Halo 3: ODST puts you into the boots of a Orbital drop shock trooper (ODST), a special forces unit which drops from orbit. For the famed creators of the franchise Bungie, this is not meant to be a full game- it was meant to be a expansion. So, does the game justifies the price, or did the Rookie just dropped in too hard?
ODST’s story brings you into a Covenant-controlled city which you visited duting halo 2. Playing as a ODST called “rookie”, you drop down from a orbiting ship only to a alien infested city, but something when horribly wrong, and your squad’s drop pods get scattered all around the city. The rookie wakes up 6 hours later, and can’t find his squadmates.
Halo 3: ODST is the first halo game which does not play “levels” in a specific order. Instead, you go around in finding clues to your squad’s location, which unveils the story in pieces.Whenever you pick up a clue, you go into a flashback scene, which is classic halo, action-packed levels, unlike the city which is dark and scary.
The soundtrack is the best of the series- it is not the classic halo drums. Instead, it relies on low saxophones to set the tone; but it has the halo-flavor to it, focused around piano for the lonely city portions of the games, while drums takes out the high action flashbacks. Here is an example.
This concept has been done before, but Bungie certainly did a darn good job in making you want to know more. The tale is given to you in such a way that you want to go to the next artifact to find out how they got there or did they die after that. The story itself isn’t Shakespeare, but it is better then most games and movies. They did a good job in profiling the characters, and you get attached to the characters by the end.
You ain’t a supersolider now. With the master chief, you can blindy charge into the enemy and survive. However, the rookie is much weaker. When you get hit, you lose stamina, which regenerate over time. Familiar? It is the new shield. However, once you lose your stamina, your health will decrease. Like halo 1, you don’t regain health- you need med-kits, which are scattered around.
It is certainly new in a Halo game. You need to rethink tactics, and once your health goes down, its much harder to play unless you can find a med-kit.
Also, included in the game is the new cooperative mode- firefight. If you have friends which have xBox live (like me), its a blast to play. Firefight is halo’s new survival mode. Enemies get dropped in waves, and its your 4-men squad’s duty to hold them off. Sure it has been done before- “Horde mode” in Gears of War, “Nazi Zombies” in Call of Duty, but firefights brings the unique halo flavour to it. Skulls from the campaign are brought over. Every few waves of enemies, new skulls are on. For example, the catch skull makes enemy throw grenades like crazy, while the Famine skull makes every weapon dropped have 50% ammo.
Firefight is fun, but if you don’t know anyone on xBox live well, this mode will be just frustration for you. You need 4 people with mics capable of working together. If you don’t tell your allies that THERE IS A BRUTE BEHIND YOU, he might be dead. Either that or everyone crowd at one drop off point while enemies make their way via the other side and flank you.
Included is something which most halo fans should have by now- a second disk which includes all the maps which are released, with 3 new ones. If you are like me and already spent US$40 on the maps, its a waste. However, for those without the map, you will get them all free, and who does not like free stuff.
The game is great, but the big problem is its price. At full retail price, the 5 hour-long campaign is extremly short, and most of the maps halo players would have by now. Here is where your money went.
$20 CAMPAIGN + $20 FIREFIGHT + $20 MULTIPLAYER
Halo 3: ODST Â is a great game, but if you have no online friends, you might not want to buy it.
I give it a 4/5.