Halo 3 ODST – Game Review

The Xbox Live servers are going to be on fire this weekend. Halo 3 ODST finally dropped down into stores this week, with a new campaign, new characters and enemies, new guns (and the addition of an old favorite), as well as a new match type that changes the way you play Halo.

Campaign

The campaign starts off with an introduction to your main character, The Rookie. A silent new recruit who everyone believes if very wet under the ears. You are also introduced to the four other ODST members. Buck, a main contributer to the main story line of this title, takes on the role of leader, even if other members find reasons to dislike him. Romeo is always carrying his trusty sniper on him and arguing with Buck as mentioned, Mickey is the explosives expert of the group, and Dutch is the all out assault trooper. Each one has a different way of playing (well as much as you can get out of the Halo gameplay), and you experience them through your travels as the rookie. The ODST group is dropped down in their HEVs (Human Entry Vehicles) on a mission to assault Regret’s ship (Halo 3 villain.) Just as they were going to land, Dare (a UNSC Office of Naval Intelligence agent and person of interest to Buck) changes their trajectory and forces the squad to drop into New Mombasa. The Rookie is unlucky enough to crash into another HEV on his way down and stays unconcious for six hours. From this point on you take control of The Rookie (who plays like a weak Master Chief.) You’ll notice right away that you have the same SMG from the past two titles but it has been silenced (adding to the feeling of being a human and not a Spartan) as well as the return of the Halo 1 pistol (though it much more balanced.) You won’t be capping everything in three shots or less, but if you play it right, the pistol can be the most deadly and sought after gun in the game. Other balanced guns include the Shotgun and Plasma Pistol. The Shotgun has been amazingly weakened and may take every shell on one load to kill a single brute, while the Plasma Pistol has returned to it’s supreme grace of homing and removing all shields that cover the victim (a welcomed friend to the pistol.) The Plasma Rifile, Carbine,  and Assault Rifile make a return to the game, while the deadly Battle Rifle of Halo 3 has been removed (again probably for balance.) The ODST members cannot dual wield their guns as Master Chief does, but they do get to carry one extra grenade each. Also, the energy shield of the past games have been replaced with a stamina meter and health bar. The stamina bar acts like the energy shield if you only had quarter of it at all times. The stamina makes the ODST more realistic, as you begin to hear them breathe harder during tough fights as they try to recover. Now, before you say that the ODST are a bunch of weaklings, they do have one tool that can help out in the dark new stages of the title. VISR mode allows the player to see through the darkness and even highlight key targets or items around them. Enemies will have a solid border around them as well as key items glowing with a distinct shine. The troopers also use their VISR to show their next checkpoint or whichever position you need to go.

New Mombasa plays out like a large sandbox, in which, The Rookie plays hide-and-seek with his fellow members beacons. It can be quite frustrating having to walk these long distances with a shotty radar and nothing really to do. You’ll encounter a Covenant group at times, but it never becomes a really heated battle. You can also search for the audio tapes located at random glowing terminals throughout New Mombasa (sorta like Bioshock’s tapes) that tells a side story of what happened to New Mombasa. Once you reach the beacon you must search for some clue as to what happened to each of your ODST companions. (For some reason picking up the said item and acting like a complete child with it is how The Rookie finds clues.) Once found, you take control of that trooper and play through his role during the six hours The Rookie was out. Each segment has it’s own enjoyable moments, but really makes the game feel like just an expansion of Halo 3. The truly great moments in the game are found toward the end of the title when you really take control of The Rookie and get to show off what you can do. I don’t want to really mention all the details but you do discover a new alien creature (later called The Engineer) and it’s questionable if the creature is on your side or on the Covenants. It’s also nice to know that the AI in the game still has no clue how to control a vehicle (often the biggest moments in the game as well as the hardest.) If the AI is driving you, be prepared to be flipped over or stuck on the oddest things, only to likely be killed by the Wraith that you should have been avoiding that entire time. Also if you’re driving, it’ll most likely make that particular level three times longer then it should be. The AI does not, NOT, know how to control the gatling gun in the warthogs. I’m sorry but you don’t have to pace your fire..you just hold the god damn trigger!

All around a more enjoyable campaign than Halo 2 as well as Halo 3, though those two were much longer. The true shine of Halo 3:ODST is covered in the next section.

Firefight

The true reason to buy Halo 3 ODST is the new gametype, Firefight. You choose your trooper of choice (starting with the Rookie) and face off against an unbelievable amount of Covenant soldiers. Think Left 4 Dead survivor mode with a Halo twist to it. The troopers are given seven lives to start and must share them amongst the players. The maps vary from wide open spaces to tight quarter sections, all based on game maps. Windward (one of the later stages in the campaign involving Romeo’s story) is my favorite of all the maps. It’s the perfect mixture of indoor and outdoor segments to allow an even map all around, plus you start off with a sniper. Gameplay is measured through sets of three stages, separated by six reinforcement drops. The last of the reinforcements drop is always the hardest, normally involving two hammer brutes (maybe four depending on your difficulty) and a collection of jetpack flying Brutes. After the last drop, the troopers are given two additional lives as well as a chance at a few more if they achieve a certain amount of points during the 60 second bonus round. During these bonus rounds, all skulls are turned on and only grunts are spawning.

You might be saying, “Oh that doesn’t sound too difficult..” Well try racking up the points with the skulls on. Lucky Throw for instance makes any passing grunt a potential death, as grenade after grenade explodes around you. Maybe you were unlucky and Black Eye was activated. With Black Eye, you must melee just to recover your stamina, an almost impossible act when playing on Legendary.

The only tips I can give for those brave enough to join the firefight is:

1. Conserve your pistol ammo. You can get away with using the submachine gun and using Covenant dropped weapons. Especially when sharing the ammo between other players over co-op.

2. Plasma Pistol is your best friend. Believe me, if you want to clear out a group of Brutes, nothing is better than the Plasma Pistol and Pistol. It’ll even earn you the achievement.

3. Learn how to get around the brutes for assassinations. Very important for those troubling Brute Captains and Hammer Brutes.

4. Avoid view of vehicles on Legendary. They are killers!

Join the firefight today!

Theater ODST

Two words: No Rewind.

The f$#k Bungie? Alright maybe..maybe I can understand not putting it in. I did read about the trouble the devs had putting it in the first time. But really…why couldn’t you just copy it from Halo 3 Mythic? You eventually got it right the first time guys. :/ It’s really hard going through a 3 hour firefight match only to notice you skipped the part you wanted to record by accident…

Halo 3 Mythic

ODST comes with two discs. The first involves everything listed above, and the second disc covers the best feature of the original Halo 3, the multiplayer. The original 21 maps on a single disc as well as the new addition of Citadel, Heretic, and Longshore.

Finally! A remake of Midship from Halo 2. One of the more enjoyable maps (really anything from Halo 2 was enjoyable..except for the campaign mode) from the previous title and is every bit as the original. From jumping to the top of the map, to the placement of every single weapon, as well as design. A perfect remake unlike that terrible remake of Lockout.

A very tiny map compared to most. Citadel has most of the best weapons just out in front of the players spawn, ready for the opposing teams to fight over. Rockets for example are smack dab in the middle of the map, similar to the Halo 1 map Prisoner.

The largest map of the three. Longshore is like playing on a harbor. It even has a few boats on the underside that you can knock into the water.

I can’t say much about these maps since I never actually get to play them (thanks Bungie), but I can at least say that Heretic is a welcome addition to the otherwise boring maps that have been released. Something about the Halo 3 Multiplayer just makes me dislike it more and more over time.

Amazing trailer with Live Action characters of the series. Why hasn’t this series become a Live Action movie yet? Jesus Hollywood sucks.

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Rating: Must Play!

It’s a bit on the short side, but the introduction of Firefight is just something that no Halo fan can pass up. Plus that addition of the Halo 3 Mystic disc, makes it cheaper than buying up all the map packs separately. You have no reason to buy this title and enjoy it. Unless you hate Spartans. O_o!