Xbox 360 - HALO 3 ODST Review

Its about time we got a good halo game. I loved Halo 1's more tactical approach to game play and how you needed to play it safe and the fact that health is limited as are supplies. Halo 3 ODST brings you back to that formula expect you are not a SPARTAN-II super solder. You are an Orbital Drop Shock Trooper, the best of the best out of the UNSC Marine Corps. The game takes place during the time line of Halo 2. You are "The Rookie" a survivor of a Marine detachment that was nearly annihilated. You are transferred to the squad of Gunnery Sergeant Eddie Buck who is in charge of an ODST squad. You are supposed ot take over the carrier carrying the Prophet of Regret but, just liek in Halo 2, the carrier goes into slipspace before you can land on it and it sends all of your squad, plus you out of control. You wake up 6 hours after your drop suspended above the city streets, your SOEIV pod buried in the side of a building. Your goal now is to find out where your squad is and link up with them. The city of New Mombasa is open ended and you can take multiple approaches to a patrol of Covenant, you can sneak by or you can snipe them out or engage them upfront. But, whatever you do be careful as you are very vulnerable to damage and can die with a few hits. Which his why you have a Stamina/Health system. Stamina is like shields in the fact that you can resist damage for a short period of time. The redder the edges of your screen the less stamina you have. You also have an audio clue your stamina is low when you hear your character breathing heavily and emitting sounds of pain and injury. This is much more immersive compared to a SPARTAN who are generally mute. After stamina is depleted you have a health bar at the top of the screen that shows how much base health you have left before you die. If you avoid damage for a while your character will recover their stamina. The game play goes as this: The Rookie finds clues to his squad and when you find the clue you play as that squad member in a flashback which takes place before you awake in your pod. I've completed the game on Heroic and its a great experience to play as a normal soldier than a semi god SPARTAN-II. The game also comes with a new game mode called Firefight. You are an ODST squad and you have to survive against endless waves of Covenant until you and your squad of up to 3 friends are all KIA. You start with 7 Lives and you get more at the end of a Round. The wave system goes like this 5 waves per round 3 rounds per set. You have skulls that turn on during the game that will make killing your enemies much harder. Its a great experience and I love the mode i play at least 3 firefight games a day. The game comes with a second disc that contains Halo 3's Multiplayer mode with one difference. Every Halo 3 map ever released is on this disc. You can play people online who just have the Halo 3 disc and not the ODST one. All of your saved films, maps and pictures transfer. You still have the forge and theater options.

All in all this is a well made game. Campaign is a little short but, this is well done considering they didn't have a lot of time to do this in. To me, this is worth paying full price for and I pre-ordered it and got it the day it came out. Please consider this review and i have played the game thoroughly and thought it was a good experience who knows? maybe you will agree.