Halo 3: ODST [XBox 360] Review

It doesn’t seem like Halo 3 came out too long ago, but it was actually back in 2007, over 2 years ago. In gaming time, that’s a very long period in which lots of innovative titles, features and concepts can spring up and make even the most polished titles of yesteryear seem not as stunning rather quickly.

In the time since Halo 3 came out, the gaming world — specifically in terms of first-person shooters — has improved dramatically. Bioshock, although it came out a month before Halo 3, showed gamers how important setting, story and art direction was to gameplay. Gears of War II and Left 4 Dead showed gamers that co-op can make all the difference in the world. Valve’s Portal demonstrated how one clever concept done well can turn a typical game into a must-have gem. Resistance 2 and Killzone 2 proved to players that the 360 wasn’t the only console where FPSs could be found. Basically, even though only 2 years have passed since Halo 3 came out, gamers need very different things than they did years ago.

Halo 3: ODST was originally supposed to be a low-priced, DLC expansion pack of sorts meant to fill the void between Halo 3 and whatever Bungie/Microsoft were planning next. Over the next year or two though the expansion pack ballooned into a full-fledged title complete with a $60 price tag (originally it was supposed to be around $40). It also was being touted as a “new gameplay experience” in the Halo universe that would breathe life into series’ standard FPS-style. Early videos showed footage of players moving through rainy, poorly lit city streets using special night vision goggles or something to see enemies. Based on early videos and PR speak from the company, Halo 3: ODST certainly appeared to be something new for fans.

But is that what the final result turned out to be?

No. And let’s be clear about this: I’m a huge Halo fan… Now, I’m not the biggest Halo fan in the world but even after the stinker that was Halo Wars I was excited to play this. I even went to a midnight launch event for it – something I had never done for a game up to that point. So with that out of the way, let me say what needs to be said once again: Halo 3: ODST is nothing like what Bungie or Microsoft promised.

At its best, Halo 3: ODST is a moody-sounding, strange entry to the Halo-verse that will keep your interest long enough to finish the campaign and a few of the stages again on Legendary difficulty. At its worst, ODST comes across like a quick n’ dirty cash-in of Halo settings, enemies, weapons and levels, most of which seem surprisingly dull this time around.

There’s no beating around the bush – Halo 3: ODST is an expansion pack, nothing more. I find a comparison to Half-Life: Blue Shift to be the most fitting because the new campaign is ridiculously short, the elements seem tired and overused and the overall package screams “been there, done that.” The night-vision look along with the moody, dark city setting are the highpoints of ODST and it’s a real shame Bungie didn’t focus more on those aspects. Instead, the player alternates between that and standard Halo stages filled with enemies we’ve all seen and beat before many, many times.

If that weren’t bad enough Nathan Fillion plays a big role in ODST as “Buck” (please, please someone tell Firefly and Fillion fans he just sucks. He looks more like a vacuum salesman than a hero of any kind) and the cutscenes look absolutely terrible. I’m convinced Bungie didn’t do one thing to improve graphics at all in ODST because it looks just like a game from 2007 or earlier. Even though the stages’ environment visuals look nice, the negatives are too much to ignore this time around (and gamers deserve more visually in 2009).

As I mentioned earlier, there are no new weapons or enemies to discover. The game takes place between Halo 2 and 3…so I guess Bungie is using the excuse of “If something new showed up in ODST, it would mess up continuity in Halo 3″… In my opinion, it seems more like Bungie just wanted to be lazy and not develop any new content but instead recycle stuff to get the most bang for their buck.

Talking about sound, the game definitely sounds different than other Halo games and is probably the best part of ODST overall. Players are treated to moody, jazz music that make the game feel more like a film-noir detective/mystery game than first person shooter. It’s nice to see risks were taken with changing up the soundtrack…but I’m not convinced it worked 100% overall since the game constantly flip-flopped from dark/moody to day-time/action-packed gameplay (and music). I mean, even the iconic Halo theme isn’t even featured in the game…what was going on at Bungie?

To round out the rest of the single-player campaign portion of this review I just want to mention how I wish the game focused more on exploration than being inside a handful of buildings (most doors you come across in New Mombasa can’t be opened and all the buildings around seem to be for show…very few things in the environment feature interactivity) and how I wish stealth was pushed more (ODST soldiers aren’t supposed to be Spartans…so if that’s the case, why are they getting in nearly as many gun fights?). The story itself wasn’t all that bad but it really didn’t bring anything new to the table except for a new species, Engineers. In the end, for a game that focuses solely on ODST soldiers, as a player you won’t feel much for many of them at the end. At least with Halo you had a strong lead character (Master Chief)…with ODST, there’s no one character to root for or against.

Finally, let’s talk about the new modes and multiplayer. The new Firefight mode has tons of enemies coming after you player in wave after wave, and your goal is to defeat as many as possible before you run out of lives. In one game of this setting I played for 267 minutes straight and killed almost 1,000 enemies before I gave up out of boredom. For all that effort I didn’t receive an Achievement or anything special. Firefight, while a neat concept I guess, is utterly pointless unless you have nothing better to do. The other part of the extras is the additional game disc filled with every Halo 3 multiplayer map made. Now, initially I was excited about this since it had been about 6 months since I played Halo 3 online. However, after about 4 or 5 matches (with new maps I had never played before) I knew why I hadn’t played Halo 3 multiplayer in so long: It’s not aging well and Bungie refuses to fix the simplest of things like letting players pick what stage they want or updating it’s awkwardly complex pre- & post-game UI screens/menus.

Overall, Halo 3: ODST is not for everyone. Even the most die-hard of Halo fans will be somewhat let down by it…either because of the short and overly-familiar campaign or by the underwhelming multiplayer modes that should have been free along. The game would have been just right if it only cost $40. It’s hard to justify the game’s $60 price tag however, especially if you already have Halo 3 and any of its additional maps. I would suggest that unless you are a Halo fan, don’t pick up this game. There are far better stand-alone shooters available elsewhere and  this is simply an easy way for Bungie/Microsoft to cash-in on the Halo franchise by making the cheapest expansion pack available. One could argue that it’s a decent game with a fair number of high points here and there…but it’s a far cry from the Halo games that came before it.

One Final Note: I believe Halo 3: ODST is a buggy game that wasn’t properly playtested. When I first started playing it I had it lock up my 360 no less than a dozen times at different points (sometimes on a loading screen, other times in the middle of a fight — never the same place twice). I don’t think it was my system because I haven’t had issues with it freezing thus far and I tried setting the system flat, on its side, playing the game by reading off the game disc and even installing it for play off my harddrive to avoid using the disc during gameplay. Basically, I’m just giving you a heads up that you may encounter bugs with the game (mostly early on, from my experience). Obviously, this didn’t help my opinion of the game…

Graphics: 7 | Sound: 8 | Play Control: 8 | Fun Factor: 6 | Final Score: 68%

Halo 3 ODST Gamestop Midnight Launch!

Last night I decided to go down to the nearby Gamestop where I had reserved [and paid for upfront] Halo 3 ODST and check out their midnight launch. I had never been to one before and after going, I must say I’m excited to attend one again. The most surprising thing was that I honestly did not expect any one but a handful of people to show up, since where I live the average gamer seems to care more about Madden/NCAA football/Wii-related games than actual hardcore games. Because I wanted to show my experience off in a cool way, I put together a collection of video clips and photos taken at the event for all to enjoy.

Halo: Combat Evolved [Xbox] Review

Halo: Combat Evolved is the most popular game to appear on the XBox. There’s no need to beat around the bush. Halo is one of the best FPS titles ever made and easily one of the best games of all time.

In the game you play as Master Chief, a cyborg-like super soldier who finds himself brought out of stasis in order to combat an enemy known as the Covenant. After an attack on your ship, you and other soldiers are forced to escape and land on a mysterious object in space shaped like a giant ring. Eventually you learn that the world-sized environment is known as “Halo” and has something your enemy desperately wants to find. During the rest of the game you find yourself fighting a seemingly non-stop supply of enemies in a variety of locations, with only a handful of marines and your A.I. construct known as Cortana as your allies.

Without going into a great amount of detail, I will say that my experience playing Halo has been forever etched into my memory. I recall playing it like crazy in the summer break between years of college and becoming completely sucked into the story, setting and cinematic feel of the game. Few games have ever created such a vivid and lasting impression for me and that alone makes it one of the best games I have ever played.

I think it’d be hard NOT to give this game high marks across the board for all it does so well. Halo’s controls (especially vehicle controls) basically define how shooters on a console should be done. Halo’s music is nothing short of iconic and grand in scale and impact (the voice acting is done very well also) — it’s a great sounding game in every way. The visuals scream “next-gen” thanks to the clever use of reflections and high-quality textures and the in-game physics engine makes you feel like you’ve been missing so much for all of these years. Let’s also not forget that Halo: Combat Evolved is also one tough game…if you manage to beat Halo on “Legendary,” congrats — you deserve to feel proud.

If Halo has a couple flaws that keep the gameplay from being perfect, it’s that some of the levels drag-on a bit too much & repeat (and could have benefited from being trimmed somewhat) and there are no bots present in the multiplayer mode (for people who want to play alone or in larger groups)……even so, the game raises the bar so much in design that it becomes a yardstick for future shooters to be measured against.

Years from now, gamers of all ages will look back on their time playing and think of all the titles that created a new moment of awe and satisfaction within the industry and their own lives. Without a doubt, Halo: Combat Evolved will be at or near the top of the list for many, many people.

Note: This “Looking Back Review” was not written in 2003, but is written & rated to recreate my feelings towards the game at that time when I first played [and intended to review] Halo: Combat Evolved.

Graphics: 9 | Sound: 10 | Play Control: 10 | Fun Factor: 10 | Final Score: 98%

Halo 3 [XBox 360] Review

Let me first start out this review by saying that while at one time I used to be a rabid Halo fan — after the disappointment that was Halo 2 — I wasn’t as fanatical about the series as I used to be. So, I’m not a Halo fan boy per sé, but I really do like the series and still had a lot of interest in Halo 3 when it was first announced (I’ve been following it off-and-on for the past year or so…although nothing like to the extent that I did with Bioshock). I think this actually helped me in the long run because my expectations weren’t through the roof and I didn’t expect it to be a perfect game in the way I thought Halo 2 would be a perfect game compared to Halo 1.

Because of this, I didn’t pick up Halo 3 when it first came out and actually just rented it (mainly because 360 games are still pretty expensive). The nice thing though is that with Halo 3 you can rent it for a long weekend or 4-5 days and experience the whole game (at least on the normal difficulty setting).

Halo 3 pretty much fixes everything that was wrong with Halo 2. Halo 2 had a very bad, abrupt, cut-it-off right when you didn’t expect it ending that felt very much like the second Matrix movie’s ending (where it was just like, “To be continued!”). The only “upside” to Halo 2’s disappointing campaign was that it wasn’t terribly long, so the feeling of being cheated out of an ending didn’t feel quite so terrible. Halo 3’s single player campaign is the same way (not the ending, just gameplay-wise) in that it isn’t very long (there’s only a dozen or so stages) and you can get through them on normal difficulty in just a couple days (they’re not that difficult).

Speaking of difficuly – like other Halo games, the “Legendary” difficulty is just that…and it’s extremely difficult to get through just the first or second stage. It’s ridiculously difficult in fact! The enemies seem like they’re a lot more intelligent than they used to be (especially the Brutes who have new armor and a version that weilds a deadly gravity hammer) and Halo 3 seems like it’s more well-rounded overall.

Halo 3 isn’t so much about reinventing the series as it is refining it. For instance, one thing I do enjoy is that they got rid of the Arbiter levels where you play as the Covenant character. I also like that they have so many Wathog driving portions in the game (I love driving the vehicles in this game – they are so much fun and the controls are so intuitive). On the topic of vehicles, one of the most exciting parts of the game is when you take control of a hovercraft-like vehicle in a beach/cliff-side assault against a bunch of Covenant airships.

In regards to other aspects, even the sound is very well done (everything sounds great!) and the controls are dead-on (It may still take a few minutes to get used to the controls if you’re used to PC gaming setups) Overall, I love this game. I think the ending was amazing and it is pretty much everything Halo 2 should have been – and more.

With the multiplayer parts and video portions, I think this is an oustanding title and potentially Game Of The Year in my book.

Graphics: 9 | Sound: 9 | Play Control: 9 | Fun Factor: 9 | Final Score: 90%