"the penultimate chapter is so bad, just thinking about it puts a rotten taste in my mouth." The New York Times Charles Herold said the game had a "throwaway" plot and Total Video Games judged the single-player aspect ultimately disappointing. Goldstein and Steve West of Cinema Blend thought a part of the game's story was lost by not having the Arbiter featuring as prominently as the character was in Halo 2. Most publications agreed that multiplayer was by far one of the best features; IGN said that the multiplayer map lineup was the strongest of the series, and GameSpy added that "each [multiplayer] map is extremely well-tuned". The Forge level editor and saved films features were singled out as particularly strong features, in addition to superb voice acting and Martin O'Donnell's rich score. Other complaints focused on the artificial intelligence; critics praised the enemy AI but complained that the intelligence of the player's allies was far poorer. Bryan Vore of Game Informer said that human faces and some textures were just "embarrassing". Halo 3 was nominated for seven awards from the Spike TV Awards, of which it won "Best Multiplayer Game" and "Most Addictive Video Game Fueled by Dew". It won Times "Game of the Year" and IGN chose it as the Best Xbox 360 Online Multiplayer Game and Innovative Design of 2007. The Visual Effects Society awarded Bungie the "Best Real Time Visuals in a Video Game" for Halo 3. Halo 3 took the Calvin Award for "Best Videogame" as selected by Box Office Prophets. Halo 3 also took the award for Xbox 360 Game of the Year 2007 from GameTrailers, and was voted by fans as Game of the Year on G-Phoria. Halo 3 won the Edge Award For Interactive Innovation in August 2008. In 2010, the game was included as one of the titles in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die. References External links 2007 video games Bungie games Cooperative video games Esports games First-person shooter multiplayer online games First-person shooters 3 Microsoft games Multiplayer and single-player video games Multiplayer online games Multiplayer vehicle operation games Science fiction video games Video game sequels Video games developed in the United States Video games scored by Martin O'Donnell Video games scored by Michael Salvatori Video games set in Kenya Video games set in Tanzania Video games using Havok Video games with expansion packs Video