures and details that make you want to stop and smell the flowers and check out every environment — particularly the jungles. This, of course, will get you killed.

For this outing, the Chief has a frequent ally, The Arbiter, a tough Covenant warrior now on humanity's side. He'll often charge out ahead of you and either draw fire or do some of your dirty work for you.

There are plenty of new weapons and equipment, but the designers have made it so that all the new gear doesn't make the game too easy. Different weapons are suited for different purposes, and since you can't carry many, you'll have to make choices. However, one new ability should please all geeks: You can now fire two guns at once, John Woo style.

A couple of other new weapons include a Brute Gravity Hammer and a flamethrower, both quite satisfying. The former is a big bludgeoning object powerful enough to whack even the baddest enemies into the next time zone, but it's a close-quarters instrument and risky to use unless you sneak up. The latter improves any situation, whether or not it's within a video game.

You'll learn how to use bubble shields and portable energy shields that can block certain types of incoming fire but let you shoot other types of ammo out through them. Tripmines — more or less land mines with magnetic attraction — can ring your own bell if you get careless in a fight. And little gravity lifts can shoot you up a level if you're one of those people who won't take the stairs just one floor.

Now, up to four players can go through the story (or "campaign") mode together. Which you might want to consider if you're a parent faced with not seeing your kid again for weeks.

Up to 16 can compete in online multiplayer mode. I get bored fast — and, it turns out, killed fast among the Bungie folks — with death match and capture-the-flag. But Bungie has done plenty to keep it fresh. In "Infection" mode, players can get zombified. (See: flamethrower. They make everything better.) But foremost is a "Forge" feature that lets you customize levels, games and their environments to an incredible degree, from the whole maps to the vehicles.

Raising the geek ante into the stratosphere, H3 allows players to upload screenshots from their games, and even save the "films" of whole multiplayer games to watch and share online through Xbox Live. And since the films are saved only as data files, they take up a tiny fraction of the space that an actual movie would. They're also controllable as if you're God operating the world with a three-dimensional VCR and any flying camera angle you choose. This is downright awe-inspiring.

Despite what I said at the beginning, this seems a bit creepy and like something the guys in "The 40 Year Old Virgin" would ridicule their pal for doing. But hey, the Bungie boys seem to have thought of everything anyone could possibly want.

My only gripes — and they're minuscule ones: I got stuck at a couple of spots in the game that didn't seem very intuitive, and it was hard to tell what I was supposed to do or where I needed to go. Also, the game tends to autosave in a way that, if you get whacked in a particularly awkward spot, can keep re-spawning you in the same impossible place. For instance, I foolishly tried to go all "Road Warrior" and ram a vehicle through some well-guarded roadblocks, where I was promptly surrounded and ventilated as soon as I climbed out of the vehicle. Then I had to keep starting at the very same place, pinned down like Butch and Sundance in Bolivia.

Although "Halo 3" is rated "M" for mature, it's a pretty soft "M" unlike, say, "Doom 3" or "Resident Evil 4." In fact, it's even cute. The chatter and smack-talk from the waddling little enemy "Grunts" is hilarious. Before you blow 'em away.

Mark Rahner: 206-464-8259 or mrahner@seattletimes.com