Halo 3: ODST

Review from Starks - Wednesday, 21 October 2009 @ 9:58pm

There's several games that I've played in my life that have really meant a lot to me. Halo, as a series, is one of those. I've played more hours of the Halo series than I probably have of any other game combined. I have some wonderful memories of online games, have met some excellent friends through the competitive gaming circuit and have believed in the Halo franchise as the primary competitive game on Xbox. Without a doubt, I would classify myself as a Halo fanboy, although not the type who believes it's the greatest game of all; Simply one who know's it holds something special for those who spend their time unlocking the secrets Bungie placed in it.

I had low expectations for Halo 3: ODST. I didn't think it would be a world beater at all. In fact, I was just hoping for a solid campaign and a bit of fun and I'd have been happy. No doubt you can tell my disappointment at the fact that I believe Halo 3: ODST is not only a waste of time as a game, but one that could legitimately have been offered as downloadable content, or at least offered as a discounted price, to those who are faithful to the series. Let me expand.

There is nothing new.

…

No, really. There’s nothing new to the game at all. No new enemies. No new vehicles. No new gadgets, technology or angle to the actual Halo concept. No new weapons. And before fans go “But, but, but…” adding a silencer to an already existing gun DOES NOT COUNT AS A NEW WEAPON!! A new weapon is something like a gun that shoots out slime that kills your enemy by dissolving their face. Or a grenade that launches a biological gas which makes you woozy and fall over after 15 seconds. Perhaps even a gun that instead of shooting, sends out a sound wave that sends your enemies running, much like a dog whistle sends our canine companions nuts. Hey look Bungie, see? Three in three seconds; Pretty easy, huh!

Reskinning a gun and adding a silencer does not make a new weapon

About the only new elements, and I use this sparingly as I’m now stretching, is that you get three new multiplayer maps (Woo-bloody-hoo, I could’ve downloaded those), a terrible campaign they believe adds to the Halo franchise and the introduction of ESP to the Halo universe. Yes, that’s right – Our protagonist in ODST, who goes by the name of 'The Rookie', can ‘magically understand the last 30 minutes of events in someone’s life’ just by touching something they were involved with, like their armour or a piece of clothing which was theirs.

ESP? Come on Bungie. Surely you could have done better than this.In any case, adding ESP to the Halo series for a regular trooper – Cause let’s face it, the Orbital Drop Shock Troopers are just hormonally charged marines who didn’t make the Spartan cut and have anger management issues surrounding this decision – is in the same league as George Lucas’ decision to include Ewoks in Return of the Jedi and have them somehow manage to conquer a strike force of Stormtroopers. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if Bungie got old Georgie in for a ‘brainstorming session’ and it was his brilliant idea to include ESP after the group had each skulled a bottle of absinthe.

What I’m trying to get at is the storyline is rubbish. Absolute trash. Upsettingly awful. So much so that I could only put up with it for just over an hour before I turned my 360 off and turned to the multiplayer. About the only redeeming feature of the campaign is the voice acting of Firefly stars Nathan Fillion and Adam Baldwin, who appear to reprise their Firefly roles in digital manner yet with with different names. The fact that Bungie can’t even create characters that aren’t in some way rip off’s of the roles played by the actors they hired is disappointing. In fact, they may as well have called Fillion’s character Malcom Reynolds, because Dutch really is a carbon copy of the Firefly captain.

If it wasn't for the helmets, you'd think this was Halo 3 launched two years ago...

Disgruntled with the campaign, I moved on to the multiplayer with the intent of enjoying what I thought would be a slightly new experience. Only it wasn’t. In fact, Bungie hadn’t changed a thing. They basically ripped the multiplayer from Halo 3, burnt it to a new disc, packed it in with the ODST expansion and added three maps.

Now, c’mon. You cannot possibly think that isn’t lazy. And it simply isn’t cool to make people pay $99 for what is essentially a second rate campaign with three additional multiplayer maps. In fact, it’s outright highway robbery.

To add insult to injury, Bungie appear to be taking on their former owners approach to business by stealing successful features from rival companies. Firefight, reputedly one of the ‘new’ features, is essentially Horde mode from Gears of War 2.

Is anyone quite as frustrated about all this as I am or am I getting too emotional about it all?

So let me look at it from this angle:

• Bungie release a ‘new’ game, which is essentially only a new campaign that has a pretty terrible storyline anyway and doesn’t do anything new when it comes to gameplay

• It bundles with the ‘new’ game the multiplayer aspect of a previous game they released two years ago

• They also add a ‘new’ feature that is in actual fact a direct rip off of another game release last year

• They charge $99 for it

• And everyone claps and says ‘This is an excellent progression in the series and really adds to Halo 3, WOOOO!!’

Newsflash – IT IS HALO 3!

You might as well be reading the review I wrote for Halo 3 two years ago. There's really nothing different to the engine, AI, graphics or weaponry to justify me going in to the detail again.

I want to write about something in the game. About all I can give you is they added a night vision style goggle as a feature, which helped mix things up a bit but in the end was more disorientating due to the poor lighting. They also input a little computer type of thing as a feature. I didn’t mind this, despite the fact it was a bit harder to use. But I felt that if they need to introduce a map feature and an objectives list to the game to help the gamer, then isn’t that just compensating for the fact that the level design is confusing and the objectives poorly explained?

I recommend that you don’t play it if you have any expectations at all. Especially if you’re a fan that is struggling with the way Bungie and Microsoft keep bashing the cash cow for more dollars. For me, this is clearly a case of making a game to generate money at the expense of the franchise itself.

I really don't have anything interesting to say here...

Pros

Great soundtrack. Some good voice acting and the attempt to place you into a 'movie' like situation. You don't have to play the game.

Cons

Recycled Halo 3. Storyline is hard to follow and very disjointed. Lighting is quite bad, despite you having the helmet enhancement.