Halo 3 vs. COD4

With the modern videogame market becoming almost as big as movies, there have been quite a few "box office hit" games. Two extremely successful ones are Halo 3 and Call of Duty 4, both for the Xbox360. The two are first person shooters, and were exceedingly successful upon release. This, in turn, has sparked a debate over which game is better. Because H3 was a 360 exclusive, we'll just look at the Xbox 360 sales for both games to be fair. Even being on one console, Halo 3 still raked in 170 million in the first day, surpassing Halo 2, which had the previous record of 125 million in 2004. And with Call of Duty 4 selling around 750,000 for the 360 in the first week, you could say these are fair grounds for an argument over which is better. Lets take a look at the hard facts.

Stats

   As of January 3rd, 2008, Microsoft announced Halo 3 has sold over 8.1 million titles. According to VGchartz.com, since August 2nd, COD4 has sold 4.4 million units for the 360 with over 10 million worldwide. So the debate has been heating up, and you can tell. Sometime in July COD4 took first in the most played game on Xboxlive. This spot was later reclaimed by H3 a few weeks later. Halo 3 and COD4 have also been subject to many video game awards. COD4 got about 18 perfect review scores and over 40 game of the year and editors choice awards. But Halo 3 fanboys don't fret, H3 has taken game of the year titles from gametrailers.com, G-Phoria and Time magazine to name some. According to GameRankings.com, Halo 3 has an average rating of 94%, and COD4 scoring just over that, a 94.2%.

Campaign

   A very important aspect of any fps game is the campaign. There are some games with amazing campaigns and horrible multiplayer and vice versa. So we'll start off with the COD4 campaign. There are some mixed opinions about the AI in the game, ranging from "they suck" to "amazing". Sometimes it seems as if every battle is epic and a major pivotal part in the game. A strong point COD4 has is the graphics, with every level looking equally amazing. Some big downsides of the campaign is how short it is, supposedly taking 4-6 hours on normal difficulty. Although COD4 is consistently praised for its realism, sometimes its to accurate to be the most fun it can be. For example, there are times in the campaign that you cant discern an ally from an enemy. If you wait to long to figure it out, they could easily shoot you, but if you shoot on sight, you could fail the mission. Another missing feature is co-op in campaign, which although not in COD4, is seen in Halo 3 with up to four people in one game.

   Halo 3s campaign is nothing short of astounding. With an incredibly rich storyline and a massive bungie fanbase, Halo 3 definitely has some advantages over the competition. Across nine levels of mayhem, the storyline keeps heating up until the very last level to finally end the story begun in Halo 1. Unlike COD4, Halo 3's AI truly are groundbreaking. One bungie worker states "Today, I swear I saw some Grunts do a classic pincer-movement to trap me in a narrow canyon, they nearly had me and it was quite a shock." With the AI responding to everything you do, it almost seems as if they could be real. Not only that, but there is a wide range of weapons and vehicles to take your foes with. Vehicular combat is seamlessly inserted into campaign.

   COD4 offers a solid multiplayer along with the campaign. Features include XP levels and un-lockable achievements/weapons. Another element in the game is creating your own class with your unlocked perks. And don't forget the kill-cam! Although on the first time, its impressive "COD4 essentially plays like a graphically beefed up repeat of COD2 with a horribly shortened story-line." And although gaining perks is quite cool, it also gives an unfair advantage over opponents that don't play as often. There is a wide variety of maps, but they are still really cramped with 32 players, and snipers are just out of the question. Usually if an enemy player gets the jump on you, if you're just a mediocre player then you cant do anything but to try to fight back and eventually just die.

   Halo 3 on the other hand offers many pros, but like COD4, many cons to. Being the exact opposite of what its like in COD4, if someone gets the jump on you and you're a skilled enough player or have a good strategy or whatever, usually you can fight them off. Halo 3 offers a ranking system that's light-years ahead of COD4s. Its not just, the more people you kill, the higher your rank is. It actually ranks you where you should be based on a little bit of everything (deaths, kills, weapons used, methods of killing etc.) and will rank you up when you actually improve. Not when you get luckier than yesterday. A very unique feature in H3 is forge and the appearance editor. Forge is a map editor than can let you change placement, spawn times and just about everything. This is extremely helpful if you want to make a very specific game type. Halo 3 multiplayer offers lots of equipment and a handy saved film system. H3 also has many maps that can fit just about every game you make. COD4 fanboys don't worry, because H3 has its cons to! First of all, many will complain of the "7 year old", racist, annoying (etc.) players on xbox live. While this is true, there are player of this type on COD4 also. Just not as many.

Conclusion

   The decision between which game is better has been a hot topic with fanboys all over the nation. Each game has its pro and cons. Each has their fastpaced multiplayer and each has a good storyline. So I leave it up to you to decide for yourself based on these facts. Does Halo 3 have better weapons, does COD4 have a better ranking system?

You decide.