Review: Halo 3 ODST - Xbox 360 (Part 1)

This is not just a review of a game, it's a review of a story and a package as well, and it's likely that because of this review I will come off as being a Halo 'fan boy', which to be fair, I am. Why am I a Halo fan boy? Because I like to play things that I think I will enjoy, and even when I pick up a game I think I will enjoy, some still fail to hold my attention, most recently this was the case with prototype and bioshock, I played them for as long as I could but they failed to engage me, failed to fill me with excitement, failed to have give me consistent fun... I have never grown bored of playing Halo, from the moment I first picked up an Xbox controller at a friends house when we were drunk and asked with a love at first sight slur; 'what's this game?' I was in love with it. Even if I'm not in the mood to play, within a few minutes of blasting aliens or other people in multiplayer I can't put it down... or at least that has always been the case with the 'Halo trilogy'.
Earlier this year I downloaded and played the demo of 'Halo Wars', the first Halo spin off game, which failed to draw my attention, it was set in the Halo universe and was relevant to the events of the over arching story that I have grown to love, but the game itself failed to inspire me. So as ODST is the second spin off game, and while the first was not a product of Bungie studios as this and the Halo trilogy are, I approached it with a little more caution... This was unnecessary, I've had it for 11 hours and have been playing it for a good 9 and a half of those, only breaking for the toilet and a quick session at the gym. In fact as I write this, I have an empty feeling in my soul that I think will only be filled with more ODST action.... or a blow job... turning on my Xbox is the quick fix so we'll stick with that for tonight.
I'm going to assume that you know what ODST is, so I won't put you through the 'previously on Battlestar Galactica' style recap of the rest of the Halo franchise, instead lets get to what is awesome about it, and then I'll try to find some faults with it just to avoid being labelled a whore to Halo.
The Halo story line as a whole is epic, now spanning 5 games a graphic novel and a number of actual novels (I promise this isn't a recap, I'm going somewhere with this), the main story arc being that of the Halo Trilogy, and ODST does a very good job of fitting it's story into neatly into the existing events (it's set between Halo 2 and Halo 3) but for the most part avoids the main plot devices of the Halo trilogy other than the circumstances that were set up in Halo 2 that set the scene for this game. In fact, if you have never played a Halo game before, you wouldn't be totally lost coming into ODST, the year is 2552 and a coalition of alien races have successfully invaded earth and are now occupying an African city. You are an ODST (Orbital Shock Drop Trooper, basically the SAS of the Halo universe) and you are about to be sent into the hot zone with the rest of your squad on a classified mission, the details of which have not been disclosed to you. You and your team load up and get in your pods (you are in orbit and will drop down into the conflict in armoured capsules as the ODST name suggests, like modern day paratroopers but with a serious sci-fi twist), but the shit hits the fan immediately causing you to crash land and get knocked unconscious for 6 hours, when you wake you are stranded all alone at night in a city occupied by hostile forces. It's now your job to track down the rest of your team and make it out in one piece. To do this you will have to explore the (free roaming) city, finding items that will take you into various flash backs where you will find yourself playing as one of your squad mates at some point in the 6 hours you were unconscious. This is a very new and fresh way to play Halo, and also a very clever way to make the samey scenery of the city seem much more interesting, seeing as in previous Halo games you were put on a linear path through various locations such as space stations, ancient temples, swamps, desserts, icy mountains, etc. It's also nice to have a more compact story, you are not here to take on the entire invading army, you have a specific mission, you are not about to win back earth all on your own, as you probably guessed due to this being set between Halo 2 and 3 (and if you've played through 3 you know how the war ends anyway)
The characters in this game are much more fleshed out than those of previous Halo games, the ODST squad you find yourself part of are all quirky in their own way and they actually give a sense of friendship in the way they interact with each other and causes you to become emotionally invested in them much quicker than those of the Halo trilogy (after all, they had the luxury of 3 games to make you fall in love with them) , the only odd one out being you, the new member of the team, only referred to as 'The Rookie'. As 'The Rookie', you are a silent protagonist, almost an observer caught up in events, which makes you feel almost as if you are your own narrator within this story, especially due to the playable flash backs you experience. Much like the Master Chief of the Halo Trilogy, the face you have under your helmet is never revealed, the difference being that even the Chief had the odd line of dialogue here and there, giving him a strong silent type personality, The Rookie however is just silent, but that's not to say you are made to feel totally devoid of character. I believe that keeping The Rookie silent was a necessary step to avoid over shadowing the Master Chief, who has become one of the biggest gaming icons of all time, and as I already stated he had very little dialogue in his appearances, so to give the new protagonist more of a personality might have upset some of the fans. This is nicely offset within the game by it being mentioned and indicated by other characters a number of times throughout the game, that you, the Rookie, have seen combat before, but this is never detailed or expanded upon. I found this to be very clever, as it feels like the characters within the game are acknowledging and respecting The Rookie for getting into the ODST squad and for standing up and being a man in the face of danger. But this also me the sense that it's the game developers alluding the probability that the player has likely blasted his or her way through the Halo Trilogy, which is a curious paradox when you consider that the events of those games run parallel to the events of ODST and are carried out by a different character.
So how does it feel to play, firstly it is very evident that you are not the walking battle tank cyborg of previous Halo games that was the Master Chief (and by this point it's possibly starting to sound like I have the hots for him... I don't know, maybe I do). You are normal human being this time around, you can no longer jump from a rooftop into a crowd of enemy soldiers, blasting, punching and sticking grenades to them until you are the only one left standing, allowing you to walk away like John Wayne with a smug grin on your face as you shoot off a cliche one liner at your TV screen. In fact if you attempt this, the fall will likely kill you, and if it doesn't, the heavily armed party goers you just dropped in on (see what I did there?) will make swift work of you.
Because you are a normal man, the enemies you face will seem much more daunting than they did when you were the Chief, thankfully you have a few things working in your favour. Firstly, you are in the middle of an occupation, not a raging battle as used to be the norm, the fights you find yourself in are for the most part smaller scale affairs, and when the larger battles do occur in the game, they are set piece battles designed to look epic, so you are suitably armed with heavier weapons, equipment and reinforcements to deal with them. A lot of the game also takes place at night, and thanks to you being a normal sized human, as opposed to a 7 foot walking tank that can jump 15 feet in the air or take down a tank with it's fists, you are able to hide and sneak easier, allowing you to bypass enemies without alerting them or sneak up on them to get a tactical advantage, one which is helped by your stealthy load out of a sci-fi night vision/threat detecting visor and silenced weaponry. This gives the entire experience a much more desperate and tactical feel rather than the super-heroics of past installments, but still remains true to the feel of a Halo game.
One of the curious things I noticed was that due to the more subtle nature of the game and the isolated lonely atmosphere, there was a much mellower tone to the music used, which isn't something that I am used to in a Halo game, as previously it was always all out action, ever escalating to higher states of destruction, but this time around, you are made to feel lonely and find yourself wondering if you will be able to get down the next street unscathed, or be unlucky enough to run into an enemy patrol.
The voice acting is superb, easily the best in the Halo series thus far, Tricia Helfer fits her role well, as do the members of the ODST squad, but Nathan Fillion steals the show, accentuated by some genuinely funny lines of dialogue, particularly towards the end of the campaign.
This is only part one of my review, as I said at the beginning, I was reviewing more than just the game, but the story and package as well. Well, so far I've reviewed the story, and the game to the extent that I have played it, it took me the better part of the day but I ploughed through the solo campaign on normal difficulty, and had a riot all the way. I won't be able to finish this review until I have played through the harder settings, which is something I only do if I really enjoy a game (Halo and COD being the only games that have sucked me down that route in recent years), tried the new 'Firefight' mode, played through the campaign with a friend (or friends) in co-op, and done something else I'm almost dreading... the Halo 3 multiplayer suite that came as part of the package on a second disc, but I'll go into why I'm uneasy about that after I've done it.

To be continued... (next time on Battlestar Galactica...)