Thomas Dean

Academic Writing Honors

Mr. Jordan

October 6, 2009

Halo 3 verses Call of Duty 4

To be frank, Bungie and Infinity Ward have done an incredible job completing two

games that have a reputation as the most well-known, entertaining first-person shooter (FPS) on

the Xbox 360 gaming system. Halo 3 is an alien-based shooter that focuses on the events of the

Master Chief, a genetically enhanced, seven foot tall, super soldier. Call of Duty 4 (CoD 4),

however, is a more realistic, down-to-earth war experience. CoD 4 follows an everyday soldier

that is dropped into the middle of a deadly warzone in the Middle East. While CoD 4 fine-tunes

and polishes a recognizable series with fantastic graphics and mind-blowing sound, Halo 3

innovates what is thought about a FPS with competitive multiplayer.

Any person who plays Xbox has heard about the realistic graphics and great sound that

comes from CoD 4. The sound crew at Infinity Ward really pushed the buttons of what the Xbox

360 is capable of. Playing CoD is like playing through a major motion picture! Being put into a

trance by the meticulous and immersive sound, and the beautiful, photorealistic background, I

believed that I was actually put into the movie Black Hawk Down. What really impressed me

about the game is that every high-resolution character in Call of Duty 4 had a shadow! And that

is not to be taken lightly, because literally everything has one. The M16, the tires on the bus

with dead soldiers in it, and even the bullet shells flying out of the gun have been taken into

consideration. The sound in CoD is also an experience. At the main screen of the game, one can

feel the pounding of drums, making one recollect about bloody, frightening disasters.
 Halo 3, on the other hand, cannot keep up with such graphics. Even though Halo does

have finely detailed environments, the realism in CoD just dominates Halo. Halo, instead of

focusing on photorealism, it focused on a bright, cartoonish. When playing multiplayer, every

character and object that is seen is very crisp and developed in a well enough manner. Well

enough that the game could probably be played just for admiring incredible areas and levels, not

paying attention to the story. What Halo lacks in graphics, however, it makes up in the sound

and music. The opening theme is an extremely catchy tune that sends chills down the spine of

any person listening to it. The Gregorian Chanters in the beginning of the song spark fear and

curiosity into the listeners. The music in Halo is so prestigious that it could be considered the

Lord of the Rings, or the Starwars in video games.

While graphics and sound might be one aspect to a game, the multiplayer should be

another facet that should be looked at. Call of Duty 4, disappointedly, is incapable of making as

great a multiplayer experience as the graphics and sound did. Not everything in the game is bad.

For example, there are achievements, customizable weapons, a ranking system, prestige, and

objective games. Achievements are fun because it can give someone interested in multiplayer.

An achievement could be easy like kill 100 people with a certain gun. But it could be as hard as

getting 500 headshots with a sniper rifle. Prestige is when the highest rank is reached; the player

starts over again to keep himself entertained. Flaws that CoD have are that it is way too simple

to kill an enemy, which can, in turn, get boring and repetitive. Also, because only the higher

ranks unlock more powerful weapons, it makes a match less fair, and can give a team with more

ranked players an extremely strong advantage.

Call of Duty 4 might upset some of the people who play it, but Halo never fails to

disappoint. The only people who really don’t like Halo are the people who are not skillful
enough at to play it efficiently! And that is just the thing, because skill is so highly emphasized

in Halo, it has become the most addicting and competitive FPS for the Xbox. It is so much more

difficult to shot someone four times in the head with a battle rifle (BR) in Halo, rather than

holding down the right trigger for one second in order for an enemy to drop to the ground in

CoD. Halo’s matchmaking has become so competitive, that a professional league called Major

League Gaming (MLG) has been based around it. MLG stresses skill with higher weapon

damage and no radar to see oncoming enemies, so teamwork and communication to call out

enemies becomes imperative. Throughout the year, MLG hosts various tournaments, in which

the winners can win $100,000. Another perk in Halo is that the multiplayer maps, for the most

part, are symmetrical, which allows for an even matchup between two teams. Also, every player

starts out with the same weapon no matter what skill, adding to the fairness of the game.

In final analysis, both Halo 3 and Call of Duty 4 are fantastic games, but contrast because

of the competiveness of the games, and the graphics and sound. Even though I personally think

that Halo 3 is a better game for competitive gamers like myself, CoD 4 should not be looked

down upon. Call of Duty 4 is also a great game, but it is not a game for me to enjoy in online

multiplayer. Despite the fact that I enjoy Halo 3, both games should be in any gamer’s Xbox

360 game library.