General Strategy: Weapons, Grenades, Melee, Special Tactics, Teamwork, and Environmental Advantages

Alright, basically, the idea of Halo in Matchmaking is going to be finding your skill level, and then being matching against people the same skill as you as well as a little better and a bit worse. Through these trials, you will advance up the ranks to true enlightenment when you reach level 50 and rule the world along with Bungie. To get there, though, you're going to need to utilize every known advantage installed in the game to make yourself a feared master of the online circus. I am going to make my best efforts to help you do just that in the following lines. Read on, my lord.

Part 1:

General Weapons and Equipment/Map Tactics Tips: To begin with the guide, it is most important to grab one reliable weapon that you know you can handle at least fairly decently and are capable of competing with in heated situations. On the other hand, or in this case your back, you want to try to get some sort of power weapon (that is, everything from shotguns to rocket launchers). This weapons will be your trump card, and you play it when your need is most dire. This is generally the best mindset to have when playing matchmaking seriously and trying to decide what to do in any given situation where your eyes roll across some weapons lying around.
I would generally recommend the Battle Rifle replacing your assault rifle and a sniper or shotty in your secondary slot, but those are simply my preferences. Also, remember that these slots can be exchanged, should be exchanged often. Don't be afriad to drop your sniper for a plasma pistol and overload some poor smuck's shield before you smack him in the face. Being loose with your weapon slots is sometimes the only thing that will save you from certain doom when it seems the entire enemy team wants you dead.
But your weapons can't accomplish every task for you, and therefore you must call upon your last two remaining assets: equipment and grenades. Both are very important for situations where you're being rushed, or where you're trying to flush an enemy out of a hole, both can make these situations very simple if you use your inventory effectively. Grenades should be thrown around corners and into the path of rushing enemies, as well as anytime you know of a hostile presence but don't have visual with it. Adhesive grenades (plasma or spike) are quite useful as last resorts, like when you know you can't make it, but want to take the enemy with you. A master fragger and sticker will be able to hold an entire enemy team at bay for minutes on end, alone, in a camping spot. I'm not terrible at either of those myself, so I know how it works.
If you want to get practice with grenades the best thing you can do is jump in a custom game, or even forge, and find two positions, one for you, one for a friend, and just practice throwing at each other, standing and moving, jumping and ducking, you know, under varying circumstances.
Equipment is that extra life in so many ways, they're infinite. The idea is very basic for each, generators when the enemy has superior weapons or your shields are low, bubble shields for the same thing, flares for ambushes, radar jammers for being sneaky, and trip mines for watching your ass. But the most useful equipment item has more complex uses. The power drainer is perfect for when all you have is a battle rifle, but there are three enemies in front of you and you need them dead, quickly. Just throw it, take aim, and drop each one in succession.

The power drainer makes a small explosion when it goes out, however, making it a useful item to deploy next to some explosive crates, or even on top of objectives, where silly people might be camping. More often that not, drainers are plentiful, so you should use them more freely than most other objects, aside from bubble shields. Make sure that they are working for you in some way, never waste them, basically. The most common thing I find myself doing with them is dropping them just to hold enemies back, like when I'm low on shields, or waiting for an ally to reach me.
One thing to do as quickly as possible, is to learn the flow of each map, find the choke points, the gathering points, the nooses you can close on unsuspecting noobs. Learn the nooks and crannies so you can surprise even veteran opponents and get the upper hand in any combat situation. Although Bungie may not be the best at balancing multiplayer maps, more often than not there will always be some small way in which using certain weapons or items, you can pull tricks in key points on the maps. A good example of what to look for would be the fusion coils at the bottom of the purple lifts on Construct, or the holes in the upper section of the walls around the sword room on the pit. Things like these can come in very handy in tight situations.
There are also certain tricks to using specific weapons that aren't usually what you might think of. Example: When using the sniper, try to get to as flat of ground as possible, as that will make getting headshots a much easier task. Also, remember that the role of a sniper is to provide support, which means that you usually don't want to be within shooting distance of the assault rifle, so back off from your team, try to find secluded, dark, overseeing spots on the map that offer good views of a specific location, or at least glances of large portions of the map.
And when you're in for it big time and you're desperately trying to figure out something that might buy you a little more time in the world of the living, just JUMP! You become much harder to shoot when you're a body flying over someone's head, but you're also much more dangerous if you're a body flying over someone's head shooting slugs at the back and molesting them with grenades. No solution is perfect, and everyone dies, so make sure to watch your videos when you rawk! And when you get rawked!, that way you can determine why you won this, lost that, etc. Critique your playing style, watch a video, play a game, watch a video, play a game, try to correct your mistakes, focusing on what you see as most obvious in why you die so much. Concentrate on fixing each problem individually, and you will see noticeable improvements in your playing. You will get better and better, and soon, people will start to see why you are so good%u2026%u2026 because you read my guide lawlz! Just kidding. Part two coming up soon.

For more supreme strategy, this stuff straight from the creators, go to Bungie Strategy News
and enjoy!

Halo 3
Review
Started Thursday, November 22, 2007
Beat Saturday, November 25, 2007

I can't decide how to go about reviewing such a huge game like Halo 3 in one piece, so I am going to take it in sections, starting with the single player.
Halo 3's singleplayer created a mixed pot of reactions in me. In one way, I feel that it sort of lacked substance, the storyline kind of went kaput, and it was a semi weak finish to the series. In another way, I feel that it actually was impossible for Bungie to live up to everyone's expectations and that for the job they were given, they performed excellently. Not flawlessly, mind you, but there were many times in the campaign where I took a step back from the TV and said "WOW! I remember back when this was the stuff of dreams, but now it's all true!".
They did make a supremely satisfying game.
In The end, it's probably best to leave singleplayer as something really fun to go through a few times (by yourself and with friends), and then just stick to the evolving multiplayer scene. More matchmaking playlists are always in the works, and more maps are on the way as well. The screenshots, exp, ranking, video clips of hilarity and of ownage, and the crazy maps that people have made are enough to keep me around for as long as I have a 360 (until it triple red lights me, of course).
At the time of review, the game has a good healthy selection of playlists for both ranked and unranked, making my complaint about Halo 2 when I would have friends over moot. The types range from your typical slayer and free for all to something new called tactical, where you rely on not dying as opposed to getting kills, and teamwork is highly enforced there, and even a playlist just for those of us who like territories (YAY! That's me, but when I play it I'm very lonely because my friends hate it).
I have found some of the playlists very challenging, and a lot of fun to play, whether with a group of your best friends or alone, and have spent many, many unnecessary hours attempting to raise my level in this or that just one higher, only to plummet from a series of consecutive losses. Bungie may not have had their minds completely applied to the storyline, but they sure know how to do multiplayer. In fact, I would have to say that I'm almost completely happy with multiplayer, enough to call it perfected in its own right, with my only complaint being the balance issues at times (in lone wolves there should not be a gigantic hammer that one player can just knock the rest off the map with!!!).
As long as you have some love for the series, or at least first person shooters with a wealth of options, gameplay modes and types, and endless support and gimmicks, you can't go wrong here. It's really been set up to support communities exceedingly well as well as party play, individual tastes, variety of choice, flexibility, even matching, and god knows how many other things it does. It's not just me, there's a reason 400,000 people are online playing it everyday at any given time.

Sum of All Parts
Rating - 4.5
Name of the Game: Finishing game in an epic series about a space marine killing aliens, original, huh?
A Series of Factions: Lengthy singleplayer, wide variety of missions, superb multiplayer, extreme amount of choices in multiplayer function, endless possibilities with the screenshots, clips, videos, and custom maps, loads and loads of replay value.
Choice of Diversity: Multiplayer character completely customizable, offers nice variety, controls are fairly flexible, skulls mix up singleplayer difficulties to accommodate seasoned veterans looking for a challenge, during gameplay the player NEVER feels constricted or forced to choose any specific weapon/vehicle, etc. many, many choices.
A Factor of Fun: Singleplayer is entertaining to an extent, multiplayer very exciting and fun, at least until you find something that makes you mad, like campers with swords, showing off your custom content is very satisfying as is discovering neat things that other people created, hard work will render results that deliver when you put the extra effort into making quality content, leveling up is kinda addicting, like in an MMO, very flexible game modes.
Contributing Assets: Graphics are top notch, at least for an FPS of this type, sound is crisp and delivers on every level, good gameplay, good replay, plethora of features combined with xbox live makes quite the ultimate party experience, an immense buildup of anticipation has led this game to become the end all of the first person shooters on consoles, combining everything awesome about the first two, leaving 2008 games to pave new paths.