How brave are you? This question sometimes is asked to those willing to fight for what they protect and in this case Earth. It is the 26th century and you are part of the Elite United Nations Space Command known as the Orbital Drop Shock Troopers. This will be there story told from the perspective of regular human soldiers that had to deal with the invasion of “The Covenant” on Earth. So I say again, how brave are you? This is the review of Halo 3: ODST.
In the Halo world the main aspect was talking about the fantastic Spartans wearing the Mjolnir armor that gave them the augmented strength and abilities, however there was not much talk about the regular marine side of the battles. You start off the game as the faceless hero known only as “Rookie” and once you depart from your ship of course things go wrong. Instead of landing on a ship your trajectory is changed, once that happened the ship enters into slip space which an EMP blast disrupts your pod which forces you to collide with your fellow squad members. You land in Africa after being unconscious for six hours, now have to find out what happened to the rest of the ODST’s. Your task now is to find clues that will be “beacons” giving you hints on each squad member’s events. Once you find the beacons leading to the clues of your comrades you will play out the mission there were on, kind of like a foresight view to see what happened. With little ammo and trying to survive on your own against waves of covenant forces probably aware of your presence; you have a hard task ahead of you!
I only have one thing to say to those starting out this game, “YOU ARE NOT MASTER CHEIF ANYMORE!” So far the biggest complaint is that people can’t do certain things. In this game you are just a regular human being, if you jump from a high platform you will get hurt, you don’t have a shield, no radar telling you enemy positions and you can’t dual wield weapons….okay that last part really should of been an addition but whatever. Bungie decided to use an old game engine for ODST, however for a side story especially with the price they set upon it should of been wise to give us a lot for the price besides making people buy stuff over as an incentive.
In terms of combat I am a bit disappointed, besides being a Halo veteran the enemy seems to lack that energy of trying to kill you when you were Master Chief. Playing on Legendary doesn’t feel at all that challenging then it would be in previous games. Granted this indeed is a survivor game and the choice of stealth is the key to survive, however only the elites and other covenant of higher rank push you to think.
This leads me to the multiplayer mode where they give you the fire fight mode. Think of this as the horde version of Halo where waves of covenant through five waves on each map. You can pick the difficulty but the skulls will automatically come on gradually through the waves. It is pretty simple but same deal with lack of respawn of weapons and health pack. The only time you can regain your life points that everyone shares is if you survive each wave. The challenge within that portion of the game is fun, but prepare to be frustrated in the long run.
My final analysis if you are a Halo fan you might enjoy this side story of the marines, but I still say the price tag is not worth it and the game was greatly hyped for not really producing that big of an interest. As I stand my judgment for this game is a rent or wait till the price drops to what it is really worth. All right gamers stay frosty and see you on the battlefield.
