"Well this sucks, I'm going North!"
Halo 3 ODST is what I would consider to be an average game. It is not great, but not bad. It fills its niche, of what I would consider a "party game". Its a great game for a couple of friends to get together and play at for a couple of hours and not pick it up again until the next gathering. It by no means is a masterpiece, but no where near a dud.
Game Play To be fair, the Halo franchise features spot on controls... for a console game. The gameplay is always frantic, with lots of explosions, and tons of things going on to distract you from the fact that you are overall playing a shallow shooter.
Note: This I am applying to the Halo franchise in general. Picking up guns around a map that range on overpowered, picking up power ups, and an annoying announcer? All that Halo did was take the Unreal Tournament formula and port it over to the Xbox, and people went nuts over it. ODST though focuses more on the player versus environment aspect of the game, and it does it well. The single player is criminally short, so only buy this if you plan on playing with friends. The Fire Fight mode is what horde mode is to Gears of War, Survival to Left 4 Dead, and many others. Its a fun addition to Halo, and a lot of fun when your with friends. The rounds get tougher as you survive more waves of enemies, and about 1/4 through human weapons become worthless, efficiently eliminating your already shallow arsenal of weapons.
Graphics: Pretty good, but what isn't these days? The human weapons look good, but the alien weapons still look like Hasbro toys, with so much bloom coming of them you may be momentarily blinded when you pick one up.
Atmosphere: The single player is one of the better aspects of this game, despite how short it is. The storyline is actually good in this one, and I highly suggest you checking out the audio files scattered through out the game. The multiplayer really gets you into it if you can survive for a few rounds, as it gets intense.
Storyline: The game opens up with you crashing into Mombasa city in Africa. You play through the night as a rookie of the elite "Orbital Drop Shock Trooper" regiment, and attempt to piece together what went on while you blacked out. As you find clues, you play through the day levels of what happened while you were out, in the shoes of the rest of your squad. Its done very well, and is overall entertaining.
Replay Value
Its a good game to keep around for you and your buddies to play. You will get bored after 2-3 hours in a session, but you can always come back to it.
Overall Opinion: The game does nothing new, takes no risks, and so the benefits are lack luster. Its fun, but you will feel as if you played it before.
Rating: 8.00
Opinion If you have friends that will be willing to play with you, buy it. If you wanted to delve into Halo, this is a good starting point as you get all the Halo 3 multilayer maps with it as well.
Halo 3 ODST is what I would consider to be an average game. It is not great, but not bad. It fills its niche, of what I would consider a "party game". Its a great game for a couple of friends to get together and play at for a couple of hours and not pick it up again until the next gathering. It by no means is a masterpiece, but no where near a dud.
Game Play To be fair, the Halo franchise features spot on controls... for a console game. The gameplay is always frantic, with lots of explosions, and tons of things going on to distract you from the fact that you are overall playing a shallow shooter.
Note: This I am applying to the Halo franchise in general. Picking up guns around a map that range on overpowered, picking up power ups, and an annoying announcer? All that Halo did was take the Unreal Tournament formula and port it over to the Xbox, and people went nuts over it. ODST though focuses more on the player versus environment aspect of the game, and it does it well. The single player is criminally short, so only buy this if you plan on playing with friends. The Fire Fight mode is what horde mode is to Gears of War, Survival to Left 4 Dead, and many others. Its a fun addition to Halo, and a lot of fun when your with friends. The rounds get tougher as you survive more waves of enemies, and about 1/4 through human weapons become worthless, efficiently eliminating your already shallow arsenal of weapons.
Graphics: Pretty good, but what isn't these days? The human weapons look good, but the alien weapons still look like Hasbro toys, with so much bloom coming of them you may be momentarily blinded when you pick one up.
Atmosphere: The single player is one of the better aspects of this game, despite how short it is. The storyline is actually good in this one, and I highly suggest you checking out the audio files scattered through out the game. The multiplayer really gets you into it if you can survive for a few rounds, as it gets intense.
Storyline: The game opens up with you crashing into Mombasa city in Africa. You play through the night as a rookie of the elite "Orbital Drop Shock Trooper" regiment, and attempt to piece together what went on while you blacked out. As you find clues, you play through the day levels of what happened while you were out, in the shoes of the rest of your squad. Its done very well, and is overall entertaining.
Replay Value
Its a good game to keep around for you and your buddies to play. You will get bored after 2-3 hours in a session, but you can always come back to it.
Overall Opinion: The game does nothing new, takes no risks, and so the benefits are lack luster. Its fun, but you will feel as if you played it before.
Rating: 8.00
Opinion If you have friends that will be willing to play with you, buy it. If you wanted to delve into Halo, this is a good starting point as you get all the Halo 3 multilayer maps with it as well.
