Review: “Halo 3: ODST”

(SPOILER ALERT: If you’re one of the few who still hasn’t played the game but wants to, you might not want to read this review right now. It contains spoilers for the Campaign.)

Halo 3: ODST, the latest entry in the Halo series, landed on store shelves about two months ago. Now that I’ve logged in a good amount of time playing the game, I feel I’m familiar enough with it to offer my opinions on how it stands on its own as well as against its predecessors. This review will be rather short compared to my review of Halo 3 (about one-fifth the number of words) due to the large number of similarities between the two; it will focus primarily on the things that changed from Halo 3 to ODST, as well as things specific to ODST (story & Campaign, etc.).

Building the Ultimate Halo Game

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For me, the Halo series has always stood out from the countless other FPSs out there. The enemy units and the environments you fought them in were inventive and varied. The graphics and art design were wonderful. The sound was great, with the music being some of the greatest to ever grace a video game. The story was intriguing as well. The gameplay, however, has been something I’ve scrutinized closely and criticized frequently over the last few years. The original game had very solid gameplay that set the bar for console FPSs, and it was incredibly fun as well as innovative for its time.

The basic controls were excellent and intuitive, with the Xbox gamepad showing how well-suited it was for console FPSs, especially as compared to the N64 controller. Being able to melee opponents or throw grenades without having to cycle through your inventory and formally equip a melee weapon (fists, chainsaw, or whatever) or grenades was something I had yet to experience in an FPS. It also had the first truly effective integration of vehicular combat in the genre, whereas in previous shooters I played you either didn’t have vehicles, or they were poorly implemented and tacked-on affairs. Both the Campaign and multiplayer stage designs were incredible and included a good mix of massive outdoors environments in addition to the smaller indoors arenas. The AI (at least that of the enemies) was often rather clever, especially compared to what had come before and, interestingly, most of what has come after it. Finally, you could only carry two weapons at a time instead of an entire arsenal — something that was as far as I know a first in the genre. The weapons themselves were generally well designed and useful, and included genre standards such as a machine gun and shotgun as well as interesting alien weapons such as the Needler.

The series has had its ups and downs, with each entry having its own strengths and weaknesses. For example, I feel that the sequels weren’t quite as good in terms of gameplay despite having the same solid controls as well as the high-quality visuals, sound, and music that Bungie is known for, not to mention a couple of interesting additions. Numerous changes and additions detracted from the gameplay and made for a less enjoyable and sometimes very frustrating experience, though in other ways the sequels surpassed the original. I have written extensive criticisms of the sequels elsewhere, so refer to those for in-depth details (there will be some commentary here as well, however). Of course, while the sequels didn’t quite measure up to the original, Combat Evolved was itself flawed in certain ways, and even the sequels each had aspects (gameplay and otherwise) that were the series’ strongest. Halo 1 was strongest on gameplay but its weakest aspect is the lack of XBL support. Halo 2 was strongest on storyline (just edging out Halo 1) but weakest on gameplay. Halo 3 was the weakest on storyline but strongest on extra features.

While a combination of the best parts of the first three games as well as a refinement of many game elements could benefit a future Halo game, it might not be enough to keep the Halo series on the cutting edge of shooters. Certain aspects of the series as a whole may have to be rethought entirely. If there are going to be other Halo FPSs in the future, perhaps it is time for combat to evolve once again.

Shadow’s Halo 3 Review

(SPOILER ALERT: If you’re one of the few who still hasn’t played Campaign but wants to, you might not want to read this review right now. It contains spoilers for the whole Campaign.)

Like a lot of Halo fans, I closely followed the development of Halo 3. I watched all the ViDocs. I listened to all the podcasts. I read the EGM articles. I watched G4TV’s E3 coverage just to see the Halo 3 Campaign trailer. And of course, I participated in the public beta. After all those months of waiting, September 25 finally arrived. I stood outside of GameStop that night to pick up my copy of Halo 3 (Legendary Edition, of course). Now that Halo 3 has been out for several months, I feel that I’ve gotten familiar enough with the game to offer my thoughts on it. This is rather late for a review, but I prefer not to do “first impressions” or anything like that, at least not with a game series like Halo which I’ve invested a lot of time and interest in. I like to get familiar with whatever I review. Plus I’ve been preoccupied with other projects.

So, how does Halo 3 stack up against the first two games? As many who are familiar with me or my writings know, I regard Halo 1 as one of my all-time favorite games, and one of the best FPSs ever made. As for Halo 2, while I enjoy it and consider its graphics, music, and story to be excellent, I regard it as inferior to the original due to such things as an excessively linear Campaign and a number of changes made to the gameplay, which I described in detail in my September 2006 article “My Thoughts on the Halo Series: An Open Letter to Bungie.” In that same article, I also talked about what changes and additions I think should have been made to Halo 3 to make it a better game than Halo 2. Did things turn out the way I would have liked? Not quite.

Halo 3 falls somewhere between the first two games in terms of how good it is. While it corrects many of Halo 2’s flaws and has overall better gameplay and also brings some great new stuff to the table, it has flaws of its own that keep me from regarding it as being of the same caliber as Combat Evolved. Of course, while I could just say “I like Halo 3 more than Halo 2 but not as much as Halo 1,” and leave it at that, it’s not like me to be so simple and concise in my writings. Like the rest of my articles, this review will go rather in-depth, so expect a long read. While it won’t be as long as my “Open Letter” article (it has about two-thirds the word count), it will have a similar layout, being divided into several sections each devoted to a particular aspect of the game (though some sections will have interconnecting material).

The Master Chief is back again to kick ass and take names. But does Halo 3 kick as much ass as he does? Read on to find out. (click image for full size)