Things I Learned Playing Halo 3 With McChicken Tonight

1) Those little squishy flood creatures that don't really harm you all that much if they attack you are also going around re-animating their other bigger and nastier flood buddies! So you actually do want to kill them and not just let them run around! (McChicken told me this as we were playing.)

2) It's really, really clever to give a good weapon to one of your AI buddies once that gun starts to get low on ammo, because the AI characters have unlimited ammo and so he'll just keep using it until he dies! (McChicken actually mentioned that trick the last time we did a Co-op Campaign together, but he reminded me of it when he used it again tonight, to devastating effect!)

3) Some levels are much easier to get through when there's two of you - even on a much higher game setting - while others are actually more challenging. This is a good thing, because it makes the experience quite different from the single player version. We both remarked on that at various points tonight.

4) Both of us are very eager to try playing a level or two in Co-op mode with four players, instead of just two. It seems like it would be ridiculously easy to get through but maybe Bungie compensates for the extra (non-AI) manpower somehow.

5) Although we hit a couple hairy sections tonight, we've yet to run into a situation where it takes us more than about four or five attempts to get through (playing on the highest difficulty setting). Since I know that neither of us is really that good of a Halo player, I have to assume that playing the game in Co-op mode is a virtual cakewalk for those who actually excel at it. In fact, I imagine there might be guys out there who insist upon getting through each level, start to finish, without dying and having to restart at a checkpoint.

6) I really do love the sticky bombs! They came in handy tonight, and even if the bad guy took me with him (got too close to me with the bomb attached to him), McChicken was then able to get to safety and allow me to re-spawn.

7) It's almost a game-within-the-game to find out all of the places that you can take vehicles that weren't really intended for them!

Good times!