Feet First into Hell... or Halo 10-7-2009

FYI: For the sake of discussing thematic elements of this game, I will end up revealing story elements. I will try to avoid anything major unless it is relevant to what is discussed.





Halo 3: ODST is Bungie's latest foray in their acclaimed Halo franchise. However, from the first moments of actual playtime, you realize that this game is unlike every Halo game made yet.

In previous Halo games, the player stepped into the power-armor of the Master Chief, a genetically enhanced super-soldier, a SPARTAN in the fiction of the series. The player is essentially a walking tank, with enough solo lethality that he or she would never fear the enemy characters. In Halo 3: ODST, you play as an ODST (Orbital Drop Shock Trooper) called "The Rookie." Unlike SPARTANs, ODSTs are not super soldiers. They are human, even if they are the best of the normal humans. This distinction sets up most of what makes ODST unique.

Bungie clearly struggled with the concept of making ODST feel different while still feeling like Halo. Many of the gameplay changes are cosmetic or revert the gameplay style back to that of the original Halo game. For instance, falling from a great height will hurt you. While you don't have shields, you have "stamina" which works the same way where you have a recharging protection before your health starts getting lowered. Your health does not recharge, meaning if you start taking damage when your stamina is lowered, you need to find health packs to heal. The enemies also deal more damage now, so that what was cannon fodder from Halo: Combat Evolved to Halo 3 is now lethal.

The biggest change of all is one that only the hardcore Halo fan will notice and it is the one that makes the game feel the most different. You feel alone in ODST. You are not a god in power armor. You do not fight with a squad. In fact, you spend most of the game trying to find what happened to your squad and meet up with them in the last two missions of the game. The largest portion of the game takes place during the night in a vacated, destroyed, city, with most of the lighting deactivated by an EMP or destroyed by the battles that were taking place beforehand. Unlike the other Halo games where you had an AI companion inside your helmet talking to you, your only companion as The Rookie is the city's highly damaged AI, the Superintendent.

Another difference is the flow of the game itself. You play as The Rookie in the destroyed city of New Mombasa, looking for clues for what happened to your squad. The clues that you find activate flashbacks where you play as the squad-member which feel like Halo. After you have played through the first four flashbacks, it is entirely up to the player as to what order you play the remaining missions. If the player follows the waypoint system, he or she will follow the story of the squad in a more natural order leading up to the point in time where the last flashback you play is parallel to The Rookie finding out about them.

Overall, I think ODST succeeds at feeling different from the previous games while not feeling like a game not attached to the Halo franchise. It ends up being one of the frist games I have played in a very long time that conveyed a mood to me in such a strong way.