Me being the halo fan I am, I was extremely happy to get my hands on my very own copy of Halo 3: ODST. The Halo franchise is that important to me I couldn’t help myself thinking that this would be the release of the year for me. So has it lived up to my high expectations? Or should I just orbitally drop this title into the nearest bargain bin?
Story mode sees you taking on the Role of an ODST. This rather cool looking acronym stands for Orbital Drop Shock Trooper. But to the UNSC (Or United Nations Space Command) these guys have been nicked names ‘Hell Jumpers’. You are dropped into Earths mega City New Mombasa to sort out a covenant invasion on the city.
As you make your merry way down to earth from orbit, a covenant mega ship conveniently decides to jump into hyperspace right above the city, this in turn causes a slip space rupture and knocks the whole squad of ODST’s right off of corse. You awaken six hours later in the city with no idea where you are or where te rest ofyour squad is. It’s from here you have to explore New Mombasa for clues to the where abouts of your team mates. The city is infested with Covenant and there is defiantly a feel of isolation and the desperate will to survive.
As the new guy to the squad it is somewhat unfortunate that you are the only trooper left in the whole city. You are equipped with the ODST issued hand gun and SMG. Now the hand gun and SMG were not the greatest weapons in the original Halo trilogy, to be quite honest they were my least used weapons. But in ODST this is a totally different ball park, these guns have been equipped with silencers and scopes making for some more precision aiming. In all fairness I think it is safe to say that both weapons have been slightly upgraded in power. I can now quite happily take out grunts and jackles with one head shot, but when it comes to a Brute Cheiftens (big brute aliens with a gravity hammers and so much armour it’s not even funny) about four or five headshots can take them down. The same goes for the SMG, both of these weapons are a necessary for surviving the dark Covenant infested streets of New Mombasa.
ODST’s are very different from playing as the Master Chief. They have been scaled down a lot. Now my classic way of playing Halo or indeed and FPS is to see a load of enemies and go in all guns blazing. In ODST however if you try this then your defiantly in for a death sentence. You can’t jump nearly as high as the chief could in Halo 3 and you are void of a shield but have a little bit of staminer to help you, not only that but duel welding has been stripped as well. Ok after that list of what there isn’t I bet a few of you out there are probably hyperventilating at the very thought of no shield. For me however this stripped down gameplay is what a game like this really needs. There is a huge element of survival here and not having a super suit to save your life adds to the effect brilliantly. But what the ODST’s lack in spartan technology they make up for with gadgets.
As you hunt the city looking for clues you have a VISR mode at your disposal, what this is, is a night vision mode, terrain analyser, city map and enemy recognition all in one. The VISR is fundamental, it links up with the city’s AI so you can locate the where abouts of your team mates, it tells you what to look for as it highlights key objects in a nice yellow outline and more importantly you can see in the dark. When linked up to the city AI you are given way points on your map, these waypoints are the last known locations of your squad. Once you get to said waypoint you then find a clue, this clue then triggers a flashback.
The flashbacks in ODST are where you get to play the other members of the squad and their story of what happened when they landed in New Mombasa. These flashbacks let you play through what happened to them six hours previous. This is where the true Halo game play we all love and adore comes in, you get all the weapons, action, gun fights and vehicles in these flashbacks. They are a real joy to play and tie the story together well, they are a great departure from the loneliness of the city at night.
The visuals of this game are very much the same as Halo 3, this is probably due to the fact it’s all done on the same engine, but Halo 3 was beautiful and this game is very much the same visually, sometimes shadows in the flashback scenes seem too dark but other than that it is looking good.
The voice acting I can’t be happier with personally, now I am a huge fan of the TV show Fire Fly and in ODST they have brought in Adam Baldwin, Nathan Fillion and Adam Tudyk voicing three of the squad, as well as Tricia Helfer from Battle Star Galatica. So you have a brilliant set of voice actors, but you can tell that the guys at Bungie are Fire Fly fans as well, becuase each of the rolls the old Fire Fly cast has been put in to are the nearest your gonna get to the rolls they played in the TV series.
Halo 3: ODST is not all about the single player campaign though, new to the Halo Series this game brings in a new multiplayer mode, known as Fire Fight. This is Halo’s answer to Horde mode that so many gamers are accustomed to from gears of war. I personally haven’t played horde mode and this was an entirely new experience for me, and I must say, it is awesome. You can team up with up to three other team mates either over XBox LIVE or local multiplayer. The aim of the game here is to survive wave a pon wave of Covenant, and complete each stage, each stage is composed of three rounds and in each round you have about eight waves of enemies to kill. making this a huge amount of Covenant slaying. I would of personally loved to see a scara thrown ito the Fire Fight at times though, and mabe just to make it a huge Covernant fest they couldofthrown the Elitesin as well, but you can’t have everything ‘ay? The game also likes to throw some spanners into the works. You know in Halo 3 where you could collect skulls that messed with the game play? Well in Fire Fight after each stage some of these skulls are activated. Making for some brilliant varied game play which quite frankly I am addicted too.
What is quite handy though is when I bought ODST I got a Halo 3 multiplayer disk, this entitles you to all the downloadable content map packs for Halo 3, plus three new maps, and all of forge mode, theatre, etc. This was dead handy for me, as it enabled me to free up my Hard Drive a bit so it’s a worth while purchase. That and with my copy of ODST I got an invertation to the Halo Reach Beta when it comes out next year, cannot wait for that.
All in all Halo 3: ODST is a great addition to the Halo series, with a great cast, great balance of surviving out on your own with full on action eventhough itis only a six hour campaign mode your still gonna be quite happy whith wht you have at your disposal. If you’re a Halo fan like I am, you will not be dissapointed.
