So I’ve been thinking for a while that I should use this blog for something other than ill-informed rants about The Daily Mail (although at least I can accept that they are ill informed rants). It’d be nice to attempt to give something back to the world other than sheer negativity. The Daily Mail does it with skincare products and early 90s BBC dramas, I can do it with advice on purchases of games or films or music.
I’ve been dragging my feet on kicking this reviewing milarkey off as I haven’t really had anything worth reviewing- the 1990s has yet to reach the town in which I live, we’ve recently heard about this great new band called The Pet Shop boys- however, today a copy of the new Halo game dropped through my letterbox (courtesy of a very good friend who found himself with 2 copies after a slow delivery from amazon and an impulsive trip to game), I spent the day playing through it and figure I can probably write something informative about it.
Since I’ve started this blog, I’ve started thinking about everything in terms of sixes, so I’m going to try and cut it down to 6 major points. So yeah, see you at the other end…
1: Halo 3: ODST
For anyone who has lived in a cave for the last 8 years, Halo is a game developed by Bungie for the Xbox and Xbox360 (and the PC if you’re that way inclined). It has had 3 instalments so far (plus a strategy game that doesn’t count because its not a first person shooter), all of which have followed Master Chief, an awesome genetically modified super-soldier capable of jumping a couple of metres in the air, running face-first into battle and basically committing some of the biggest acts of badassery known to the gaming public. It has never failed to be a huge critical and commercial success.
ODST, the fourth (or third-and-a-half, I guess) instalment of the Halo series has taken a rather large departure from this run-around-an-alien-planet-and-spray-bullets-mindlessly approach. The entire game is set on Earth, in New Mombassa, shortly after the covenant (alien) forces have attacked, and you play a member of the Orbital Shock Drop Troopers- the Halo equivalent of the Paras. Gone are the shields that render you near-invulnerable, gone is the ability to leap sheds in a single bound, gone is the battle rifle. Now it’s all about the pistol.
2: A Geek’s dream
The first thing I noticed in the opening FMV was the voice acting. Halo stalwarts Nathan Fillion, Adam Baldwin and Alan Tudyk are all on hand to voice the main characters in the game. Anyone who has seen Joss Whedon’s Firefly (and it should be everyone, it’s a superb series which was cut down before it truly had a chance to blossom) will recognise these stars as members of the crew from there, and in ODST they’re essentially playing the same roles.
The voice acting is good, although it’s a bit odd to see a computer-generated version of Nathan Fillion (the only actor to have his likeness used in the game) enacting movements very similar to mincing. After getting over the initial shock of seeing an actor- who had still managed to look tough whilst wearing an old fashioned bonnet- waving his hands about like Graham Norton, I was able to actually get on with the game and enjoy it.
As the story developed, I actually found myself caring for all of the members of the team- and even the other random troops who had been dropped in, something which I hadn’t done in any of the previous Halo games, because I was too busy charging into battle, firing two guns simultaneously whilst throwing grenades and punches like Rambo and Bruce Lee respectively. And whilst I wasn’t as affected by the plight of my team as much as say, the first Modern Warfare game, it was still nice to see.
3: ODST: Like Halo 3, only different
When ODST was first announced, I was a little dubious of Bungie tackling stealthy aspects of game play. I liked Call of Duty for the fact I had to engage my brain to play it, I liked Halo because it made me feel like Sly Stallone. Mixing the two just wouldn’t work.
On the surface, ODST appears to be a lot like its predecessors; there’s a similar HUD and you’re still fighting the same enemies with the same weapons. But the gameplay couldn’t be more different, it’s more intelligent, and there is a far greater sense of achievement when you manage to get through an area without alerting any groups of aliens than just killing every one of them.
It’s like walking into your living room to find a complete stranger wearing your recently deceased uncle’s skin. Only he’s far more articulate than your uncle and is far kinder regarding Christmases and birthdays, he even offers to help with the dishes after you’ve had Sunday lunch. Basically it’s weird, but in a good way.
4: I’m all alone, there’s no-one here beside me…
The general mood of the game is also very different to the previous Halo games. In Halo 1, 2 and 3, aside from you playing a near invincible super soldier, you nearly always have assistance from a few NPCs (who if nothing else, are fodder for the alien’s guns).
In half of the sections of ODST, you play a rookie trooper (intelligently named “Rookie”) who is left on his own in a city teeming with alien invaders, attempting to regroup with the other members of his squad.
I had been told that the game was far better to play through on your own (Halo is always fun to do on co-op, so I was planning on playing through with a friend) and I can see why, the sense of solitude is incredible in places, I genuinely felt alone. Having someone else on my team probably would have prevented this.
These feelings of isolation are helped by some rather superb musical scoring. Usually after you’ve just played through a section as one of the other characters-who typically had at least one additional NPC with them- you’re thrust back into the place on your own, and treated to a swell of strings which helps add to the feelings of loneliness.
The parts of the game where you’re not playing as the rookie are still enjoyable- it’s still fun to fly around in a banshee, or drive around in a warthog or tank with explosions and gunfights going on all around you- and they serve to accentuate how lonesome the rookie is.
5: The ending
The game finishes with a drive along a highway in a tank and then defending a building from a few waves of jetpack toting apes. It is, despite sounding promising on paper, a slightly anti-climactic end to the game, and (unsurprisingly) leaves a bit of room for a sequel. But ODST takes place during the events of Halo 2, so it simply wouldn’t work if they were to win this intergalactic war. Also, the game is short. I completed it (albeit only on Normal) in a single sitting. I will no doubt go through it on co-operative on harder difficulties, but its still fairly short.
Still, these are minor qualms, Halo ODST was only meant to bridge the release gap between Halo 3 and the upcoming Halo Reach game (another prequel) due in 2010, and it does that nicely.
6: Multiplayer
I imagine you’re thinking that the previous paragraph sounds like a fairly conclusive paragraph for a review, but I’ve glossed over what is likely to be the strongest part of ODST for replay value: the multiplayer.
Bundled along with ODST is an additional disc that allows you to play the Halo 3 multiplayer. The same Halo 3 multiplayer that hasn’t left the top 10 most played online games on xbox live since it was released 2 years ago, that’s a success rate in line with Bryan Adams’ “Everything I Do”. In fact, it’s been number one for the majority of those weeks. It’s a varied selection of games both involving deathmatch and objective games, and its good, scrappy fun.
As well as this, there is the firefight mode, which is a completely new thing for ODST, much like Nazi Zombies in Call of Duty: World at War, or The Horde in Gears of War 2, it involves killing wave after wave of enemies until they kill you. I have yet to play it with 4 players, but playing with 2 players, it was an enjoyable addition to an otherwise fairly packed game.
Also worth mentioning is the fact that ODST comes with an invitation to play the multiplayer beta for Halo Reach when they release it. This will no doubt be a worthwhile addition when it becomes available.
So now for the proper summary bit: Halo 3: ODST is a pleasant addition to the Halo series, I feel that focusing on a character who isn’t a genetically enhanced supersoldier gives the game a beneficial element of stealth, and the general feel of the game is better than its prequels. Or sequels.
Halo ODST changes enough things to make it more interesting than the other ones, whilst keeping enough aspects of it in place to maintain the feel of a Halo game. The narrative is more interesting than previous instalments, seeing the story through a variety of character’s eyes. It feels more like a Tarantino film in its style than most games, and this works to its favour. It allows sections that are heavily action led, and stealth sections, which, as you can probably tell, I really enjoyed.
Sadly though, by the end of this game, this unique style (at least as far as Halo is concerned) is jettisoned in favour of an action ending, when I was hoping for something more.
There are other flaws in the game too, whilst its length makes it easy enough to play through in one sitting (although admittedly it does help if you’re jobless and bored), I would have liked it to have been a bit longer. Also the graphics, after playing Call of Duty, leave a little to be desired. The controls aren’t as intuitive as Call of Duty- I’ve never liked having the beatdown button assigned to a face button (but refuse to do anything about it as it would make me a horrendous geek), and for a game involving elements of stealth, the lack of a sprint button can be quite frustrating. I got caught casually strolling to stationary cars I was planning on using for cover a couple of times.
The online multiplayer doesn’t have enough new things to tempt me to throw out my Halo 3 disk any time soon, but anyone who hasn’t already played a genuinely embarrassing amount of time on Halo 3 online would probably appreciate being able to play online.
These are all fairly small things, which I would like to have seen fixed in the new game. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the game and look forward to playing through it again.
Using the new 6 Lessons rating system, I’d give Halo 3: ODST
5/6. Or 83.3%.
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