Halo3: The Story So Far

I, like 2.4 some million other nerds, picked up Halo 3 this week. I've been playing co-op campaign online with a buddy for a few hours each night. I believe we're roughly halfway through.

So let's recap the story! [SPOILER ALERT!]

After randomly being nabbed by a giant venus flytrap in Halo2, we pick up Halo3 with Master Chief falling from outer space, (and possibly from another dimension, I'm guessing,) to Earth and being found in the rainforest by a bunch of Xbox1 characters.

MC wakes up and proceeds to attack the nearby Elite alien, named Arbiter, only to be stopped by the Xbox1 characters just in time. In addition to now having really big feet, apparently The Elites are our buddies, because... well I don't know how or why for sure but I suspect it was the fact that the Space Chickens were so enamored with the hair rendering technology of those new gorilla aliens back in Halo2.

Now instant friends, MC and Arby go off together and and battle through the tropical rainforests of Africa, (!?!) I think. They find a military base.

MC and Arby proceed to run back and forth while defending the base from attack by the bad aliens. After successfully defeating the invaders, our heroes blow up said base up using the Apollo 12 Lunar Orbiter Module the Xbox1 characters found in the basement.

Fearing an alien attack, the Eiffel Tower rockets off into space.

Completely ignoring a multitude of busted up mini Halos littering the landscape, for some reason MC and the lipless, recently perfect english speaking Elite go off and blow up a giant anti-spaceship gun placed on Earth, presumably by the bad aliens.

Just then, a spaceship crashes nearby.

MC and Arby backtrack only to find themselves in a giant duodenum, where they discover a computer chip.

After some more Xbox1 characters and the good aliens watch a very "Obi Wan, you're my only hope"-esque video, a supposedly tense scene ensues in which they briefly discuss the "glassing" Africa. The Xbox 1 characters fly off to... somewhere, while MC, Arby, and the good, still hairless, aliens head off... somewhere else, as far as I can tell.

Even though it looks a whole lot like Africa, it turns out that MC and Arby end up on a giant metal starfish, floating off in the depths of space.

MC and Arby then battle their way to a holographic terminal at the edge of Victoria Falls, which isn't in Africa as you might expect, but instead on the surface of the starfish. This terminal shows them a picture of... the starfish they are on.

To be continued...

So as you might surmise, I have no idea what in the hell is REALLY going on, except that involves a whole lot of backtracking through levels I had just played. I should mention however, that despite the story telling issues, I am having a whole heck of a lot of fun during the actual game bits.