I know its been a little while since my last review, but I just havn't had the urge to sit down and put the effort in to doing one latley. Now that I have spent some time with the newest addition to the Halo franchise I feel justified in putting my thoughts out there.
Halo is truly a series that needs little introduction, anyone with even a slight interest in gaming has heard of Halo, and it truly has a group of diehard fans that love the games and everything that goes along with them. Those of you that know me, also know that I am included in this group (how many other people have a 6ft tall Master Chief?)
This new game in the series however met with some criticism early on, It was orginally announced as downloadable content to the orginal Halo 3 and then grew into a full retail release including a full 59.99 pricetag, its also a departure in the series in that it wouldnt feature the Spartans. ODST highlights another group of soldiers, The Orbital Drop Shock Troopers, these guys are kind of the future version of Navy Seals and are thrown into spots not many others would want to go to. I wont delve into the story to much so as not to spoil anything for anyone but it centers around a group of ODST's thrown into the battle on Earth that begins in Halo 2. The story is definetly engaging and unique in that it uses flashbacks to tell the stories of the other squad members while one memeber is trying to locate them. Gameplay wise it is also a big change from the other Halo's obviously not playing as the Master Chief changes things quite a bit and it takes a little while with the game to adjust to this new style, you definetly have to take a stealthy approach and cant just run in guns blazing to every battle. The game does look amazing and playing in an earth enviroment also gives it a very real feeling, seeing things like burned out cars and buildings give a true sense of the destruction and the battle that is going on around you. One of the true hallmarks of Halo to me has always been the music and ODST is no different the music always seems to fit what is going on and still has a very fresh feeling, I noticed a lot of saxaphone in this soundtrack wich hasnt been featured in a Halo game before and it really gave the game a great vibe. Another hallmark of Halo is its multiplayer, ODST has a new gamemode called Firefight basically you and up to 3 other people take on wave after wave of increasingly stronger enemies and see how long you can last, its not totally orginal ( a similar mode is featured in Gears of War 2) but it is certainly fun. The entire game can also be playe through Co-op also with up to 3 other people and it definetly helps having at least one sidekick to watch your back. In addition Bungie included a disc with all of the Halo 3 maps to allow you to play Halo 3's multiplayer wich is still one of the most popular games on Xbox Live, this is great added bonus and makes the price seem a little bit more reasonable. My one main gripe with Firefight is that there is no matchmaking, you would think Bungie (a team that perfected the art of multiplayer matchmakeing) would have included some option for people to get together and play Firefight, but as it is now you are limited to your friends list and their friends, wich can make it tough to find a full game at times. Outside of that gripe I certainly found ODST to be well worth playing, while some may scoff and say the game is far to short, I say play the game solo on Legendary and see how long it takes you.... 8)
so the final verdict for this one is a definite.....
BUT IT
