Last time - Halo 2 - https://www.filmtracks.com/scoreboard/forum.cgi?read=142479

This time - “Shipmaster! They outnumber us 3-to-1!” “Then it is an even fight.”

-------

Finally having a normal amount of time to work on a game (at least relative to the harried development processes for the first and second Halo games), Bungie delivered another smash success with Halo 3. Featuring more multiplayer capabilities and a campaign realized at a gargantuan scale, the game reached $300M in gross global sales in just one week after its November 2007 release. Critical acclaim and awards followed, though while it seemed like Bungie was going out on a high note the opposite was actually true. Bungie had never conceived of Halo 2 while making Halo: Combat Evolved and had no ambition to make Halo 3 during the making of Halo 2, but as a condition of negotiating for better profit sharing on future Halo games (and for Bungie securing its independence from Microsoft after Halo 3) Microsoft demanded that the Bungie crew make not just Halo 3 but also two future entries. At one point one of those was going to be an unrelated game with Peter Jackson and the other was going to be Halo 4, plus there was also a Halo movie in development, though the end results ended up being quite different. More on that later.

Marty O’Donnell later joked that “when I got to the end of Halo 2 I thought to myself: 'that was probably enough guitar.’” Rather than continuing to push the prog rock nature of the music into even wilder directions, he opted to shift things to more of a traditional foundation, getting a 60-piece orchestra and an accompanying choir to lend the biggest instrumental and vocal depth to the franchise yet. Themes from the last two games evolved in interesting ways, though at times it felt like he and Michael Salvatori - with help from new additional music writer C Paul Johnson - were taking their bigger budget as an opportunity to rearrange / reorchestrate many of their earlier tracks, including several ideas from Halo: Combat Evolved that didn’t appear in the first sequel. The sense of “playing the hits” does create the risk of the core concept getting stale, and while the score is incredibly satisfying in context and (finally!) on album you do reach the end of it wondering if O’Donnell and Salvatori had taken their original material about as far as they could (and given that the subsequent scores in the series were based almost entirely on new melodies you wonder if they knew that at the time as well).

One should not walk into the Halo 3 score expecting symphonic might; even with the orchestra being a prominent part of the score, a significant chunk of the soundscape is still synthetic, whether layered with the more organic passages or persisting on their own. But the hybrid sound was still outrageously cool, and you have to admire how O’Donnell and Salvatori could mature Halo without abandoning its prog rock / synth pop origins. Also surging to the forefront was the piano, which drove several of the more emotional passages (including a notable late instance where the main series theme and The Last Spartan are entwined in counterpoint) and also was the main voicing for O’Donnell’s sole major new tune for the third game, a victorious Finish the Fight fanfare which was prominently deployed in the trailer shown at the 2006 E3 gaming conference. If there’s one thing to grumble about with the 2CD album release, it’s that the composing team didn’t find a way to weave the idea into more of the game. The legacy of the Halo 2 songs wasn’t quite left behind as the album did close with the intolerable LvUrFR3NZ by the forgotten band Princeton, but otherwise plenty of prior dings on Halo album listening experiences are not applicable here; this is not a thin-sounding score, and the horror/suspense material is decidedly less obnoxious this go-round.

****½ - https://open.spotify.com/album/5X4MhnXjrQ0zQIBW8a4ivf

-------

O’Donnell and Salvatori would soon outdo themselves. But the next entry in the series was actually scored by someone else.

-------

Next time: “And for the record, I would have kicked your ass the first time if the lady hadn't stopped me!”

(Message edited on Monday, July 14, 2025, at 4:42 a.m.)

You starting this series made me want to get back on my re-plays, so right now, I am playing through Halo 3! This was my first Halo game (so nostalgia bias check), and my mother was not too happy that my father had let me buy it (I cannot remember how old I was, but I think it was below 17 lol). Definitely the pinnacle of the classic Halo gameplay formula, and it manages to craft a mixture of new setpieces and greatest hits without feeling derivative. Plus, the story's ominous and vulnerable Cortana would foreshadow the fascinating story turn for her character in Halo 4 and beyond.

You hit the nail on the head with the music. I think it does lose a little of that synthy charm, but it gains a lot in grandeur and scope. The music as the new Halo ring comes into view is awe-inspiring, and the thundering triumphs of Lord Hood's doomed charge in Voi and the arrival of Forward Unto Dawn stick with me to this day. Plus, I have had acquaintances who considered the Halo 3 "Warthog run" renditions to be the definitive versions, so this may well have been others' first Halo too. Plus, the new use of the piano is wonderful, adding heart to the story's finality that the series never quite had before. There's an intangible, difficult-to-describe melancholy to the score that fits its status as the series finale (for now lol).

(Side note, Princeton's song was a contest winner, per Wikipedia. What that means regarding your assessment I leave to you Also, the title was apparently "Kill Your Friends," and nixed by Microsoft for obvious reasons lol) Loving this series!

> You starting this series made me want to get back on my re-plays, so right now, I am playing through Halo 3!

You are basically doing what I was doing a year ago on pat leave.

> Definitely the pinnacle of the classic Halo gameplay formula, and it manages to craft a mixture of new setpieces and greatest hits without feeling derivative.

The scale of it was what struck me last year. The size of some of those levels is astonishing, almost like a rebuttal to the (sometimes fair) accusation that the series is just a lot of gunplay in repeated hallways.

> You hit the nail on the head with the music. I think it does lose a little of that synthy charm, but it gains a lot in grandeur and scope.

There are a few moments that still go in that retro direction delightfully - the pulsing take on the Delta Halo theme at the end of Brutes (aka We’re Done Here) as you escape the exploding base for example, or the ethereal material when you activate the Cartographer heard in Behold a Pale Horse (aka part two of Overcome).

> The music as the new Halo ring comes into view is awe-inspiring

I still remember being floored by that fusion of music and visuals. Gareth Edwards would’ve loved the size comparison.

> (Side note, Princeton's song was a contest winner, per Wikipedia. What that means regarding your assessment I leave to you

Honestly, if not for this song, it’s possible there’d be little to no proof this band existed.

> Last time - Halo 2 -
> https://www.filmtracks.com/scoreboard/forum.cgi?read=142479

> This time - “Shipmaster! They outnumber us 3-to-1!” “Then it is an even
> fight.”

> -------

> Finally having a normal amount of time to work on a game (at least
> relative to the harried development processes for the first and second
> Halo games), Bungie delivered another smash success with Halo
> 3. Featuring more multiplayer capabilities and a campaign realized at
> a gargantuan scale, the game reached $300M in gross global sales in just
> one week after its November 2007 release. Critical acclaim and awards
> followed, though while it seemed like Bungie was going out on a high note
> the opposite was actually true. Bungie had never conceived of Halo
> 2 while making Halo: Combat Evolved and had no ambition to make
> Halo 3 during the making of Halo 2, but as a condition of
> negotiating for better profit sharing on future Halo games (and for
> Bungie securing its independence from Microsoft after Halo 3)
> Microsoft demanded that the Bungie crew make not just Halo 3 but
> also two future entries. At one point one of those was going to be an
> unrelated game with Peter Jackson and the other was going to be Halo
> 4, plus there was also a Halo movie in development, though the
> end results ended up being quite different. More on that later.

> Marty O’Donnell later joked that “when I got to the end of Halo 2 I
> thought to myself: 'that was probably enough guitar.’” Rather than
> continuing to push the prog rock nature of the music into even wilder
> directions, he opted to shift things to more of a traditional foundation,
> getting a 60-piece orchestra and an accompanying choir to lend the biggest
> instrumental and vocal depth to the franchise yet. Themes from the last
> two games evolved in interesting ways, though at times it felt like he and
> Michael Salvatori - with help from new additional music writer C Paul
> Johnson - were taking their bigger budget as an opportunity to rearrange /
> reorchestrate many of their earlier tracks, including several ideas from
> Halo: Combat Evolved that didn’t appear in the first sequel. The
> sense of “playing the hits” does create the risk of the core concept
> getting stale, and while the score is incredibly satisfying in context and
> (finally!) on album you do reach the end of it wondering if O’Donnell and
> Salvatori had taken their original material about as far as they could
> (and given that the subsequent scores in the series were based almost
> entirely on new melodies you wonder if they knew that at the time as
> well).

> One should not walk into the Halo 3 score expecting symphonic
> might; even with the orchestra being a prominent part of the score, a
> significant chunk of the soundscape is still synthetic, whether layered
> with the more organic passages or persisting on their own. But the hybrid
> sound was still outrageously cool, and you have to admire how O’Donnell
> and Salvatori could mature Halo without abandoning its prog rock /
> synth pop origins. Also surging to the forefront was the piano, which
> drove several of the more emotional passages (including a notable late
> instance where the main series theme and The Last Spartan are
> entwined in counterpoint) and also was the main voicing for O’Donnell’s
> sole major new tune for the third game, a victorious Finish the
> Fight fanfare which was prominently deployed in the trailer shown at
> the 2006 E3 gaming conference. If there’s one thing to grumble about with
> the 2CD album release, it’s that the composing team didn’t find a way to
> weave the idea into more of the game. The legacy of the Halo 2
> songs wasn’t quite left behind as the album did close with the intolerable
> LvUrFR3NZ by the forgotten band Princeton, but otherwise plenty of
> prior dings on Halo album listening experiences are not applicable
> here; this is not a thin-sounding score, and the horror/suspense material
> is decidedly less obnoxious this go-round.

> ****½ - https://open.spotify.com/album/5X4MhnXjrQ0zQIBW8a4ivf

> -------

> O’Donnell and Salvatori would soon outdo themselves. But the next entry in
> the series was actually scored by someone else.

> -------

> Next time: “And for the record, I would have kicked your ass the first
> time if the lady hadn't stopped me!”

It's August 2007. A guy sitting at my lunch table starts lore dumping to me about the Halo games. A week earlier, the first time we had sat at the same table, he had called me "Dickram" so I guess we were making progress in getting along.

It's September 2007. I'm watching football and the creepiest ad ever starts playing. It's just camera pans over a miniature of a sci-fi battle scene, but there's a Chopin piece playing over it to make it extra haunting. Suddenly at the end, Master Chief looks up and the screen cuts to black and the word "Believe" before the Halo logo appears. (Also surprised you didn't mention this in your post lol)

It's winter 2012. One of my Scholars Bowl teammates decides that as our pump up music before our semifinals needs to be this piano cover of "One Final Effort."

It's fall of 2014. I've finally gotten around to hearing the music for the first four Halo games, apart from the piece I heard in high school. It's good, 3 is clearly the best one.

It's fall of 2015. The score for Halo 5 has dropped, it's pretty good, and then Ethan and Erik get into a lengthy argument here about whether Halo or Medal of Honor was the more groundbreaking franchise for video game music in the 2000s. This actually gets me to think about getting around to the Medal of Honor games eventually.

It's spring of 2018. My roommate and I are sharing a snack, and he lets me grab the last one. He says "Finish it" and instead of my brain going to Mortal Kombat, under my breath I sing the piano riff from Halo 3 and he exclaims "We should play Halo!!!" We never get around to playing Halo (btw I'm not a gamer at all), but at some point down the line I do watch him and one of his college buddies play it together, so I finally actually see the gameplay.

It's April 2022. I have so much writing to do and increasingly little time to complete it. This phase of my PhD becomes known as "Crunch Wrap Supreme" time. To mark the shift in mindset, I change my phone alarm to "Finish the Fight." It gets the job done.

Anyway, good score, good overview.

> It's August 2007. A guy sitting at my lunch table starts lore dumping to me about the Halo games. A week earlier, the first time we had sat at the same table, he had called me 'Dickram' so I guess we were making progress in getting along.

I vote we call you this every time you make a sassy post.

> It's September 2007. I'm watching football and the creepiest ad ever starts playing. It's just camera pans over a miniature of a sci-fi battle scene, but there's a Chopin piece playing over it to make it extra haunting. Suddenly at the end, Master Chief looks up and the screen cuts to black and the word 'Believe' before the Halo logo appears. (Also surprised you didn't mention this in your post lol)

Character count discipline, I suppose.

That whole advertising campaign was masterful - the kids staring at the stars, the one you mentioned, the interviews with veterans. ODST probably had the best ad though.

> It's winter 2012. One of my Scholars Bowl teammates decides that as our pump up music before our semifinals needs to be this piano cover of 'One Final Effort.'

Did it work?

> It's fall of 2015. The score for Halo 5 has dropped, it's pretty good

Brace yourself, some sass on my part is coming in a few weeks. 2015 Jon would be surprised what 2025 Jon is saying.

> It's April 2022. I have so much writing to do and increasingly little time to complete it. This phase of my PhD becomes known as 'Crunch Wrap Supreme' time. To mark the shift in mindset, I change my phone alarm to 'Finish the Fight.' It gets the job done.

The crank stuff out music move is a tried and true tactic.

> Anyway, good score, good overview.

Thanks!

> I vote we call you this every time you make a sassy post.

At least I'll know you aren't trying to be homophobic about it.

> Did it work?

Well enough for him to keep doing it at later tournaments.

> Brace yourself, some sass on my part is coming in a few weeks. 2015 Jon
> would be surprised what 2025 Jon is saying.

I might drop that thread in the replies of your post for old times' sake.