Halo 3 ODST takes place during the events of Halo 2 and Halo 3. After discovering the location of Earth, the Covenant launches an attack on the city of New Mombasa. As the UNSC deploys ODST’s (Orbital Drop Shock Troopers) to fight them, an unusual shockwave, created by a Covenant ship who slips into a space hyper-jump, destroys the city and splits up a group of ODST’s who were sent on a mission. In the group, you will be playing as The Rookie, a human soldier who due to the unfortunate event is forced to retrieve the missing soldiers. This is where your adventure begins...

Gameplay

If you have played Halo 2 and Halo 3, Halo 3: ODST will feel like an old book with the only difference that you won’t be playing as Master Chief. Meaning that if you were used to get in there and shoot everything like a madman, you will quick come to the evidence that The Rookie isn’t a Spartan. No dual wielding, no overshields, no super jumps, no sprinting…just some good old regular human action. Because of this, you will explore the venues more carefully, manage your ammo and use different tactics to survive against the hostile Covenant. By doing so, you will actually take additional time to complete the game. We will get on that later on.

With the help of an intelligent but shady AI called The Superintendent, the storyline of Halo 3 ODST is split into six chapters, each playable as one of the missing ODST’s and played as a flashback mission after retrieving its respective hint (or beacon). Once you complete the six missions, you play two additional chapter in real-time as you meet with your squad for one last battle. Just like in Halo 3, you can play ODST either alone or with up to friends either locally or via Xbox Live.

New Mombasa at night...

Halo 3: ODST is so close of being considered an open world game experience, which would have been very interesting to see in the Halo franchise. If it the city would have been completely open (there are zones that you can’t access), it could have set a completely new way to play a Halo game. On the other side, after you find the first beacon, you can choose which flashback mission you want to play so there’s no linear order. I have to give props to Bungie for using a flashback method for each of the six missions. When it comes down to storytelling, they know how to deliver and it shows here as they show a great way to take a little detour of the typical run and gun first person shooter genre.

Unfortunately, there are a few things that do make the ODST experience extremely easy and at times, less enjoyable. First of all, a waypoint system using the directional pad has been implemented into the game, telling you where to go and almost giving away the exact position of the missing beacon. A map may be given to you early in the game holding the complete schematics of New Mombasa. Sadly, this system destroys the map’s purpose and plunges you into something that didn’t expect after all. The set-up is perfect: a destroyed city, patrolled by heavily armed enemies at night. Wouldn’t have been fun to actually try to figure out where the beacons are and work a bit harder not only to solve the mystery but also to survive? You would say that the Fable games used a similar waypoint system that brought you from one point of interest to another. So this is basically the same thing here, minus the glowing trail on the floor. Why this works on a game like Fable and not in Halo 3: ODST? Simply because in Fable, even the most experienced player could get easily lost, as the world is truly open. With ODST, Bungie gives you the impression that New Mombasa is huge (and technically it really is) but you can’t access all the zones right from the beginning. Second of all, the VISR (Visual Intelligence System, Reconnaissance) used by The Rookie might be helpful to find your way through the dark alleys of New Mombasa but also gives out too much info about the enemies patrolling the city, marking them in red hundreds of miles away from where you stand.

View through VISR mode

Are the VISR and the waypoint system truly handicapping Halo 3: ODST’s storyline? Not necessarily but it could have been way more interesting and enticing to see those two things brought into the game otherwise. I should mention that Bungie did add a secondary storyline into the main story. Thirty audio logs, relating the story of a young woman named Sadie during the Covenant attack, are scattered around the city. While it’s not needed to understand the ODST main campaign, this sub-story plot is quite interesting and suddenly, the VISR becomes a great asset in your search for the remaining audio files. So you see, the VISR mode isn’t that bad, it’s just that it could have been limited somehow. I’ve said the same thing about the Detective mode in Batman: Arkham Asylum. It can’t be considered as a major flaw but certainly something that could have used a few extra hours of discussion. I mean, many games have a night-vision-like mode (Splinter Cell, Modern Warfare, etc…) but they do not give it all away.

Aside of the campaign, which could last between five and ten hours (Note: 5-7 hrs if you play alone at Easy and Heroic and even less if you play with friends via Xbox Live. The same can be applied to the Legendary mode if you play cooperative) depending of the difficulty level and if you go after the audio logs or not, Halo 3: ODST comes with a new multiplayer mode called Firefight. Similar to what Gears of War 2 had to offer, Firefight puts you and up to three of your friends against waves of Covenant enemies. In case you haven’t played Gears of War 2’s Horde mode, here’s a quick rundown: A wave consists of a group of enemies (in this case Covenant) with sole purpose to kill you. A round has five waves and a complete set has three rounds. At the end, Firefight adds a bonus round where your team tries to rack additional points as much possible. You have a few levels (ten in total) and characters unlocked at the beginning if you decide to dip into Firefight before going into the main campaign. You want the rest? You have to complete the campaign at different level of difficulties. Just like Horde in Gears 2, Firefight is very addictive and fun with a group of friends, which is really important in this case. If you don’t have friends to play with, especially online, Firefight’s purpose will become obsolete since the mode isn’t supported by a matchmaking system.

Fight waves of Covenant scum in Firefight!

Yes, Halo 3: ODST has more multiplayer-related stuff to offer but it’s not a completely new. If you want more than Firefight and if you already own Halo 3 and its 21 previously released downloadable maps, chances that you’ll be disappointed are high. You see, a standalone version of the Halo 3 multiplayer has been slapped into a disc alongside the Heroic, Legendary, Mythic downloadable map packs and the Cold Storage map. Actually, the final count is 24 because the disc does pack three new maps. If I would not know Microsoft that well, I would tell you that these three maps are EXCLUSIVE to the Halo 3: ODST package. Truth is, dear reader, you own an Xbox 360 and has been paying for Xbox Live for such a long time that you know that these three maps will be coming sometime to the Xbox live Marketplace sometime in the future. Finally, if you really want more Halo 3 goodness, you should know that the Forge and Theatre features have also been included.

Graphics & Sounds

Graphically, Halo 3: ODST looks good but doesn’t impress. If the Halo 3 graphics were an improvement over Halo 2, you should know that ODST feels almost like Halo 3 only with a few visual nuances, particularly geared towards the lighting. When you play as The Rookie, walking around New Mombasa at night is certainly impressive but like I said earlier, becomes less interesting due to the VISR over usage. Character models (when not wearing helmets) still look like those seen in Halo 3 while the cinematics, which are very narrative-driven, are once again very much similar to those previously seen in Halo 3. I won’t say that ODST is exactly like Halo 3 because it’s not completely true but it does feel very familiar. Thankfully, there are no freezing, texture tearing or framerate issues like the ones Halo 3 originally had when it shipped.

As it goes for the sound build, with the exception of the new dialogues (obviously) and soundtrack, courtesy of Halo vet Marty O’Donnell, you won’t see huge differences compared to Halo 3 (again?). Weapons, vehicles, enemies, explosions…everything is just like the previous title but remains solid and satisfying. The voice-over work, provided by Nathan Fillion, Adam Baldwin and Alan Tudyk (Firefly) and the gorgeous Tricia Helfer (Battlestar Galactica), is certainly one of the strongest points of the game.

Value

Is Halo 3: ODST worth it? Is it an expansion? Is it true that if you point the disc at the sun, Master Chief is summoned at your house? I do not have an answer for the third question and honestly the first two questions will depend entirely of how you want to see it. I won’t lie that when Bungie initially announced that Halo 3: ODST (previously known as Recon), most of the people in the online media business thought that it would be a great way to continue the Halo franchise until a fully fledged Halo title would eventually show up a few years later. Plus, announcing it at a retail price around $30 certainly sold the game to many of us, me included. Few months later, Bungie realizes that the game should be sold more ($70 in Canada that is) as they were packing in a second disc with the Halo 3 multiplayer plus three new maps and the Firefight mode.

Personally, after completing the game at two different difficulty levels, I would say that Halo 3: ODST would have been worth it if the overall work was more convincing than just re-using different parts of Halo 3 and masking it with a VISR vision mode and a mocked-up open world. Also, the fact that they have added a multiplayer standalone disc of a game that more than 8 million Xbox 360 users have doesn’t allow you to full price a game that has very little to offer aside of a new campaign mode and a new multiplayer mode. Was Microsoft trying to pull another Crackdown sales splash by throwing the Halo: Reach beta access into the mix? I’m not quite sure.

Lookout!

As an example, whether you like them or not, Rockstar released GTA IV: The Lost & Damned, a 5-8 hour standalone game with its own multiplayer mode for $20 early this year over the Xbox Live Marketplace. Now you will tell me that Lost & Damned (and the upcoming Gay Tony chapter) can’t be compared to Halo 3: ODST. I would say that aside from the fact that you are in space instead of Liberty City, both games share their technical similarities and the same story-driven experience. Only difference, one company decided to overprice it. Personally, that’s an issue to me.

As you are finishing reading this part of the review, you will understand that Halo 3: ODST will carry the reputation of “the game that was supposed to be an expansion but its not” forever. Gamers are passionate people and they are always ready to find ways to open their wallets and buy the new cool game in town. I would honestly suggest players to rent the game and see if it’s really worth adding it to your collection. Much like Gran Turismo 5 Prologue a while ago, Halo 3: ODST is clearly suffering from a corporate and marketing mistake (remember the GT5: Prologue demo-preview-of-the-full game debacle?). Now, if you are a huge Halo fanatic and for some weird reason, you haven’t bought the game yet, I hope this section alone would have given you enough to make you think a second or two. But you can also decide to overlook what I just said to you and go buy the game. Like I said, the value section of this review is strictly a personal point of view…of a Halo fan that wanted more.

Conclusion

There’s no doubt in my mind that Halo 3: ODST is a good action game. Unfortunately, for many gamers, the price tag will be an issue and will play a huge role into the decision of buying, rent it or get it later when its price drops. Add to the fact that Firefight isn’t supported by a matchmaking system, the offering of a standalone disc that contains the multiplayer mode of a game that millions of folks already own (minus three maps) and that re-uses most of what we’ve seen in Halo 3, Microsoft and Bungie have put a small cloud on their cherished franchise that I hope it will never show up again.