Console Game Reviews Halo 3: ODST Review
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Halo 3: ODST can be best described as an assortment pack consisting of a campaign, Firefight (survival mode), the multiplayer from Halo 3 and a beta pass for Halo Reach. We have divided our review to address each of these parts separately. Despite it being a new title, the game is still based on and feels like Halo 3. Therefore the same features that made you love or hate Halo 3 are still present here.
Campaign: The campaign takes place in Mombassa between the events of Halo 2 and Halo 3. Unlike other Halo games, this one is not about Master Chief. In fact there are no Spartans in this one. Instead you will play the role of a member in the Obrital Drop Shock Troopers unit (known as ODST). The ODST unit is a team of elite human soldiers. As your unit prepares to land on Earth’s surface, an explosion goes off that splits the team. Your character decides to search for beacons from his team and look for clues to discover their whereabouts. As you find a clue, the game will switch to the perspective of the character that left the clue. This goes on until you find all beacons and finally rendezvous with your team. The campaign is short and can be completed in six hours. Similar to Halo 3, experienced gamers would want to play this mode on the Heroic difficulty setting. The AI in the Normal difficulty level setting comes out as slow-thinking hence the lack of challenge may bore the experienced gamers. The campaign can be played in co-op mode with up to four players. But there is a limit of two people that can play together locally. As you no longer play a Spartan, you will be restricted to human limits. The character can no longer dual wield. Furthermore the health system works similar to that of Halo 1. Health no longer regenerates automatically. Instead you will need to look for medpacks. Fortunately, there is weaker form of rechargeable shield that has been re-worded to stamina. The character is also of human size. This makes the elites, brutes and hunters look and feel a lot larger than when you were Master Chief. These limitations give a better sense of satisfaction when the larger enemies are taken down. The levels at Mombassa take place during the night. As a human, you can no longer use Rambo-like gameplan to take down enemies. Instead you will need to be more tactical. You will want to sneak and scan the area of a better position before engaging the enemy. The game succeeds in giving the player the feeling of loneliness as you search the sneak around the deserted streets of Mombassa. I found this to contrary to what made the series great. The Halo campaigns are known to be a lot of fun when played on co-op. However if you play the ODST campaign on co-op, the feeling of loneliness is lost. In addition I thought that the “tactical gamestyle” did not suit the Halo 3 game engine that was built around a fast-paced gameplay.
Firefight: The firefight mode is a co-op survival mode that can be played with up to three others. As with the campaign, two players can play locally. There are five waves in a round, 3 rounds in a set and an unlimited number of sets. Each wave activates a different ‘skull’. The skulls give different attributes to the enemy and require players to change their strategy accordingly. As you progress through rounds and sets, difficulty is increased as multiple skulls are activated simultaneously. As players are still bound to human limits, players are motivated to stick and work together as it can be easy to get overwhelmed. Another great reason to work together is that the number of lives is shared amongst the team. The best thing about the firefight modes are the various maps and locations. For the most part, each map is unique and requires the respective adjustment in strategy. However, Firefight mode is not as good as Horde mode in Gears of War 2. This is primarily because survival mode is a tactical mode and Gears of War is a better technical game due to the over the shoulder look and its infamous cover mechanic. Firefight mode has one annoying restriction. Players will not be able to matchmake and therefore not be able to get a pick up group online. This means that not only will you need your friends to buy the game, but also require them to want to play at the same time as you do. This is especially annoying when you just feel like playing firefight for an hour only to find out that no one from your friends list is online. We can’t help but think that this was done on purpose so that consumers would have to convince their friends to buy the game.
Halo 3 Multiplayer: The Halo 3 multiplayer comes on a separate disc. This includes the multiplayer mode from Halo 3 and the Heroic and Mythic map packs. Together this means a staggering 24 maps and the many different game types. The multiplayer part of Halo 3 has known to be its best part as evidenced by the fact it is still one of most common game played on Xbox live at present. The Halo Multiplayer stands out because of its great integration of vehicles and on foot combat. In addition it is the rare shooter that allows up to four players to play splitscreen locally while playing against others online.
Final Word: The campaign has a nice human touch to it. But it is short and although there are slight changes in the gameplay, it still feels like Halo 3. There are some great action sequences but it is not something that you will remember after a few months. For us, the Firefight mode is the best aspect of ODST. But it is severely limited by not being able to match make online. There is a lot of substance in Halo 3’s multiplayer that can be enjoyed for hours to come but it is useless for those that already own Halo 3 and the map packs. The value of the bundle depends on several factors. This title is clearly not meant for people that want to only play solo. We would find it hard to justify the game to people whose friends are not planning to buy the game as that would render the Firefight mode useless. We also find it difficult to recommend this title to those that already own Halo 3 and the map packs as they already own a large part of this game. However if you do not already own Halo 3 and your friends are buying ODST, then you will find it easy to sink in many hours on this assortment pack.
Genre: FPS Platform: Xbox 360 Developer: Bungie Publisher: Microsoft
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