On September 22nd, Microsoft India hosted a launch party for the latest and much anticipated addition to the Halo saga, Halo 3: ODST, formerly Halo 3: Recon, was set up to be different from the previous installments, with a new concept, a different look and even a new protagonist. Many excited gamers assembled at the PVR Select Citywalk theater to view the unveiling of the latest Microsoft/Bungie masterpiece, and boy, as always they did not disappoint us . Even Bollywood celebrities could not keep themselves away, as Dino Morea and Aftab Shivdasani made an appearance and checked out the scene; however, the Bollywood glam wore off when one of the actors casually asked one of the gamers, “How much does an Xbox go for these days…?” Yes, I was speechless. But putting that aside, I was fortunate enough to receive a copy and review the game.

Halo 3: ODST is a First Person Shooter much like the previous games (barring Essemble Studios-developed, Real-Time Strategy variant Halo Wars), and therefore bears a strong resemblance to them, but the excitement lies all in the small subtle changes. For example, the player does not assume the role of ‘John-117’ a.k.a. ‘Master Chief’; instead, you assume the role of a lone Orbital Drop Shock Trooper or an ODST simply called ‘The Rookie’ ( How ironic, always the new blood!). The campaign starts off with a cinematic which briefly introduces you to your team and gives you an insight into their personalities and trust me there’s nothing new here. You have a couple in which the lady wears the pants; you have the asshole who you wish dies but survives somehow; and you have your nice guy who wants to be your mommy.

Its all textbook, but anyway, they put you in a pod and off you go into the fight. Shortly after deployment and an inevitable crash/malfunction, six hours later you find yourself alone in the aftermath of New Mombasa. As The Rookie, your objective is to find out what happened to your squad. Upon finding major clues, you go into a flashback scene and the player then assumes the role of the missing ODST crew. The campaign itself is satisfactory, it’s a solid 7-8 hours of gameplay if you decide to find all collectibles. The story, while linear, doesn’t try to get ahead of itself. Without going too much into specifics, ODST’s tale is memorable enough and thankfully doesn’t let the player be overwhelmed with déjà vu by throwing in cheap references of a certain Bio-engineered Super Soldier… that isn’t Captain America, mind you!

Gameplay mechanics and handling hasn’t changed much, which pretty much eliminates the learning curve for the average Halo patron. The weapons and vehicles are the same, although not as vast as Halo 3. The game deprives you of the Dual-Wield feature and brings you back to basics ala Halo: Combat Evolved; notability the Battle-Rifle is replaced by the Silenced M7S-Sub Machine Gun, and the M6S Magnum which is now your default pistol, has been beefed up. Many players will find themselves using this weapon more often than not, as getting all those head-shots in on Grunts later become a necessity. In some parts of the game, stealth is encouraged, as the objective is to not to kill all on sight.

Rather, it ’s more of a “get from point A to point B” scenario, with as little of a hassle as possible. The game will at times force you into a ‘Rambo’ mode, which helps keep the balance for the more trigger-happy player. The fun-factor is perfectly balanced, giving the player plenty of opportunities to go stealth, cruise around, snipe or just blow shit up. A notable feature in the game is the VISR or Visual Intelligence Systems Reconnaissance, which at the push of a button compasses and outlines important items in yellow, friendly units in green and enemy targets in red. To give you some perspective, this feature works like some sort of futuristic night vision, which can also work with you or against you – all that matters is how you choose to use it.

The multiplayer experience however is a different beast altogether, the game comes with Halo 3’s entire Multiplayer content, including those ridiculous map-packs being sold by Microsoft. I can imagine the hardcore Halo fan must be really pissed now after spending all those Microsoft points on map-packs. The game now ships with all 24 maps, the original Halo 3 maps (Construct, Epitaph, Guardian, High Ground, Isolation, Last Resort, Narrows, Sandtrap, Snowbound, The Pit and Valhalla.), the Heroic map-pack (Foundry, Rats Nest and Standoff), the Legendary map-pack (Avalanche, Blackout and Ghost Town), Cold Storage map and the Mythic map-pack (Assembly, Orbital and Sandbox), as well as the three new Mythic maps (Citadel, Heretic and Longshore). Halo 3 ODST also contains a Co-op mode called Firefight, where upto 4 players take on waves of Covenant enemies which increase in difficulty by level and automatic ‘Skull’ activations, out of which 4 remain secondary skulls (Grunt Birthday Party, Cowbell, Blind and IWHBYD) which can be turned on before starting off a match.

Anyone who has played ‘Horde’ in Gears of War 2 or Left 4 Dead will know exactly what this mode is all about, sadly this is all that Multiplayer has to offer as the game lacks any conventional Multiplayer games like Territory, Capture the Flag, or even Team Deathmatch for that matter, but the biggest and most important issue with this game is that there is no Matchmaking option and the games hosted depend on an invite system alone. So if you have recently created an Xbox LIVE account or have few friends, being part of the Multiplayer experience could have you ripping out your hair, the inability of hosting or joining matches can be rough as not many gamers like myself have the patience to wait for an extended amount of time (which is probably why Microsoft/Bungie included the second disc which contains the Halo 3 Multiplayer content).

But aside from those issues, Halo 3 ODST is a good game and would be much appreciated by fans of the series and new gamers alike. It has a decent story and the Multiplayer however limited will have you playing with friends more often and if that’s not good enough for you, there’s the bonus disc which has Halo 3 Multiplayer content in its total awesomeness. Lets hope Microsoft and Bungie out do themselves again with the highly anticipated Halo Reach due to be released in the fall of 2010.

8.5 / 10

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By N2H

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