Halo 3: ODST

This game was overall amazing, but since I'm guessing you won't take my word for it, I'll tell you why.

First off, I'm not a Halo fanboy. I do like the franchise, but I'm more for CoD myself. Now onto the review.

Campaign: I'm guessing a lot of the fans wanted to know what the game was like outside of what Master Chief sees, well then this is the game for you. But this game is also good for newcomers, too. You can see what is happening in New Mombasa. And you get a sort of insight into why the Covenant are attacking. It tells a story much deeper than that with the audio logs. I won't mention much about these for the sake of the people that haven't played the game yet, but they are very good. Over one hour of interesting audio story to listen to. It helps you understand the inner workings of the story, to know things that you normally wouldn't find out at the end of the game. The story is well-developed, though based off of events that they had already planned out through the Halo series. The story is here to build on what has already been put in front of you. It's very well-rounded and you can get to know the characters very well. These are all pros to the game and I'm guessing you're wondering where the cons are. Well, I'm not a fan of time changing and character changes, but that is sorta a big thing with Halo and I've come to learn that. Besides that, the game has a solid campaign and I feel that anyone could sit down and play this and still know what's going on for the most part.

Campaign rating: 9.5/10

Firefight: The biggest thing about this game that most people wanted was the Firefight mode. To compare this to Gears 2's Horde mode or CoD5's Nazi Zombie mode is, on most levels, unfair. The shadow that Firefight can cast over these new onslaught-type games is immeasurable. I know I sound biased, but I loved Nazi Zombies. I'm also guessing many people think that they are different and I do agree. A better comparison is Horde and Firefight. But Horde has the same guys in different costumes with different weapons and also only has 50 levels. Firefight has infinite levels with increasing difficulty. I do understand that once the skulls are all on, it can't get much harder. I also understand that it doesn't have matchmaking like NZs and Horde, but it can still be much more fun. And that brings me to the one con I have for Firefight. Bungie, where's the *** matchmaking? I mean, come on. I know that it's made from the campaign engine, but could you have put in that tiny bit of effort to just fix that one little kink? Still great anyways.

Firefight rating: 9/10

Overall: This game is great and would be fun to pick up for the kids. I'm sure father and son could bond over this and maybe ask their mother and sister to come play for some fun, too. Great game with a great story and great onslaught-type multiplayer.

Overall score: 9.5/10