Halo 3: ODST

NOTE: I ORGINALLY WROTE THIS REVIEW IN SEPTEMBER OF 2009. SOME OF THE ASPECTS OF THIS REVIEW MAY SEEM SLIGHTLY DATED, SUCH AS THE PRICE. ALSO, THE 3 NEW MULTIPLAYER MAPS CAN NOW BE DOWNLOADED FOR THE ORIGINAL HALO 3.
 
 
Alright let's start from the beginning. Halo was revolutionary for it's time, and introduced a lot of gameplay mechanics that we see in FPS's today. Let's jump forward 8 years. With two sequals under it's belt, Halo has become one of the most popular game series of the past two generations. However neither of these games was as good (especially not Halo 3, very dissapointing :(  ) as the original. 

So when I heard about Halo 3:ODST I was like, "Oh great. A Halo 3 expansion." But then I heard that there were going to be slight gameplay tweaks. Then I thought it was going to be a standard first person shooter with a Halo license slapped on top. Then when I played it... I loved it. It brought back the feel of the original Halo (not as good as the original Halo). Then 3 hours later, it was over. WTF? That's exactly what I said when it was over. So, let's play a game of 20 questions, Q: "Is this game worth 60 bucks", A:"No. It's a lot of fun, but wait for the price to drop." 
 
Halo 3:ODST comes with 2 disks. Disk one has the campaign and firefight mode (i'll explain later), while disk two has Halo 3's multiplayer and Forge. So let's start with disk 1.

Disk one contains the campaign and this new mode called firefight. The campaign is about these soldiers known as ODSTs (Orbital Drop Shock Troopers). The setting is earth during the events of both Halo 2 and Halo 3. The ODSTs are like super soldiers. They can jump higher, hit harder, and run faster than standard marines, but they aren't as strong as spartans (master cheif). As such they aren't strong enough to dual wield. Admitedly, that's really the only major gameplay adjustment. You can still jump pretty high, you can still lob grenades farther then most human beings, and you can still detach turetts and walk around blowing up covenent terminator style. In fact, you can actually run faster and jump higher while carrying turetts then when you were Master Chief. However, the health has gone back to the "sheilds, then health" system of Halo 1, so it no longer feels like a simplistic recharging health bar. 

The story centers around a group of ODSTs, primarily a speechless one that everyone simply calls The Rookie. These soldiers are sent on an objective where they drop out of their space ship in pods. Something horrible happens and the group is seperated. You start out by playing as the rookie in what is essentially the games' hub world. After a brief tutorial the game sends you out in this open world to look for pieces of equipment that help you figure out what happened to your squad.

 The levels as the rookie play very differently then previous Halo games. There are enemys that you can fight if you want to, but you don't get anything from fighting them. These levels are very dark and eerie, and are pretty cool. However, you can sometimes spend a few more minutes then then you would like searching for the pieces of equipment.

Once you find a piece of equipment, the game then shows you what happens through the perspective of one of your squadmates. In these levels you play as your squadmates. These levels play much more like the linear action packed levels of previous Halo games. You'll shoot down covenant, drive vehicles, and other stuff that you'd expect from a Halo game. The gamplay is still just as solid as ever, and this campaign is very similar to previous Halo games, in both good ways and bad. The good ways are stellar gameplay, brilliant AI, smart level design, all broken up by some neat vehicle sequences. However, there is some bad. Some of the indoor enviroments get repetitve, sometimes confusing. Also the difficulty in this game isn't all that great.

Normal is the setting that you play when you click on "star new solo game", so this is expected to be the default difficulty setting. Afterall it's called "Normal" right. Well "Normal" isn't all that hard. I died about 6 times while playing on "Normal", and beat the game in about 3 hours. The next difficulty up is the way to go. Playing on "Heroic" is challenging, fun, and exciting, and should take you about 5 to 7 hours to complete. That still isn't very long.

Now on to the next problem, the other ODSTs. They just aren't very likeable. Their animations in the cutscenes aren't very good, and the script dosen't do them any favors. The dialouge is pretty cheesy, and their voice overs help even less. The script feels like it was written by a 12 year old who had ADD and who watched 5 minutes of the movie "Predator".

However it's very easy to get past the difficulty problem. But you'll still be very dissapointed by the length. Overall the campaign is very fun, but not nearly long enough. Now on to firefight.

Firefight is essentially Gears of War 2's horde mode with a couple of twists. First of all, it's Halo. Second of all the skulls that were in Halo 3 will activate either giving the enemies advantages or giving you disadvantages, i.e. the enemies have an uncanny ability to dodge every grenade you throw at them. If you don't even know the basic idea of firefight, it's wave after wave of covenent that you get to kill. You can play with up to four players online or off, and this is definatley the way to play firefight. However, there is no matchmaking in firefight, so you have to play with people that you know, that are online, and want to play with you. In the end it's fun, but not as addictive as you'd think.

Now on to disk 2.

Disk 2 is the multiplayer from Halo 3 including matchmaking, custom games, and forge. These all still work and play very well, and you can transfer all of your stats from Halo 3, but there are only three new maps. These maps are fun, but if you already own Halo 3 and you've downloaded all of the maps, you'll probably be dissapointed by the lack of new maps. The realising that you colud have waited a year and saved 30 bucks, is a tad painfull. 

Each disk comes with the popular theater mode.

Graphically ODST looks great. It's essentially an updated version of Halo 3. The framerate stays consistent most of the time, the lighting is spectacular, particularly in the rookie missions. My only complaints are the character animation in the cutscenes aren't that great, and there is a fair bit of pop-up. The audio is even better. Even though your squadmates' voice overs in the cutscenes aren't great, the sound effects, and the music are really superb. Just what you'd expect from a halo game. The music really suits the mood, pumping up when the action is hot, and soothing jazz in the rookie levels.

Halo 3:ODST is a tough game to recommend. So it's going to come down to this: do you have the money to spend, and do you love halo. If this is the only game you're thinking about getting this year, and you love halo, get it. If you don't like halo, or if you don't have the money, you probably want to wait for the price to drop.