ODST's campaign mode was next to worthless, but firefight isnt that bad.
For all the hype I had been hearing about for ODST, it really didn't live up to it in my opinion. Halo 3 came out 2 years ago, making a huge section of buildup and development for ODST and it still fell short. I'll try to map out many different aspects of this game to explain my thoughts.
Campaign:
The first thing I do, before any online play, is play campaign. Get familiar with the story, game play and everything else. Also, I get some achievements just for fun. So really, campaign is my first impression of the game, and it wasn't very good.
Story line: To tell the truth, I never really followed the story line in any of the earlier halo games, It was there, and I played many times, I just never focused on it. I was hoping that ODST, a bridge between H2 and H3, would be able to quickly fill me in on what was going on. Honestly, I learned next to nothing from this game. I didn't care why you were in the city, why you were detached from everyone else, or even what had gone down. It just wasn't that interesting. Sure there were those audio logs that gave you some details, but did you want to travel through each time as the rookie, checking almost every nook and cranny to find those things? No! So maybe its my fault for not making the effort, but maybe if the story seemed more interesting, I would try harder. I didn't even recognize that there were those squids until virgil joins up with you. I didn't know their role or anything. Another thing that threw me off, when I did pay attention, was that the girl kissed the guy at the end…. There was a romance? There is very little character build up. And it is very disappointing. Finally, your character, the rookie, is so unimportant that they give him next to no good fights.
Game play:
The first time I played through the campaign, it was on legendary, mostly for the achievements, partly for the challenge. It was very, very sad. Because over half the time your playing as the rookie in a deserted town. You barely fight anyone. Running through a whole city every 20 minutes that has very little enemies is not fun, it is a waste of time. I did like the other half of campaign, playing as the different crew members, doing what they do best, but still I felt that it wasn't as difficult as it should be. Me and my friend finished in 4-5 hours on legendary…. Later on, I went back to run through the campaign for the good Samaritan achievement with 3 other friends (who fell asleep by the way) and I realized that you need to have been living under a rock, have a severe mental/physical difficulty, or just suck, in order to find it challenging in anyway. If two of your teammates can stand around, get punched by a hunter 20 times, get shot at by the awful AI of brutes, grunts, jackals and phantoms, and still survive, the game is too easy. We walked through that in less than an hour.
Changes in game style:
While I was slightly disappointed by the lack of elites, it didn't make much of a difference to me. I didn't like that they removed the BR, dual wielding, and swords. They also overpowered the pistol, and even on expert, it is by far the best weapon in the game. Swords I can understand taking out, your not a built-for-war Spartan, or a huge elite, so you cant carry huge weapons, but still, I missed it. Another big change was the night vision. This was sort of useful, when you needed to find weapons or certain items, but if it was not night, you were practically blinded. The stamina and health kits brought me back to Halo 1 days, when you needed to be careful about where you went. This only annoyed me though, because I have a more run and gun play style, and while ODST is meant for you to find cover and find advantages over your opponents, I just ran in and killed them, and still had health to spare.
Audio/Visual:
The graphics were just taken from Halo 3, and redone a little. After 2 years, you'd think they would do something different, but graphics don't make the game. Audio, however, was great. Always having some epic music to keep you company was great, especially as you went through the long boring city.
Overall: Campaign just wasn't that great. Too short, not memorable, and too easy.
Firefight
This isn't what I expected at all, unfortunately. While it was obvious that there would be wave after wave of enemies, I thought you would be able to play as your Spartan/elite character, using swords, deployables, and good vehicles. That's what I was looking forward to, and I didn't get it. You couldn't even edit the game play, to change spawn points of enemies, length of rounds, number of enemies, or even edit the maps would make it even more amazing. I am focusing on the negative, lets get to the positive. This mode really tests your cooperation and teamwork skills, because you all share one group of lives. Strategy is very important and it was a new field for Halo that wasn't ever explored. Each of the ten maps were unique, but you could really tell what the maps were used best for (Alpha site is the easiest, Lost platoon is one of the most fun). It is lots of fun, and it is what I'll remember from ODST.
Matchmaking Disk
This is what I disliked the most, even before ODST came out. Mythic 1 had come out about 3 months before (I don't really remember) and I had spent the few dollars to get that, a few to get the others as well. 15 dollars for content that I could get in a couple months for free. A quick and easy buck was cashed in on. Its not like it matters that much, and it is convenient to have it on a new disk so you don't need to bust out your old, scratched Halo 3, but really everything could have been downloadable content. The new maps are pretty average. Heretic was one of my favorites back in halo 2, a nice slayer map. It is still a good map, but I have one complaint. You spawn with stickies. Why? On such a small map, even with 6 people running around, your going to get annoyed by the flying blue balls pretty soon. Citadel is my least favorite of the 3. It looks like that level from Halo 3 campaign with the elevator, excluding the elevator. Just a plain fight map. Longshore, although I never played there (I did do a fly through on forge) looks very promising. It is large enough for games like capture the flag, and enclosed enough for sneaky shotgun/sword kills.
Overall on ODST: A pretty lame campaign, fun firefight, and decent maps, in my opinion, do not equal the 50 some dollars you would spend for this game. They could all be DLC, 7-8 bucks each, and I might consider getting it. I am glad I have a friend willing to let me play his ODST so I don't need to buy my own. I think they should make the new maps DLC so that you don't need to spend 60 bucks to play matchmaking to its fullest.