There are a lot of things I really liked about Halo 3: ODST, and there are a lot of things that bugged me about Halo 3: ODST. That sentence should nicely sum up my review score.
Spoiler Warning!
This game is a Halo game. What does this mean? There will be a mission where you have to destroy a tank while on foot. There will be a tank driving mission. There will be points where you have to hold out against waves of enemies. There will be lots and lots of grunts saying lots and lots of silly things. The final mission will include a long sequence where you drive a warthog. If you are a Halo gamer, this game will be very familiar to you. Is this bad? No. One thing I have always liked about the Halo series as an FPS is how original and different the combat feels. The enemy AI is good, the variety in weapons is awesome, and the awesomely large action set-pieces are fantastic! Blowing up a scarab tank is always fun in my book. (Of course Halo 3 beat that to death, but hey, it has been a while for me) I think a drastic change in game play would have been a bad decision, because I like how the Halo series works. I like that I can get that tingling feeling behind my belly button saying “I want to play a Halo game” and be able to pick up a new game that sates my belly tingling.
Halo 3: ODST does do some cool things to liven up the formula. Before this games release, the developers spent plenty of time trying to sell the ODSTs as a completely different kind of soldier than master chief. I don’t buy it. They have a floaty jump, are wearing full body armor, and use all sorts of alien weaponry, and are masters of all vehicles (be they terrestrial or extra). They are basically the Brute to the Master Chief’s Elite. What ODST does do to liven up the formula is atmosphere. I think Jeff said it best in his review. This game should be played through first by yourself. The sultry sax music, darkened city, and interesting lighting make for a very unique atmosphere that would be ruined in co-op. You really do feel stranded most of the time while searching for clues about your squad. ODST’s greatest strength is how the story narrative plays out. Basically you are traveling from location to location and finding a piece of armor or a weapon from a battle on the previous day that might have something to do with your lost squad-mates. When you find a piece, you basically link in to the city’s surveillance system and see what happened. These end up being the different “missions” that you play in the game. Basically where another game would have cutscenes linking these missions together ODST has a neat open world exploration aspect in between missions.
I wish that I could have been able to play the much touted “Firefight” multiplayer mode, but I was unable to try it out. It is said to be quite fun, and reminiscent of the “Horde Mode” multiplayer in Gears of War 2.
Overall, I would probably rank this game as my favorite in the Halo series, as the combat felt the most refined to me. The inventive new storytelling technique also really livened up the experience for me as well. Loved it, and I recommend it to any shooter fan out there.