The wait is finally over, September 25th has come and gone and the juggernaut that is Halo 3 has been unleashed. In this third installment of Bungie Studios' Halo series, it finishes the fight that was started back in 2001 and goes out with a bang.

The story picks up almost immediately where Halo 2's story was so abruptly cut off. Master Chief, after stowing aboard the prophet Truth's escape ship, crash lands on Earth's surface where he is discovered near dead by Sergeant Johnson and his squad. The action starts here as you shoot your way through waves of Grunts, Brutes and whatever else is left of the covenant forces, in traditional Halo fashion.

The campaign consists of 9 levels, considerably less than previous installments but in Halo 3, it's all about quality and not quantity. The repetitiveness of Halo 2's campaign is nowhere to be found and not once in Halo 3 will you find yourself running through the same hallway over and over again and killing the same enemies in the same way. The level design is unique and there is something different awaiting you around every corner.

Toughing out the brute invasion is fun enough on its own, but if you add another friend or three into the mix, it takes the enjoyment of the campaign to a whole new level. Whether you are playing locally or over Xbox LIVE, you can round up three of your mates and go into some four player co-op action where you can turn on some skulls to up the difficulty, participate in the meta-game to compete with your friends at the same time as helping them or just blast your way through the very intelligent A.I on the Legendary difficulty.

Halo 2's graphics were amazing for its time and Halo 3 doesn't fail to impress. The visuals during gameplay, while not the 360's best, are fantastic and Bungie has used the 360's power to deliver incredible lighting and water effects. Graphics are of course an important element of a game but another important aspect is the audio. Marty O'Donnell, as usual, has put together a spectacular soundtrack that compliments Halo 3 and adds depth and class to its already great playing experience.

While campaign is a great experience, multiplayer is where Halo 3 really shines. Halo 2 came close to perfecting the multiplayer formula and Halo 3 has just elaborated on that success. New vehicles, weapons and equipment have been added to make fragging your friends that extra bit of fun. There is nothing better than the feeling you get when you disable a Mongoose ATV with the power drainer equipment and then blast it away with the Spartan Laser. You can preserve that feeling forever by taking a screenshot or video clip and showing it back to the guys you blasted in the theatre feature or Bungie.net.

Customization is a huge part of the Halo games. Editing game variants and your characters look have always been a part of Halo, but Halo 3 has stepped that up a notch. You can now customize not only the colour of your armour, but the look of it as well with the new armour permutations that give you almost endless options to make yourself look unique.

While the selection of multiplayer maps that were shipped with Halo 3 are not the greatest of the three games, the incorporation of the Forge feature allows you to edit the items on the map and design the playing environment around how you want the game to be played. If you combine one of your own hand-crafted maps with custom game variants, Halo 3's multiplayer experience has endless possibilities and will last for years to come.

It's hard to flaw Halo 3. An excellent campaign experience and unsurpassed multiplayer makes Halo 3 the full package and a credit to what the Xbox 360 is capable of. Adding equipment was a bold move that had a lot of fanboys, myself included, raising a collective eyebrow and the lack of quality multiplayer maps is hard to look past, but downloadable content is always an option with Xbox live, so i'm sure some quality maps and more will be included soon (please give me my Lockout back ). Halo 3 should come standard with all Xbox 360 consoles as it is a fantastic video game experience that leaves you craving more and more.