You go in desperate search of your damsel in distress. Dare, guiding Buck via inner ear communication, is in trouble. We meet a new member of the Covenant family: an Engineer – floating plant-like organic supercomputers forced to wear bombs to protect the military secrets they contain. Buck discovers dead Elites, apparently killed by Brutes – it’s classified, Dare says.
Set immediately after drop (each flashback begins with an indication of how many hours after drop it occurs and who you’re controlling), you jump into Buck’s shoes as he battles the Covenant in Tayari Plaza. The first of these flashback missions triggers when you find the helmet of Dare, Ms Naval Intelligence, as she’s described by Buck. Once completed, you jump straight back into the Rookie’s armour plated shoes, and head out in search of the next piece in the puzzle. When you do, you flashback to before night overcame the city, taking control of one of the Rookie’s squad mates and playing out a self contained mission reminiscent of a traditional Halo level.
To do this, and to advance the story, he needs to find various objects, remnants of the ODST’s actions during the last six hours. The Rookie’s sole goal is to hook up with his squad. A curious mechanic, however, breaks up this slower-paced, somewhat stealthy exploration – flashback missions. It’s no Liberty City or Capital Wasteland, of course, but it is fully explorable (after about half an hour’s play), with no loading required. New Mombasa has been designed to be a sandbox, and is in fact the single largest level Bungie has ever created for a Halo game. Immediately ODST reveals itself: this is not the Halo we’re used to. You see a Covenant patrol – a few Grunts and a Brute – skulking about in search of strays. The Rookie steps out onto the cold urban streets. The only illumination comes from the flames of burning vehicles and flickering street lights. Night has drenched New Mombasa in a pitch black. The drop, somewhat predictably, goes horribly wrong. There are obvious influences from other games, most clearly 2K Games’ BioShock, and distinct tweaks in the tried and trusted Halo formula, but ODST is still very much a Halo game that fans will instantly find familiar. With ODST, it often feels as if Bungie desperately wanted to create something different, but, for whatever reason, wasn’t able to go as far as it wanted. So, is Bungie right? Is Halo 3: ODST much more than an expansion? Is it worth your hard-earned cash? We’ve finished the brand new campaign, checked out all the new weapons, explored the abandoned city streets of New Mombasa, pumped hours into the brand new co-operative multiplayer mode Firefight and killed more Covenant than we could possibly count. Without Halo, would we have enjoyed the brutal online thrills of Modern Warfare or Killzone 2? Now, in the post CoD/Gears of War world, it’s time for Halo to return.Īnd returned it has, this time with Halo 3: ODST, a two-disc release described by Bungie as “much more than an expansion”. Halo 2’s ground-breaking online matchmaking carried Xbox LIVE’s fledgling years on the crest of a wave, breaking only when Halo 3 refined the process further on the Xbox 360. Halo: Combat Evolved made system linked Xboxs fashionable.
Arguably Bungie’s most influential innovation, Halo’s multiplayer paved the way for console shooters that followed it. But ask many why they keep flooding back for more, and they’ll answer with one, simple word: multiplayer. Why is Halo great? Answers are varied, and objective. Master Chief is Mario for the console FPS generation. Some two years after Halo 3 broke global entertainment launch records it’s still the most played game on Xbox LIVE. Halo’s enduring popularity is remarkable.