The Good, the Bad, and the ODST
Back in September of 2007, Bungie Studios took their beloved Halo series “Next Gen” with the release of Halo 3 for the Xbox 360. Making full use of the beefier console’s graphics capabilities and revamped controller design, the game revolutionized the way we battled the covenant. Now here we are, two years later, and Bungie’s done it again. Tuesday at midnight Halo 3: ODST went on sale to eager fans around the world. Overlapping events in both Halo 2 and Halo 3, this expansion takes the focus off of Master Chief and places it on a rookie Orbital Drop Shock Trooper (ODST). Gone are the days of the Overshield, invulnerability to fall damage, and the seemingly endless supply of ammunition. Make no mistake about it, the game has changed my fellow soldiers. Which begs the question: Is this expansion worthy of it’s full retail price of $59.99?
The Good:
So how does this iteration of Halo fair without it’s beloved Master Chief? Incredibly well actually. Make no mistake about it, ODST is a drastically difference game from it’s predecessors. Until now, each of the sequels offered what really amounts to just a cosmetic upgrade with one little gameplay change – Halo 2 gave us dual wielding and Halo 3 gave us Equipment. ODST on the other hand, forces you to completely abandon everything you thought you knew about killing covenant and offers a uniquely different (at least in terms of this franchise) combat experience.
The previous games were all about Master Chief being a completely and total badass. Any situation could be fixed with an onslaught of bullets. In the off chance that you ran out, you couldn’t throw your nerfed pistol without hitting some sort of ammo crate. If then, by some miraculous reason, you were somehow able to deplete even that ammo, you could always just punch enemies in the face and they’d pretty much just keel over. Thus is the life of a Spartan.
The life of an ODST, on the other hand, is not so badass. You’re still technically an elite soldier, but you don’t have an overshield. You can’t dual wield. You can’t use equipment. And you get hurt when you jump from, well… almost anything. This may sound like a downside, but it’s actually a refreshing take on the series’ combat mechanics. “running and gunning” is no longer the name of the game. Instead, you have to rely on outwitting, outflanking, and generally outplaying your enemy. All of which has to be done while attempting to conserve ammo. I played through the game on the “Heroic” difficulty and spent a huge chunk of my time ducking behind corners and into buildings desperately searching for any weapon that had even a shallow clip left in it.
The level design is also vastly improved upon. Unfortunately, the entire Halo franchise is sort of known for it’s incredibly linear level design that often forces you to push all the way through a boring corridor only to have to fight your way right back through it again after completing your objective. In ODST, bungie focused on huge wide-open levels, may of which are larger than the the “Big Team” maps in Halo 3. Add to that the constant juxtaposition of the solo night moments and the flashback big battle sequences, and the game never feels stale or repetitive at all.
Lastly is ODST’s new co-operative mode called Fire FIght. Similar to Gears of War 2’s Horde Mode, Fire Fight drops you and up to three buddies onto a map and then precedes to unleash wave after wave of covenant baddies onto the map until you and all your friends have been obliterated. The maps for this mode are absolutely enormous and are literally pulled straight from the campaign. I actually spent my first several hours of the game playing Fire Fight online with friends and it was amazing to find myself later attempting to defend and assault the same choke points in the Campaign that I had been in this mode. Fire Fight is really the crowning achievement in this game.
The Bad:
I’m a huge fan of the Halo series and I’ve love each game that Bungie has released thus far, so it’s no surprise that I also love ODST. That being said, this is not a perfect game. In fact, it’s not technically a game at all. Halo 3: ODST is actually just an expansion, or companion really, to Halo 3. And that’s where it’s problems stem from.
Bungie’s original intention with the game was to give the fans something to keep us busy while we wait for Halo: Reach (the prequel to Halo: Combat Evolved). They admit that it was just supposed to be a little expansion, however, they claim that the project quickly developed into so much more. So much more, in fact, that they’re charging the price of a full game ($59.99). The truth is that ODST isn’t a complete game and doesn’t come anywhere close to feeling like it is.
Yes, there is a new Campaign. Yes, there is a new Co-op mode. Yes, both these modes are beautifully crafted and original. However, that’s all that ODST has to offer. It has no Competitive Multi-Player. Instead, it just comes with a copy of Halo 3 with it’s Campaign ripped out. In my opinion this is beyond disappointing. This game offers a completely fresh take on war in the Halo universe, but doesn’t let us take up arms against each other. How can this be? If you look at the achievement breakdown for Halo 3, you’ll notice that there are 43 achievements available in Multiplayer and only 36 available in the Single Player Campaign. Correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t this prove that Bungie acknowledges the importance of Multiplayer over Single Player? Why then would they just ignore the feature in ODST?
The second huge blunder committed by the developers is that the Fire Fight mode doesn’t have any Matchmaking functionality. This means that if you don’t have any friends to Co-op with, you’re completely shit out of luck. This is the real shame in my opinion. Fire Fight is simply an amazing mode. So good in fact that, if it had Matchmaking, I might be able to completely forget that ODST has no Multiplayer mode of it’s own. In fact, if I could be assigned to a random squad any time I was in the mood for a Fire Fight, I’d be online right now instead of writing this post. But I can’t. Effectively, the mode might as well not even be on my copy of the game because I don’t know enough people who even own a copy to ever really take advantage of it.
If this expansion would have come out as Downloadable Content at 1600 Microsoft Points (roughly $20), We wouldn’t have an issue. It would be clear that the game was just an Add-On. It’s not though. It’s being sold as a full fledged game. Even if you subtract the money you’re technically saving from the 3 new bundled Multiplayer Halo 3 maps (which we’ve been paying 800 points a set for so far), the game is still $30 more expensive than it should be.
The Final Verdict:
So, now that I’ve gone on about how much I love the game AND ranted about everything I hate about it, what’s my final verdict? Well, maybe I’m just drinking the Bungie Kool-Ai, but even with missing features and the outrageous price tag, Halo 3: ODST is an awesomely fun game. I’d say it’s a must buy for any Halo fan out there. Take it from the guy who took Tuesday off of work and played the game for about 12 hours straight. If you bought this game and don’t love it, well then you probably had no reason buying it in the first place.
posted by Christopher Schnese
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