Halo 3 Mythic Map Pack

On the downside, it's not a very good-looking map. The Covenant architecture still suffers somewhat from being, essentially, smooth and purple and not a lot else. Where it looks good, it's always been because of breathtaking scale rather than aesthetics. Here, the scale is huge, but you'll barely notice it because the level itself is so tight. If you have time to look up and go "oh, wow, a Scarab", then you're probably doing something wrong (or reviewing it). It's not that I don't like the visual frippery, it's just that it seems at odds with the way the level itself works.

In contrast, the final map in the pack, Orbital, is one of the best-looking in the game - despite a relative absence of epic scale. Set at the top of a space elevator, it's an industrial setting filled with vaguely symmetrical tunnels. Sloping floors and regular corners mean that sight lines are generally restricted, while the easily learned but somewhat complex layout gives players plenty of opportunity to try to evade their foes in objective games.

Once battles start in Orbital, though, they tend to be fast and vicious. The enclosed tunnels are an obvious playground for explosive splash damage, and the inclusion of a couple of quad-bike vehicles is inspired, guaranteeing a level of utter mayhem in their vicinity. Again, objective-based gametypes are probably best here, especially two-objective types such as two-flag CTF - with the multiple distinct paths between bases guaranteeing plenty of action whenever a standoff develops.

Visually there's lots of variety spread across a fairly small space and some really impressive attention to detail in things like the wall frescoes and the jaw-dropping vista of Earth's surface outside one of the windows. It's not an immediately attention-grabbing map like some of the outdoors ones, but Bungie has put a lot of work into making what could be a boring industrial visual style look great, and it comes through very nicely.

Looking at all three maps, what's most impressive about the Mythic pack is the variety on offer. Almost all of the play-types which Halo 3 has cultivated are catered for here in some way, with the exception of the expansive outdoors maps. It's almost taken for granted now that Bungie will provide stunningly balanced maps that have been tested to near-perfection, but it's worth bearing in mind that this kind of content is still head-and-shoulders above the multiplayer efforts of most of the studio's rivals in terms of quality.

On the other hand, there is still the question of that 800 Microsoft Points price-tag, which brings the content in at around seven quid. That's over two quid per map. That makes sense to me, since if you're still playing Halo 3 then you're almost certainly going to get a lot of entertainment for your money, but with that said, less devoted players could easily skip paying for any of the DLC anyway, since it will all be on the ODST disk this autumn.