"Remember Reach" - Various Graffiti on the walls of New Mombassa
With the third party produced Halo Wars not doing as well as Bungie had hoped for in the sales department it was about time they released their latest project. Halo 3: ODST had previously been called Halo 3: Recon and was only supposed to be an expansion pack, featuring missions explaining what happened to Earth forces in New Mombassa during the events of Halo 2.
Originally ODST was meant to include a few story missions and the main feature would be the final map pack for players. What would also feature would be a special code for Bungies last and final games beta release. Halo: Reach. A project which was shrouded in mystery at the point but was promised to be huge.
ODST was eventually released as an entirely separate game on two discs. Disc one would feature the story mode, which one again bought something new to the franchise. Disc two would feature the multiplayer maps for Halo 3 along with the possibility of unlocking the famous and coveted Recon armor for multiplayer mode, previously only available to players who achieved significant feats in Halo or created amazing machinima such as the famous Red vs Blue series creators.
The story of this new game focussed on a squad of ODSTs (Orbital. Drop. Shock. Troopers) or Hell Jumpers. Who were deployed from low earth orbit to mop up covenant forces in the town of New Mombassa just after the Master Chief blasted his was through and took out a Scarab class battle platform. During the drop however the Covenant carrier performs a slip space jump, sending out a huge pulse wave and knocking the squad apart. The player initially assumes the role of the rookie. A silent protagonist who is the newest member of the squad. The player then explores the ruined streets of New Mombassa at night, while avoiding or engaging Covenant forces to try and track down to find out what happened to your squad mates. The game takes a sort of free roam aspect to it, with the player being able to freely explore New Mombassa and find out what happened to each squad member in any order. When a clue is found to the whereabouts of a squad member the player assumes the role of said member and plays through a short mission as each one. Once each squad member is located the player is given the option to begin the final mission and complete the game, or continue roaming around the sometimes confusing labyrinth of New Mombassas streets.
The gameplay remains the same as most Halo games, with a few weapons being absent such as the Energy sword, Battle Rifle and Assault Rifle. Instead the ODSTs are given a silenced SMG and Pistol, both of which can be used for stealth attacks on unsuspecting targets. These however seem to be mostly useless as stealth weapons as enemies seem to know exactly where you are whether or not you sneak or not. While sneaking doesn't always work it is heavily emphasised that players take that route to avoid death. ODST units lack the shields and armor of SPARTAN super soldiers and as such are more reliant on their skills in combat. They also lack the strength to dual wield weapons and are restricted to wielding one weapon at a time. This puts ODSTs at a disadvantage against enemies like the Brutes and Hunters who are mincemeat compared to SPARTAN soldiers but against marines are more than formidable.
The ODST units do have one thing which SPARTANs lack. A visual rendering mode which uses rendering to light dark areas and highlight friend and foe based on existing data, VISR mode. This mode is mostly by the rookie as he is navigating the streets of New Mombassa however and isn't all that useful outside of night time as it acts like night vision, blinding the player if they attempt to use it in the day time, making it only good for about half the game.
The story itself is nothing to write home about, an average attempt to flesh out and give evidence for what happened to the town after the Prophet of Regret almost nuked the place in Halo 2.
ODST did however introduce a new game mode to the Halo series, Firefight. Similar to the horde mode of Gears of War, Firefight sees up to four players taking on wave after wave of Covenant Enemies on a variety of maps with a limited number of waves. It is essentially a survival test, seeing how long players can last for a certain amount of time. This mode did give ODST more replay ability and provided good multiplayer fun on a game which was primarily single player.
For me ODST was the lowest point in the Halo series. A game which was meant to be nothing more than an expansion pack with some maps ended up being bigger than it should of been. ODSTs themselves were never really playable after that and even in the Halo games the AI ODSTs are no better than marines with maybe a few extra hit points. Overall ODST only really served to introduce firefight and give players the Reach Beta to experience Bungies last project. One which would blow the others out of the water.
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