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The Best That 2009 Had to Offer! ODST Edition

I don't think that many game critics put Halo 3: ODST on their 2009 year end lists, but it was certainly one of the biggest releases of the year. Alex and I recently had a chance to sit down and play through the co-op campaign for a few hours. Here are my thoughts (after you re-watch the excellent ODST commercial):

Like a lot of males under the age of 30, I was heavy into Halo and Halo 2 on the original Xbox. Yes, their multi-player defined my high school years in more ways than I would care to admit, but I actually liked the first Halo's story and brief portrait of the Halo universe. Halo 2's single player took all that in terrible directions, with Master Chief becoming a Jesus-character-thing. And the Flood is the worst, laziest video game enemy in the history of the medium. Halo 3 was entirely forgettable, but I was actually excited when I first heard about a Halo spin-off where you controlled a non-Spartan, regular human soldier in a fight against (and only against) the Covenant.

The actual product got mixed reviews and I didn't consider picking it up, but having so much history with the franchise (and being intrigued by the Halo Reach beta) I was excited to be given a copy of the game.

The opening cinemas were a big turn off - not only is the Halo engine severely dated, but the characters were just so terrible. When we finally got out of our drop-pods and onto the streets of New Mombassa, I have to admit I was impressed with the atmosphere. A night-time, post-traumatic city is an interesting local to battle aliens (even if the city has nothing really going on in it). The music was a far cry different from typical Halo and FPS fare, with some ambient electronics and dissonant jazz thrown in. ODST felt distinct from the mainline Halo games, and I was really enjoying myself until we "flash backed" to the experience of one of the other ODST soldiers and it became Halo 3 all over again, with the same, stale "HALO" set-pieces. Drive the Warthog! Blow up the Wraith! Hit those two big boss dudes in the back! Accidentally pick up a Needler!

Despite being a "regular solider", I noticed very little actual difference between my ODST guy and Master Chief (he doesn't talk and can still flip trucks with no sweat). The VISR combat scanner was a nice addition, especially during the night missions, but felt more like an afterthought to make those portions of the game easier.

We stopped a few hours short of beating it, but ODST left JUST enough of an impression with me that I will be picking it up in the next few weeks to see how it all wraps up. I hope that Halo Reach brings out more of the impressionistic, sad side of the Halo universe that was on display here.

About Paul

Paul has been playing games since he cut his teeth on an old Atari 2600 in the early 1990s. He has played every console generation since, and currently jams on Playstation 3, Xbox 360, and DSi. He proudly does not own a Wii, and goes back and forth on whether he'd want a gaming PC (he did his fair share of Mac gaming back in the day though). Games-wise, Paul came up in the world a pretty big JRPG nerd, but now he's mellowed plays mostly anything good or weird. He does maintain a pretty impressive collection Playstation 1-era RPGs.