Halo 3 is one of the biggest video games of all time. It sold huge numbers and is still the flagship title for Microsoft. It constantly fights with Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare for the #1 spot on the Xbox Live total players list. Needless to say, even an expansion pack to a game with that kind of pedigree is gonna get a lot of attention. And to say that Halo 3: ODST has gotten a lot of attention lately is an understatement. Check out the main page of IGN.com to see what I mean.
I got the game last night at a midnight sale at a local gamestop. Honestly, I don't really know why I did it. I felt like such a jackass standing around with drugged up teenagers and super-nerds who all smelled strange and dressed like they just rolled out of bed to get the game. Don't get me wrong, I let my nerd flag fly on a regular basis but even I know about style and smelling good (Pot smell doesn't count because not only is it kind of like BO, it's also a sign of laziness.) But for some reason, I stood in line and enjoyed the sense of relief when I got in my car and knew the game was mine and I could just enjoy it.
Did I enjoy it, you ask? Yes. Wait, hell yes. A resounding hell yes.
I was honestly getting a little tired of the super-sized sci-fi shooters where everything is so fucking big. I love sci-fi, especially well designed and built space-faring human future. I also loved the conflict between the outgunned Humanity and the multi-class Covenant, especially when the Covenant split down the middle in a major civil war in Halo 2.
So when I sat down and got dropped into the African mega-city of New Mombasa with no idea where to go, all by myself, and completely alone, I was more than a little intrigued. As I began to play that first mission, I almost immediately fell in love with the campaign for ODST. I wasn't a super-soldier and unlike the previous iterations of Halo, I couldn't just run in and kill everything like a madman. Hide in the shadows, avoid conflicts that would tax my available ammunition, and try to find supplies wherever I could, that was my playstyle and man was it fun. Stalking a future human city during a rainy night, trying to find my squadmates is a really fresh and entertaining take on the Halo style.
The campaign is short, clocking in at around 6 hours, but packs a lot into a little space. The mystery element of the story, finding the leftovers of your teammate's battles, then playing those past battles gives the story a particular punch and meat that was sadly missing in Halo 3.
I think the part I enjoyed the most, even thought I really wanted more out of it, was the interaction and help of the city's AI, the Superintendent. The quirky AI isn't like Cortana from the main Halo series. Instead, the Superintendent uses it's abilities to control small things in the city to guide you and protect you as you go about searching for your teammates. That simple dymanic makes the city much more layered and fun to travel through. You have to keep an eye for the Superintendent's hints because it can't talk to you, but the more time you devote to learning and working with the Superintendent, the more it will open up the city's secrets to you.
Halo 3: ODST doesn't represent a quantum leap forward in the Halo franchise, but it does remind us what the guys at Bungie can do with a great idea and a little ingenuity. I loved it and I hope that any other Halo or sci-fi fan will love it to. My only warning would be to consider returning the game if you have no interest in playing it online. The campaign is great but it's not really worth the $60 price tag if you aren't gonna use the multiplayer disk or the new Firefight mode.
And just because it happens to be one of the coolest fucking things ever, here is the live action trailer for the game:
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