ODST is just fresh enough that I wouldn't mind seeing more Halo games, provided Bungie continues to change it up a bit.
ODST is called, as you probably know, Halo 3: ODST. Though, since ODST's story is so far-flung from that of the original Halo 3, it seems odd that Bungie elected to slap the "Halo 3" prefix onto ODST. In my opinion, Bungie's choice has nothing to do with story continuity or anything like that; it's to cover their own ass.
See, Halo 3: ODST uses the same game engine as Halo 3, with some minor upgrades. The game features no new guns (though the SMGs and the pistols now have 2x scopes, WOO!). It features virtually the same graphics with just a few touches done to a few areas, such as improvement of motion blur and the like. Stuff that only an anal-retentive jerk or a reviewer would notice. Ha ha: OR.
But the fundamentals are unchanged. The faces look terrible, some of the animation isn't the best, and the graphics engine has aged noticeably since September 25, 2007 (Halo 3's release date, for those of who are not in the know). Even on a 32" 1080p tv, there are plenty of jaggies.
Halo 3: ODST, despite carrying the name of the final installment of the trilogy, has a lot more in common with the forerunner of the series. There is no dual wielding, for example. The health bar returns. According to the canon of the game, you no longer have "shields" (but you have "stamina," which functions, quite literally, in the exact same way as the shields of previous Halo entries).
Probably the biggest difference between ODST and the other Halo games is that you don't play as Master Chief. You play as a rookie (of course) just joining a squad of ODST (or Orbital Drop Shock Troopers) troops. Because you're playing as someone new, I had heard that ODST is supposed to make you feel more human, in that you don't move as fast as Master Chief or jump as high. Well, it's hardly noticeable, if at all. You can still kill small enemies with a melee attack, you can still single-handedly rip the mounted gun right off of a turret. You can still absorb more damage than any super-human should rightfully be able to, and you can still shrug those bullets off mere seconds after taking them. Anyway, due to a completely screwed up drop, our Rookie ends up by himself somewhere in New Mombasa in the middle of the night.
Because it's dark and hard to see, it's probably helpful to turn on your VISR, which outlines the landscape in tan lines, objectives in yellow lines, and enemies in red lines. It also turns on your night vision, which you'll probably want to use for all of the Rookie segments. You'll control the Rookie long enough to find a piece of equipment dropped by one of your squadmates. Then you'll enter a playable flashback sequence where you actually play as your squadmate up until the squad member dropped whatever piece of equipment you found that triggered the flashback in the first place.
I have mixed feelings about this mechanic. On the one hand, it shows Bungie finally doing some experimentation with the story-progression mechanic, which, in my opinion, isn't experimented with enough. But the problem with it is that you don't really fight a lot of enemies while you're looking for the next piece of old squadmate equipment to trigger the next flashback. The game even gives you a map marker so you don't really have to "look" for the next piece of equipment so much as "go pick it up." This makes the Rookie sections feel tacked on. One could almost call it merely a tarted up level select function more than a standalone section of the game. Combine that "searching" with the fact that you'll be spending almost all the Rookie sections using the nightvision VISR function, and it almost makes you feel like you're playing super-space CSI.
Closer to the end of the game, the lines between sections fade and the aforementioned issue fades from scrutiny into obscurity, but it did bother me a fair bit early in the game. The only other big issue that the game has is the Comms, the Halo version of audio logs. To me, they seem INTENSELY poorly written. They're supposed to evoke some kind of feeling of mystery, but for me, they fell completely flat. The first one starts with a girl buying a train ticket. She goes to pay and whips out her card and then, ALOUD, she says, "Oops, no, wait, traceable. I need coins!" All the while she's muttering, "Oh I hope they don't find me, I hope I don't get caught."
This could not be ham-handed or poorly written if my half-retarded, three-quarters leprous fourth cousin with syphilis wrote it. The only mystery it evokes, in my mind, is how anyone, let alone of the "best developers ever," could possibly think this writing is PASSABLE, never mind "final draft worthy."
Ironically, I have heard through the grapevine that the audio log story arc is good enough to forgive the crappy handling of it, but that sounds like a bullcrap sandwich to me. But, the main story of the game is pretty great. The tone is much different than the "I'm a superhero God" tonality of the other Halo's. Tricia Helfer and Nathan Fillion do the voices of two of the characters, and to be honest, I'm not sure if they are the standout roles because they do a standout job, or because they play the only two memorable characters. Either way, their talent is not wasted here.
The game ends right on time, clocking in at seven to eight hours. The final level is fun, fitting, and satisfying. The game ends on something of a cliffhanger. It lets us know that since the next Halo (Reach) is a prequel, there much be at least one other Halo game in the pipeline after it.
The epilogue was short, sweet, and brought a smile to my face. As much as I distanced myself from Halo 3, I'm still not ready for a world without Halo. For me, ODST was just fresh enough that I wouldn't mind seeing one or two more Halo games, provided Bungie continues to change it up a bit.