Review – Halo 3: ODST (X360)

Eight years ago, Microsoft’s original Xbox launched with a little game named Halo: Combat Evolved.  Developed by Microsoft and Bungie (a company known for first-person shooters on the Mac and gory real-time strategy games), the Halo series ended up being responsible for most of the ills of modern society, according to the message boards and the online behaviour of its player base.

But it’s been a damn good series and a fun ride.  We finished the fight just last year, with a release that was so huge the movie industry blamed it for movies sucking.  So that’s it: no more Halo, time to move on.

Not so fast.  Bungie’s got a couple more in them, and we’ve just been treated to the latest iteration:  Halo 3: ODST.  Not since the original Halo have we had a colon in the title.  Appropriately, the gameplay is also a throwback to the original series, bringing back health packs, losing dual-wielding, and lessening the jumping insanity.

Originally planned as a sort of stand-alone expansion pack, ODST has evolved into a full retail game.  We get a Campaign mode and the Firefight survival mode on disc one and all the Halo 3 multiplayer goodness packed onto a second disc.

All of ODST supports standard Bungie.net functionality.  Saved films, saved pictures, as well as a log of all games played, with stats, medal counts, and other goodies for an OCD-enhanced gamer to worry over.

ODST runs on a modified version of the Halo 3 engine and uses a large number of Halo 3 assets (weapons, aliens, vehicles and so on).  There’s been a few improved shaders and lighting effects.  The new VISR mode looks really good and adds a useful twist, but this is a Halo game through and through.  The level design and art direction is solid.  Local co-op’s been cut down to two player split screen, but all co-op modes still support up to four player on Xbox LIVE and through System Link.

Sound is typical of Halo, although the familiar Gregorian chant from the previous games in the series is taking a vacation.  There are some jazzy little bits for the detective parts, but otherwise the music’s about what would be expected.  I had no problems with the voice acting, although I seem to be in the minority in this regard.

On the whole, the package is good and offers a decent value for its price.  But I’m a Halo fan who knows other Halo fans, and I’m interested in seeing the story from the first three continue.  For someone who’s new to the series, or who doesn’t have a lot of interest in the various multiplayer modes (both versus and co-op are significant portions of the game’s content), it’s somewhat less attractive.

Campaign

ODST’s story focuses around a squad of ODSTs dropped into New Mombasa, sometime between the events of Halo 2 and Halo 3.  Other squads were aiming for a Covenant ship, but this one had mysterious orders from a new commander.  Things go awry and the team’s rookie member (conveniently referred to as Rookie) passes out and awakens six hours later, alone, in the night streets of New Mombasa, looking to piece together what happened to his team and what to do about those mysterious orders.

The campaign mode alternates between two approaches.  Rookie wanders New Mombasa at night, gathering clues and triggering flashbacks of what’s been going on the past six hours.  These flashbacks are played out in full.  There’s no real difference between the various ODST members in terms of control, although some have slightly different loadouts.  These levels are fairly standard and full of Halo goodness.  Depending on the difficulty, they start off about half an hour long, slowly increasing in length over the course of the game.  There’s a good variety to these stages.  There’s nothing that takes place on Covenant ships, but also nothing that involves any members of the Flood.  No Flood is a very, very good thing.

In between these stages, control shifts back to Rookie.  New Mombasa is a massive city, and there’s a lot of area he can cover.  He gets a map and knows where he has to go, but it’s up to the player to figure out how he’s getting there.  It’s an almost non-linear approach to Halo, except that he’s usually limited in terms of where he can go and what his goals are.  I enjoyed the city sections.  It’s possible to sneak around enemies instead of engaging them.  The game’s new VISR mode (a friend-and-foe identifying night vision mode) really shines at night.  Not only because it’s not blindingly bright, but it really helps the design of the city pop out.

There’s a little more to do during these night sections than just idly wander in the general direction of the blip on his compass.  The city is controlled by a Superintendent-class AI with a bit of a story of its own.  It’s quite interested in having this story told, and will try to help Rookie understand what’s going on.  There’s audio logs to be collected from assorted locations throughout the city.  The AI will try to get his attention by flashing headlights, changing billboards to read “Detour”, “Turn Left” or “Slow down”, making ATMs freak out, phones ring and so on.  The AI has a limited vocabulary and wants to Keep It Clean however it can manage.  The sidestory is a little melodramatic, but adds a personal touch (and a number of faces) to the Halo backstory.

All in all, the campaign’s a little short.  It can be completed in five to six hours, again depending on difficulty.  There’s an assortment of achievements for doing specific things on specific levels, as well as clearing the game on difficulties up to Legendary.  Although Halo 3’s Campaign Scoring mode returns, with par scores in the campaign levels, there are no achievements associated with them.  Playing through Campaign on at least Normal will unlock the majority of ODST models for Firefight mode, as well as the remaining Firefight levels.

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