Halo 3: ODST (2009)

I honestly really love this game. Halo was a huge part of my childhood and my overall gaming life, but I actually only played this one for the first time around 2 years ago and pulled an all nighter to finish it all the way through. Revisiting it now, at first I thought it wasn't as good as I remembered, with some of the first missions feeling a little lackluster and monotonous. But as I continued to play it, the feeling of traversing through an abandoned city completely alone at night, the feeling of being an actual human in a franchise where you're used to playing as a super soldier, these feelings really set in and it really is something special. I grew to really enjoy the episodic story telling, with each mission being a flashback to a different member of the team, and being able to learn more about their personalities, as well as see how everything went to hell throughout the day the game takes place in. The side story you can discover throughout the night city map is really cool too. I didn't love the story but the amount of world building it provides, coupled with it all tying into the main game at the end was really cool and innovative in a linear franchise like Halo.

The only things I would change here are having the incredible soundtrack be more prominent, and making the Rookie night missions a little more eventful, as at times it can be just running around from point A to point B with a few easy mobs along the way.

What works

• A deliberate pace and more melancholy atmosphere works well in this setting. Halo from the perspective of not a super-soldier
• Some really solid sequences, like the Phantom theft
• Silenced magnum is best magnum
• Solid voice cast. That sure is Nathan Fillion

What doesn’t

• The slow quiet bits are just interstitials between more normal Halo gameplay
• The idea of a central hub is interesting but the execution is anything but. City blocks with no notable features and little reason to explore. There are audio logs to find, but as soon as I found out there was 30 I stopped bothering
• AI seemed noticeably worse than Halo 3, often getting stuck on stuff
• Human character models have aged dramatically worse than everything else

Verdict

I remember this game more fondly than my experience on this replay. It’s not bad by any means, and it’s great to see other stories in this universe. But I feel like it could have been a lot more. The exploration sections as Rookie have some really poignant moments—the atmosphere is great and your reduced capabilities compared to Master Chief make encounters feel tense. There’s even piano music that really reminded me of Resident Evil 2 for some reason.

I’d have liked to see those aspects expanded out, with some actual reasons to explore the city, stealth mechanics beyond just getting lucky, and less of a focus on the big bombastic gunfights of each flashback sequence. They’re cool and all, but we just had three games of that.

Halo 3: ODST is a really cool Spin-Off in the series. It reminds me a lot of Halo Reach in some of the themes it tackles. Now is it as great as people say it is, well...

Halo 3: ODST does do a lot right. Its tone is very cool. It's a more sad and lonely tone that the other games haven't replicated, the music goes for a Jazz like theme which actually fits which I did not see coming. The story is really well told. It takes place between Halo 2 and Halo 3 and puts you into the shoes of "Rookie" (He doesn't have a name nor does he talk). Rookie along with the rest of your team are Orbital Drop Shock Troopers (ODST). ODST's are the highest trained marines that aren't Spartans. Now, this game does do a great job of making you feel powerless. You aren't a Spartan. You are just a Marine. You don't have Shields or superhuman endurance. But you can still be great which is a cool message.

The story is simply about Rookie looking for his team in the empty streets of New Mombasa, a city in Africa on well... Earth. You find clues which take you back to explain how those clues happen. It's really neat.

This game for me at least is a little repetitive, however. It gets old running around the open world and I wish there was more variety. It was otherwise pretty forgettable which is a shame because it gets a lot right.

Halo 3: ODST does well on what it's trying to accomplish. But I wouldn't call it one of the best Halo games ever. Still a great game.

3/5

Would Recommend

Halo 3 ODST is an often overlooked chapter of the story. To me, other than Halo 1, 3, and Reach, it is my favorite of the franchise. The story is more human and it shows how Master Chief's story would be impossible without the average soldier. The phenomenal soundtrack (the absolute best in the series) and the barren, open-world elements of the Mombasa streets give a new sense of the humanity and sorrow that come with war. It is a short game and maybe not necessary to understand the story of the series, but is still a must-play in my opinion.

4.25/4.00

Full Review: https://watchreadgame.com/halo-3-odst-review