Halo 1 showed us what the genre FPS was turning into. Halo 2 showed us what Multiplayer was all about. Halo 3 showed us that people will shell out enough money for anything. Including a Helmet that won’t even fit a cat. Alright so the Multiplayer, Theater and Forge were pretty neat and very revolutionary. Then there is this new comer. Halo 3: ODST. What does this game bring to the beloved franchise?

Gameplay

If your familiar with the Halo Franchise then you should know roughly what to expect. It’s a FPS but this time no Master Chief. What you say?? Yes there is no Chief you play a variety of characters that are in a squad called ODST. Early on in the game your squad is split apart. As the Rookie your job is to walk around and explore the city, gathering sound bites and solving the mystery of all the cool things your squad mates did. As the Rookie much like the Rookie from Ghostbusters you have a Samus complex. Yeah you can’t talk your mute. Anywho as the Rookie you get into little fights here or there but nothing to interesting at least until the final 2 missions. Whenever you solve the Mystery you then get to play it out as the Squad mate in question. Then it’s just Halo all over again. Blow Shit up rinse wash repeat. The Gameplay is what you know and love of the series. Onwards to the new multiplayer. What is Firefight? Well take Horde mode from Gears of War 2 and slap Halo into it. Yup it’s just wave battles with a squad. Now I’m not saying it wasn’t fun. I just think it would have been better served as DLC. There are two discs in the set, Disc 1: Contains ODST and Firefight while Disc 2: Contains Halo 3 Multiplayer. So I hope you enjoy swapping discs.

Graphics

There were ups and downs. The Beginning of the game where characters had their Helmets off clearly showed a very dated look. Heads were largely square and lacked a lot of definition. The Female character was one of the worsts in the bunch, made me really appreciate Cortana. Once those helmets were on the game began. Character models looked great and the little updates that were done to most of weaponry & Vehicles shined. I especially liked how the Banshees looked. There was just a little bit of extra flair to the game.

Sound

This is where the game kinda tanked. Well let’s break the sound into two parts. The Score was excellent sometimes to excellent. During scenes as the rookie they play this very beautiful sad song, that to me really made me question what game I was playing. It felt so out of place. Other times though there was a very BSG sounding score rooting you on as you kill the baddies. The Voice acting is pretty bad, there were a lot of lines that were just terrible. The Line I did like was a Ghostbuster reference, while busting out your Spartan Laser the guy says “Don’t Cross my Stream.” Worst line of the game goes to Buck who says to the Rookie something like: “If you ever fall for a woman, make sure she’s got balls!” Right… I think I’ll pass.

Overall

I myself felt that ODST was just okay. I think it would have been better served with the name ODLC (Originally Down Loadable Content). Which in my opinion is how it should have been released. I don’t think 4hours of Gameplay and 1 new Multiplayer option counts as a Full Game release. That being said this game could certainly be up your alley, especially if you love Halo. Just be warned the Campaign is short and there is only 1 new Multiplayer Mode.