Rent It, But Only If You Like Halo 3
I just finished the single player campaign of Halo 3: ODST on Legendary and I have some mixed feelings. The single player experience had me hooked for awhile, but towards the end it turned into the Bungie standard of finishing a game "throw every enemy we've ever made at the player over and over again". To be specific this doesn't make the game any harder at the end only more time consuming, but I'm getting ahead of myself.
The story is about an ODST squad dropped into New Mambasa on a secret mission. The squad is separated and as the Rookie you must find clues as to what's happened to them. Instead of a linear sequence of events the story is told through the different flashbacks of each squad member. The actual story though is mostly bland, generic and mostly forgettable. The voice actors chosen work well with their characters, but I couldn't find myself caring about any of them or anything we were doing. Just like all the Halo games before this one, there is no point - just keep killing things until we roll credits. It's unfortunate because I get the feeling this is Bungie's absolute best attempt at successful story telling. They just can't get it right for some reason. The ending is awkward and I couldn't tell if they were trying to be funny or if they really thought it was badass.
The gameplay is virtually the same as in Halo 3. The few differences that are included don't seem to change much of anything. The health packs work out all right. I never had to back track through an entire level just to grab a much needed boost. Although the checkpoints are fairly liberal throughout the game.
Now for the worst part of the entire experience, probably in any Halo game to date. There is no matchmaking for the new Firefight multiplayer co-op. Now this might seem like a moot point if you have a ton of Halo buddies all dropping money on ODST. If you're not then you're in for an, at best, rocky if not non-existent multiplayer experience. The gameplay in Firefight is identical to Horde Mode for Gears of War 2, Nazi Zombies for COD: World at War, and Survival Mode for Left 4 Dead. The argument is that good players are invited anyways and there is no need for a co-op matchmaking system. However, the only way to find those good players is to play with random people. I took the omission as a slap in the face and both the Reach Multiplayer Beta Key and additional Halo 3 Multiplayer maps as proof Bungie didn't give a crap who played Firefight.
The bottom line is that Halo 3: ODST offers enough of a new experience to play through the single player campaign if you're a fan of Halo. Otherwise, there's most likely nothing here for you.
