Then, for more than a year, Halo fans were teased relentlessly with a trailer for a Halo: Recon game that was supposed to take the perspective of a recon trooper. Later, Bungie and Microsoft renamed the game "ODST" and hyped up the game immensely. Like many Halo and FPS fans, Halo: ODST ("ODST") probably mystified you with the absolutely incredible live-action trailer that more resembled a feature film trailer than one for a video game. The hype was insane so the makers had a big pair of shoes to fill. Sadly, while ODST shows some promise as an FPS it falls short to take its place among its predecessors as a Halo game.
Let us begin...
Halo ODST, or "Helljumpers" as they call themselves, are an elite group of space paratroopers that get dropped in from low-orbit to trample their enemies. As "Rookie" you are explore the ruins of the mega-city New Mombasa 'investigating' the whereabouts of your fellow team mates by finding random objects and then learning everything that happened by looking at them. After examining said object the player flashbacks to the event leading up to the creation of the piece of garbage and you then follow the short-mission campaign. That is the ODST campaign mode in a nutshell as I beat the game in less than six hours.
To make up for a VERY short campaign mode, ODST includes a firefight mode similar to Left-4-Dead's survival mode, where you fend off wave after wave of Covenant forces until wiped out. My friends and I, disappointed with the campaign mode, played this for about ten minutes before deciding to try out the second disc that came with the game.
The second disc comes with a prototype or beta version of the next Halo game; Reach. We were hoping for a co-op campaign mode but, instead, were treated to a multiplayer-only version of the game... joy.
So, on to the pros and cons.
Despite my lacking enthusiasm for coughing up the full amount of coin for an XBox360 game that hardly held up its value, I do have some praise.
My first bit of praise pertains to the controls. I was impressed at how exceptionally well balanced the controls were. Once I quickly memorized the controls I was able to skillfully traverse across the very hazardous maps with little to no trouble on the Heroic difficulty (Hard mode). The aiming reticule was super-smooth to move around making aiming that much easier. Kudos to Bungie for making THAT a whole lot easier.
My next bit of praise goes to the heads-up display (HUD). The ODST visor has two modes. The first is a basic mode where you see as if your helmet is off. The second is when the visor is down and all points of interest, enemy outlines, and obstacles are outlined and shown while the brightness goes into a sort of night-vision. Naturally, this mode cannot be used in direct daylight. It is really cool to see this special mode and I can tell Bungie put a LOT of emphasis on the visor mode. It's fun to watch and makes finding your objective and enemies considerably easier.
I can definitely tell Bungie went to a few extremes to balance out the game play, controls, and interface but this is where most of my praise ends as the hype made the expectations far too high. This is where I get out my trusty red pen and go to town.
The story had promise, but became incredible lackluster. There was a very short prologue, a very short intro, and a very short ending. In between you have a few decent cut scenes with some great interjected humor ("Get this thing off of me!"), but otherwise I was not, at all, moved by the story. There was VERY little, if any, character development making the participants nothing more than sound bytes.
My next criticism is the lacking focus. Unlike any other FPS, you start missions by finding the loose pieces of garbage in a very big map. After the first mission, you can explore fully and recover more pieces in virtually any order you choose. Bungie lauds this as an open-ended campaign of sorts but, to me, it jumbles the story and throws out any sort of focus whatsoever. It makes an already lackluster story even more confusing. On top of that, the tutorial explaining the New Mombasa 'lobby' is very confusing and the player will feel the "what the hell am I supposed to do" mentality several times before getting what to do. The missions themselves have considerably more focus but the Rookie lobby does not and it almost ruins the game.
This leads to my next problem, game length. Do Bungie and Microsoft realize that some of us gamers buy games to play offline as well? I bought this game, which was advertised on the back of the box to have 2-4 player co-op, at the midnight release to play with my two buds and my little brother in 4-player co-op and NOT online. Once we realized that you need system-link to play 3-4 player co-op (I bought the 73-inch Samsung for a reason!!) we then took turns playing the missions and beat the game in under six hours. Once I finished, my very sarcastic little brother turned to me, pat me on the shoulder and said, "Well, there goes (insert full XBox360 game price here) bucks!"
I can tell that Bungie and Microsoft intended OSDT to be mostly another only multiplayer game instead of a really good offline shooter. This is really irritating as most of us gamers play casually since we have full-time jobs, families, or both and do not wish to be cursed at by 14-year-old German gamers with too much time on their hands. The original Halo was an excellent balance, why can't ODST be the same?
To the defense of the makers, I will replay some of the missions but mainly so I can get my moneys worth out of ODST. The game was still excellent in many regards, however, the campaign mode should have been a WHOLE LOT longer with a more enticing story with character development. It was too much hype for too little substance.
All in all, a B- game. A worthy rental, but not worth the whole price unless you play online.
Peace out!
Hola 3 ODST review by K.S (Grand Forks, ND)
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