ODST Impressions.

[Wing Commander MAD]

Not bad, not amazing either, but fun. I'll second some of the complaints and praises mentioned so far, such as those regarding the smg and pistol. My understanding is that ODST was a kind of little project to see what team who were supposed to be working on/with Peter Jakson's Halo game before it got cancelled (at least I think that's what I heard) could do in a year's time with the existing engine in between the development of Halo 3 and Halo:Reach. In that respect I think they did a pretty decent job considering the production time and the fact that they made some changes (VISR) and the city itself seem to largly be new material and assets involved (the environment doesn't seem to have a whole lot in common with the few urban levels of Halo 3), though I could be wrong regarding the environment.

I'd say this just goes to show that its going to be awhile (if ever) before we get true expansions on consoles that are priced similar to PC ones. Clearly the concept of stand-alone expansions exists in the console world, wether or not MS/Sony/Nintendo will allow the idea and more importantly the price point to happen is another issue entirely.

[Oskuro]

Spoony has spoken.


Not, I haven't played it, but the Snake Man music in the video kind of got to me.

[Vympel]

Cross post from SB:

God, this game sucked.

Chris O'Farrell and I played this for over an hour and a half at least from the start, co-op play, earlier today.

First thing's first - this game looks like ass. This is supposed to be an X360 game? After we gave up on this in disgust, we loaded up Arkham Asylum (which I got for my birthday but hadn't played yet) and were just amazed at how pretty and polished and well put together it was - ODST looks like an original XBox game. The shonky animation, the uninspired visuals, and the worthless, blocky looking enemies.

Second, the level design is just garbage. 'New Mombasa' is just generic, everything looks the damn same. If it wasn't for the up-button function telling you where to go, we would've had no clue what we were doing. Walking through the buildings, I had no idea what their purpose was even supposed to be. Were they housing? Offices? It just looked like assorted crap, with no rhyme or reason to it. The one breath of fresh air was the sequence that started on the beach, but that was only a relief because it offered a change of scenery, it wasn't in and of itself any good.

Did I mention how damn ugly and primitive this game is? Yeah, I did.

Then there's the plot. What little could be gleaned from the start was fairly by the numbers, but what was up with those trying-to-be-like-System-Shock-and-BioShock recordings? They were boring and uninteresting. Maybe it would've gotten better later, I dunno.

And fuck me dead if it isn't boring. The stretches of walking around New Mombasa with nothing happening almost put us to sleep.

I think the final point is what made us give up, when our original intent was to play the whole game through. It just got so deadly dull after a certain point that we just put it down.

I give this exercise in sheer mediocrity 1.5/5.

[Ritterin Sophia]

Well since Vympel pretty much summed up what I was going to say, but didn't want to because I'd only watched the leaked French Walkthrough of the game, I thought I may as well comment:

Yeah, the bunny-hopping with spartan lasers, plasma cannons, and chainguns is really retarded. The gameplay looked boring as hell, especially in free roam. I decided to watch the walkthrough to see if the game looked to be at all fun rather than the trumped up Halo 3 downloadable it should have been and so I wouldn't feel obligated to buy it just to find out the story. Thank Valen for the French and their leaking of the story early.

[TheMuffinKing]

This game is worth a rental at best.

[Death from the Sea]

I am wondering why I spent $60 on a game that is very mediocre at best and what is with the second disc being the HALO3 multiplayer ??? I don't get what they were thinking when designing this game.

If it didn't have two player (on the same xbox) co-op then I would have already returned the game. But the two player feature has made it so that my wife likes to play with me.

Even the fact that Nathan Fillion, Alan Tudyk and Adam Baldwin lended their voices to this game cannot save it...

[Themightytom]

Eh I consider it my replacement to my copy of halo3. I was hoping it would feature Sgt johnson but oh well. I tromped around exploring before trying toa ctually solve anything, and i found a ghost, which made the game appallingly easy. i can SEE how it was supposed to be hard but I ended up perfecting vehicular homocide. Sadie's plot was alright my only gripe is the vending machine healthcare seemed overly abundant. Also it was ironic given current political events.

I thought the levels were fun though for the msot part, Not the nighttime missions, but exploring MASSIVE buildings with lots of creatures was fun enough. The Firefight levels are a good time as well.

What the hell happened to the battle rifle and the swords though?

[Erik von Nein]

I don't really have anything new to say about the game play (even though the whole "YOU DON'T HAVE SHIELDS turned out to be not true at all), but I will say I did like some of the cut scene segments. The Firefly Boys are usually amusing and some of the writing was decent. What I didn't like was the animation. The over-exaggerated movements of the characters was grating, and the textures were ass. It still followed the grand Halo tradition of having anything Covenant look good while everything human was ugly.

As well, the story was pretty nonsensical and cliché as Hell. Bah, who cares about your love-life?

[DPDarkPrimus]

What the hell happened to the battle rifle and the swords though?

If there are no Elites why would there be any swords?

And there's no reason at all for the Battle Rifle to exist, when you've got the pistol.

[TheMuffinKing]

Didn't brutes use sword too? Even if they didn't, I suppose it wouldn't be impossible to find one laying around, especially upon discovery of all those elite corpses.

As for the battle rifle, I would have loved to have one for nothing more that the sake of completeness in universe. I also love my scoped 3 shot burst and the sound of the weapon. Come to think of it, I could've sworn that I saw some soldiers and NMPD guys running around with battle rifles. Maybe my eyes were deceiving me!

[Laird]

You were seeing things, the only reference to battle rifles in the game is on the level data hive. If you look near where the ice is coming out of the server room, you will see br ammo magazines on the ground.

[Sea Skimmer]

A five hour campaign? Fuck, thats worse then Ghostbusters! I was thinking of picking this up but I'll just rent it and save my money for Dragon Age.

I played it on legendary two player coop and it took longer then that but not by a whole lot. Thing is for about half the game you are on a city map in which you have a certain amount of choice in routes, and you can also just sneak by a lot of the enemies if you want though they will chase you, including chasing you into other game loading zones.

Not even remotely worth the price they want, but a friend of mine got a copy free we he bought a 1000 dollar TV. This should have been 30 dollars max. Given that they removed as many weapons as they added its hardly even an expansion, its just maps and lots and lots of darkness.

[Pulp Hero]

OVERALL: Good as a rental, but not a purchase. Enjoyable for about a week, firefight is worthless.

I like the art design of this game, and the engine while showing its age is still very nice looking. It was great to see more human architecture and get a feel for Haloverse's humans. This game also came closer than any of the others to portraying the "apocalyptic desperate war of humanity against superior aliens" that the novels and ad campaigns show, I really liked that part.

I looked the look and sound of the silenced weapons and the VISR system made me feel all stealthy like. I just wish this game had taken advantage of your character's weakness compared to that of the MC, and really made stealth more important. The silencing of weapons didn't seem to have any in game impact, and every encounter ended up playing like any other Halo fight. A light meter, the ability to climb over obstacles, go prone to avoid brutes, and place command detonated explosives while playing as the rookie would have been among some welcome changes. Also the night time city felt dead. Where were the last USMC or NMPD hold outs? The civilians? The Covenant base camps?

[chitoryu12]

Certainly doesn't bode well for Halo: Reach, though that's apparently being made with an all-new engine. Bungie will probably make the gameplay just the same old shit.

Not like it matters, anyway. The fanboys will buy it in droves.

[DPDarkPrimus]

I also love my scoped 3 shot burst and the sound of the weapon.

Yeah, because when you're scoped, only the first bullet will hit, if you're aiming for a headshot.

And the sound of the BR is terrible. It's a goddamn boring sounding weapon.

[Darth Wong]

I got it for my boys because they wanted to play it. I tried it a bit myself, and found it just incredibly lame. It really offers nothing at all which is substantially different from earlier Halo games. As Vympel says, the maps are stupid; the buildings have no organic sense of belonging to their environment, and are obviously just meaningless polygon FPS gameplay maps. But the worst thing was the weapons.

THE PISTOL

Everything wrong with this game can be symbolized in that goddamned pistol. First, it makes no sense for a pistol to be one of your best ranged weapons. Second, it makes even less sense for the pistol to have a scope for zooming, when you can see quite clearly that it has no such scope and that a scope would be stupid on a pistol anyway. Third, it makes even less sense for it to be all of this and silenced. Fourth, we all know perfectly well why all of this is the case: Halo fanboys have been whining about the lost greatness of that stupid Halo 1 pistol back ever since Halo 2 came out without it. Game design decisions were made solely to appease a hardcore fanboy base: a statement which pretty much entirely sums up this game.

The more you play this game, the more frustrated you become with its asinine and terrible weapons selection. And really, what the fuck is a FPS game without a good lineup of weapons? The story doesn't save it, to say the least.

[Setzer]

They couldn't even be bothered to rename it. If Halo were on the computer, this would simply be an expansion pack. I wasn't impressed by the adverts, and I think it was wise not to buy it.

[Pulp Hero]

I got it for my boys because they wanted to play it. I tried it a bit myself, and found it just incredibly lame. It really offers nothing at all which is substantially different from earlier Halo games. As Vympel says, the maps are stupid; the buildings have no organic sense of belonging to their environment, and are obviously just meaningless polygon FPS gameplay maps. But the worst thing was the weapons.

THE PISTOL

Everything wrong with this game can be symbolized in that goddamned pistol. First, it makes no sense for a pistol to be one of your best ranged weapons. Second, it makes even less sense for the pistol to have a scope for zooming, when you can see quite clearly that it has no such scope and that a scope would be stupid on a pistol anyway. Third, it makes even less sense for it to be all of this and silenced. Fourth, we all know perfectly well why all of this is the case: Halo fanboys have been whining about the lost greatness of that stupid Halo 1 pistol back ever since Halo 2 came out without it. Game design decisions were made solely to appease a hardcore fanboy base: a statement which pretty much entirely sums up this game.

The more you play this game, the more frustrated you become with its asinine and terrible weapons selection. And really, what the fuck is a FPS game without a good lineup of weapons? The story doesn't save it, to say the least.

Actually I believe the pistol scope is justified as being an interface on your suit proving the scoping (same explaination for how you aim with an assault rifle even though is has no optics or sights). Although that answer begs the question of why you can't do that with all weapons.

[General Zod]

They couldn't even be bothered to rename it. If Halo were on the computer, this would simply be an expansion pack. I wasn't impressed by the adverts, and I think it was wise not to buy it.

It originally was started as an expansion pack. But Bungee got greedy so they tried passing it off as a full game instead.

[Ford Prefect]

Didn't brutes use sword too?

I don't think they ever did, not even way back into Halo 2's production, when they had things like oversized Jackal-style shields.

[TheMuffinKing]

I also love my scoped 3 shot burst and the sound of the weapon.

Yeah, because when you're scoped, only the first bullet will hit, if you're aiming for a headshot.

And the sound of the BR is terrible. It's a goddamn boring sounding weapon.

Thats why you aim for center mass, that kills the shields and gives you a headshot.

It sounds way more satisfying than the pistol too. Hell, outside of fanwankery and desperate situations, a pistol should be the last thing you consider bringing if you'll be running around a city infested with eight foot tall superhuman killing machines.

I am happy though, your response made me remember why I stopped playing Halo, it doesn't have anything to do with you, it's just that you made me think of the halo games and how dissapointed I was with Halo after number two.

[Pulp Hero]

The worst thing is that gameplay wise, ODST could have simply reskinned the pistol as a sniperized, single shot, silent BR and avoided almost all of these problems.


It makes sense too, because it always struck me as odd the the future military's only sniper rifle is a .50 cal.

[[R_H]]

It makes sense too, because it always struck me as odd the the future military's only sniper rifle is a .50 cal.

Anti-material sniper rifle used in an anti-personnel role. Over kill? Hell no.

A grenade launcher or a light cannon would have been interesting. Something like the Brute Shot with an optic, but long(er) ranged.

[DPDarkPrimus]

The worst thing is that gameplay wise, ODST could have simply reskinned the pistol as a sniperized, single shot, silent BR and avoided almost all of these problems.

But that's not the purpose of the Battle Rifle! It's not MEANT to be a sniper rifle. It is a middle-range weapon that everyone tries to use as a substitute sniper rifle.

[Pulp Hero]

The worst thing is that gameplay wise, ODST could have simply reskinned the pistol as a sniperized, single shot, silent BR and avoided almost all of these problems.

But that's not the purpose of the Battle Rifle! It's not MEANT to be a sniper rifle. It is a middle-range weapon that everyone tries to use as a substitute sniper rifle.

So, it works as a designated marksman rifle, and it makes more sense than a sniper pistol.