ODST: Is it worth the purchase?
I am by no means a hardcore halo fan, but my brother definitely is. So I heard all of the complaints you might expect from those so dedicated to it as changes were implemented in each sequel. The altered magnum meant nothing to me, and dual wielding weapons seemed only to increase the combination of strategies for a sure kill formula. As a whole, I saw each title as an improvement of its predecessor.
Then I played ODST. Through the campaign, all of those complaints I had heard regarding weapons became valid, and I quickly appreciated Bungie's response in ODST. The magnum is at it's finest, and after returning to the conventional multiplayer, dual wielding is a hindrance I'll rarely/never attempt again.
The campaign forces you into the mindset of the stranded ODST to think and act as a spec ops soldier, reinventing halo's gameplay, and removing the run-and-gun arcade style FPS antics of the Master Chief. The story is engaging and well crafted, with stunning visuals unique to ODST. The only questionable element of the campaign is the third person view while operating vehicles. Your perspective is far more removed than in previous titles, which provides an RC racer experience. If anything, I would've liked to see a tighter third person view, keeping you very much in the moment. An eagle eye view of the battlefield is unnecessary to drive a vehicle in any game.
The horde style Firefight MP mode is fantastic with a number of impressive maps which I was interested to see in the conventional MP modes. Unfortunately, this is not an option. Searching for public Firefight lobbies is also not an option, and a nuisance for the casual gamer without a large base of online buddies available for invite to the game.
I understood ODST's second disc to be an expansion of Halo3 online, but was disappointed to find it only provided 3 new maps to the already available multiplayer. I felt somewhat cheated by Bungie's decision to stick with the Halo 3 multiplayer, instead of having the ambition to renovate it, providing an alternative Halo MP experience that utilizes the changes throughout the campaign gameplay. My compensation was the inclusion of all previous Halo 3 DLC.
This is great for those like myself not willing to throw down the extra cash every time a new map pack became available. The campaign is a short, yet solid experience and Firefight is a welcome addition to Halo, with hopes for an update allowing public lobby searches. But for those hardcore Halo fans, the redundancy of the MP provided hardly provides incentive to purchase.
Your comment about 3rd person perspective in regards to the driving vehicles I'm afraid is invalid, as this is the way you have controlled vehicles in all the halo games.
It's worth buying alone for the multiplayer aspect. The campaign itself is well crafted, but short.
"If there's one thing you can say about mankind, there's nothing kind about man." - Tom Waits
It's worth buying alone for the multiplayer aspect. The campaign itself is well crafted, but short.
I was merely commenting on how they did adjust the perspective so that your vehicle is smaller and you have a larger view of the battlefield, unlike the previous titles. I have no qualms with them keeping to the 3rd person perspective familiar to Halo. It is just my opinion that since they obviously did make changes, I would have liked to see a slightly tighter 3rd person perspective as opposed to a broader view.
I rented and I think it was the right move. The campaign is fun and firefight is pretty cool. Although, like you said it's hard to find people to play. Try looking in the bungie.net Classifieds forum. I have had one or two good games come out of that and a few more failures.
Being a bit of a Hardcore Halo fan I've felt with 2 and 3 were failures not improvements. Too much hype and too much work for a smaller game studio like Bungie. However, with ODST I was pleasantly surprised. When the price drops it will definitely be worth picking up.
And, for the next few days if you're looking for someone to play some firefight with the GT is KamikazeBob730.
I'm lying.
its the best halo game since the first one. does that mean its a great game? nah, but if you're a real halo fan (and i mean someone who doesnt think halo 2 was the best thing since sliced bread and free porn) you might consider getting it. does it blow my mind? hardly. is it fun to play, though? sure.
i will say there's some bullshit differences between difficulties. like i think "normal" is too goddamn easy, and i think heroic is just a little too hard. basically, for me, it lacks a sweet-spot that keeps it challenging, but possible, hard but addicting.
www.triplebeard.com
http://darkroomreview.blogspot.com
“...There are so many ways of being despicable it quite makes one's head spin. But the way to be really despicable is to be contemptuous of other people's pain. You ought to have some apprehension that the man you see before you was once even younger than you are now and arrived at his present wretchedness by imperceptible degrees.”
-James Baldwin
O___ D___ Strategic Team?
Outstandingly drunk sexual transmission.
no seriously, orbital drop shock troopers
I like Strategic Team better. Shock Troopers? That's lame. I'm not buying or playing this game because of that!
I thought ODST was just a cheaper way to keep Halo current while promoting the movie. But I dont know anything...
what if it stand for Original Damn Sound Track?
Is there a lot of new music in the game?
i think the price tag is wrong. It should have been a $40-50 especially for the fans like me who bought all the maps and the Halo Wars collectors edition.
Besides one of the "new" maps is an almost exact replica of a Halo 2 map. The other two maps are meh.
I am playing this regularly, especially on weekends, my gamertag is xk3zofrenik
So...We are still going to die. Right?
bungie was quoted somewhere as saying they saw it at a mid price point. it was microsoft's decision to charge a full price, from what i understand
www.triplebeard.com
http://darkroomreview.blogspot.com
“...There are so many ways of being despicable it quite makes one's head spin. But the way to be really despicable is to be contemptuous of other people's pain. You ought to have some apprehension that the man you see before you was once even younger than you are now and arrived at his present wretchedness by imperceptible degrees.”
-James Baldwin
That's not at all surprising. It's worth the full price if you don't have any of the Halo 3 DLC, but they should've at least release ODST as a single disc, for $30-$40.
There's plenty of DLC that developer's make intended to be free, but based on the content Microsoft charges the developer, forcing them set a price for the DLC to recoup costs, allowing Microsoft the ability to say "it's the developer's decision at what price to set DLC" and get away with it.
It's annoying and unnecessary. They should at least have the balls to avoid shifting the blame. This is America after all, land of the complacent. We have the internet to absorb our complaints, and 8-17 year olds aren't going to revolt. They could give a fuck. They just want to play video games.
I didn't really see a problem with it. As I mentioned, for me it was just a matter of adjusting to the role of the ODST versus my Master Chief mindset. But I can also see where you're coming from. I think difficulties seem so extreme at times because of the huge fluctuations between skirmishes and larger battles.
I had no trouble whatsoever playing through the game on legendary, just taking my time on the first few levels. Once I got to the first large battle in the vehicle focused "uplift Reserve," I quickly realized it's impossible to have any sort of advantage when you're actually in a vehicle, forcing me to slow it down tremendously by completing the majority of the level on foot.
I'm about half way through the campaign now, and beyond that, it's been pretty fun. But I do very much enjoy being extra methodical at times in a FPS.
After getting all the achievements i have to say there is little value to the game now. All i can do is go for high scores in Firefight or the campaign. If i wanted to keep playing Halo 3 matchmaking i would certainly not pick this so that i could have 3 new maps to play.
Worst part is not even a month out and now there's nothing to do with it. I am looking hard at that $30 trade in credit.
So...We are still going to die. Right?
I'm still working on a few of the achievements. And I don't know if I'll ever be able to get a four player LIVE firefight game for that particular achievement. I know exactly how you feel though. As soon as I reach the 200,000 score and hear that blip sound, I lose all motivation. I either get destroyed because I'm not careful or I just quit the map because it could go on forever. It's a bit more laborious than say GOW2's horde mode.
Worst part is not even a month out and now there's nothing to do with it. I am looking hard at that $30 trade in credit.
I'll promote this one more time because I use it and love it. Goozex http://www.goozex.com/referral.asp?idr=6189380569157 swap in your used games for points, spend the points on other games. You'll get a much better deal than trading in at GameStop. ODST is a 1000 point trade in, which is basically the max value... Think of it as $60 worth of points.
I've got probably 10 games out of it, and it is damn worth it. If you have any questions about how it works, let me know.
Use my link so I get referral credit 
I got the Endure achievement on Lost Platoon. It is a lot funner than Alpha Site and pretty damn easy if you have someone good using the Laser and taking out the wraiths as soon as they set down.
The strategy is to have one guy on Laser who knows how to take out wraiths with one shot and one guy watching his back. The other two should be running around in choppers. You can kill the hammer brutes, hunters, and pretty much everything with ease by running them down. You can also try blocking off the stairs with the warthog and spare choppers but that isn't totally necessary. However try to use alien weaponry and stay out of the warthog because once the tilt skull is on regular bullets may as well be rubber.
I'm lying.
Yeah. Lost Platoon was fun. I actually got the Endure achievement by myself on that one pretty easily. I had about 70,000 by the end of the first set. The bonus round is ridiculously easy. Grunts respawn every time you kill one and this particular bonus round had them all spawning from a single drop ship. So I mowed them down with the chopper getting huge multipliers for multi-kills while new grunts cascaded from the sky. By the time the drop ship finally destroyed me with its turrets, I had accumulated 89,000 in the bonus round alone. So yeah, I just had to play a couple more rounds from there.
I was a huge fan of the first 3 Halo's, but I barely played ODST for more than an hour. It was just too slow and boring in my opinion. I've heard it starts off slow and gets better, so maybe I just didn't give it the chance I should have.
I'll wait til it goes down to $20.
"It is true, that which I have revealed to you; there is no God, no universe, no human race, no earthly life, no heaven, no hell. It is all a dream - a grotesque and foolish dream. Nothing exists but you. And you are but a thought - a vagrant thought, a useless thought, a homeless thought, wandering forlorn among the empty eternities."