Hell yeah.

"Halo" fans will not be disappointed by this third and final chapter in humanities struggle against the fanatical Covenant and the parasitic Flood.

Everything good about the previous two games is back. You'll still get a kick out of plowing through enemy ranks in a Warthog, you'll still love sticking someone with a plasma grenade and you'll still marvel at the sheer scope of the conflict.

Graphically the third installment is a step up from "Halo 2," but not a huge step. The environmental detail has been bumped up quite a bit, especially water effects and shadows and lighting. The orchestral scores and high-tempo beats that set the tone for the first and second "Halos" unfortunately seems to have been muted for the final go around. The voice acting is still excellent, voice-over veteran Keith Davis returns for the role as Arbiter, the Master Chief's alien nemesis turned drinkin' buddy.

Bungie really tried to cram as much into the final go-around as possible. Along with four-way online co-op other new features include a campaign scoring system that turns co-op play into a high-score contest and a screen shot and film capture tool so you can relive those epic frags.

For veterans I doubt there will be much film they deem worthy of capturing in the campaign mode, as the difficulty seems to have been ratcheted down some. The normal setting feels very dumbed down and the higher two, heroic and legendary, don't scale nearly as sharply as in "Halo 2." I finished the game solo on heroic in about seven hours with only slight frustration during a few hard fights. Legendary should test anyone solo but a team of four friends, who know what they're doing, can easily blow through it.

This isn't to say that the game is boring. There are some intense vehicle battles and the Covenant enemies still react intelligently on the harder modes.

Bungie listened to gripes about not playing as Master Chief for much of H2. In this adventure you never step out of the Spartan's shoes and the levels you play through as MC are less formulaic, getting that repetitive-design monkey off the studio's back.

My one gripe is with the later levels, as they degrade into close-quarters Flood zombie gib-fests without the cool cross-faction fighting between them and the Covenant that was there in the first two games. The final stage will probably tick off a decent amount of people for reasons that will become apparent if you've played "Halo 2." Fear not, the game actually ends. There are no cliffhangers here, just watch past the closing credits to get the full ending.

The real heart of the game is revealed once you start playing online. Mutliplayer is as robust as ever over Live. The matchmaking is very flexible and new game modes add depth, such as the tactical "eliminatio" that sets a limit on how many respawns a team can have. It's too early to make judgments on balance yet and with the addition of new grenades, deployable equipment such as bubble shields, half a dozen new weapons and a few new vehicles, it will only take time until someone figures out the best combo. Gamers can also customize the various game types with the new Forge tool, adding new objectives and obstacles.

If you're not a "Halo" fan the third game doesn't do a whole lot different to win you over. H3 takes what the first two did well, refines those things and cuts some of the fat. What is left is a polished and toned example of a game studio's grand vision made manifest. Love it or hate it, "Halo" introduced real-time physics and console competitiveness to the first-person shooter genre, changing not only the industry but the way people play. In the end, the hype was worth it.