To say that Halo has been a huge hit for Microsoft is a bit of an understatement. The original Xbox title may well have started the ball rolling, but it was the sequel which propelled Bungie into a new stratosphere with a multiplayer engine to die for as well as a decent single player experience thrown in for good measure. The third had a lot to live up to and just about did the business 2 years ago, but the boundaries that Halo 2 had set before meant that it wasn’t as huge a leap forward as people expected.
O.D.S.T. has been welcomed with mixed reaction; with some saying it’s too small to be a full priced title, while the die-hard lovers of the series are up in arms in expectation over the new multiplayer maps and single player storyline. The story is about a group of Orbital Drop Shock Troopers who are assigned to the South African city of New Mombassa with their mission being to take back control of the now Covenant run area. You control a rookie soldier who, along with everyone else on the assignment, is blown off course during your drop. As night falls and you come to, you’re find yourself alone with only your wits and an intel system pointing out clues to establish just what happened.
As stories go, this one isn’t too bad at all. The rookie intervals act as a good diversion between the main acts of this futuristic interactive play. Each main mission is seen through the eyes of your other squad members who were spread out across the landscape and trying to survive by any means necessary. Dialogue is both well spoken and nicely written, with a lovely sprinkling of humour injected at just the right moment. This feels like a much more light-hearted look at the Halo universe instead of the usual gravel voiced Chief and his computer aid. You do find yourself engrossed in the world of Mickey, Dutch, Buck and the others as your job of reuniting them gets underway, although the lack of a voice for the rookie makes me think that either he IS the Master Chief and that he’s not reached the legal minimum requirement or it could just be another keep ‘em guessing technique to get the fan boys thinking.
The worlds in O.D.S.T. are quite expansive and provide enough difference to fend off any monotony which may be looming. Having said that, the full single player mission can be finished in one sitting if put on anything lower than heroic, so if you do wish to at least have a challenge with this then I’d suggest being a proper human being and to stop acting like a wuss. This was a big problem with Halo 3 in that the main campaign was solid enough when on your own, but was a different kettle of fish when it came to going through it with friends. Sadly it’s a similar problem here, with between 4 and 6 hours being a normal expectation time to get to the end when hitting legendary and battling with 3 of your mates over the 10 main mission sectors.
If there is anything that can be said about all the games in the Halo series it’s that the graphics engine has been a solid piece of kit. O.D.S.T. does provide a very well structured world, with just enough graphical touches to show it is a next gen title, but there is a little thought of some visual sacrifice to keep the fluidity and sharp control input. The daytime mission sections are nicely done and look decent enough, with the occasional “cinema” moment to make you feel impressed for at least a few seconds (the initial drop sequence being one of those). The rookie controlled night time trek through the town has some great colour and depth in places, but it’s so dark that you probably won’t see it due to the excessive use of the X button to bring up your visual aid. It is an extremely useful piece of kit, but your reliance on it becomes a bit worrying, as you’ll spend more time seeing red enemies and green allies, rather than the moody and atmospheric scenery.
One thing Bungie have always managed to achieve with their series is the impact of the musical accompaniment with each game, with the main Halo theme almost becoming as recognisable as the main tunes of Mario or Sonic. With this being on a slight tangent drawn away from the Mater Chief, there is no recognisable music from anything previously, but that does not mean it’s just filled with the cheap stuff. Martin O’Donnell has come up with a darker, more secretive selection of melody instead of all the pomp and circumstance that has come before. It does work very well and is a very impressive mix. The vocal elements are also smile inducing with those little bits of comedy interspersed with some of the more usual soldier talk. Other than that it’s business as usual with all the sounds pretty much the same as you’ve come to expect from the previous titles.
The multiplayer side of Halo does have its good points, as the Firefight mode is a decent addition (think Gears of War 2’s Horde mode, but with 3 rounds of multiple waves rather than 50 separate attack patterns). The good point about this new section is that, like the main game too, the skulls from 3 are all available to use here. What the AI does is select certain ones to give the enemies an advantage, but you never know what until you begin. Four players can take part and there are a decent selection of maps available once unlocked, but even though it does provide a good experience for a small party, it almost feels like this is trying to take the flak away from the almost cheeky move by Microsoft with regards to the rest of the online mode.
If you are one of the Halo faithful, you’ll pretty much have everything on disc 2 already, as it’s nothing more than the previous game’s multiplayer with 3 extra maps. Now, if you’ve NEVER played it and have managed to keep yourself locked up in a bubble for a good 4 or 5 years then you’re in for a treat, but for the entire population of the world (minus Captain Bubble of course) we’ll have had or still have this and start to think it’s just a cash-in on the franchise. Even with one of those extra maps being the return of the fan favourite, Midship from 2 (now called Heretic) you really find it hard to convince people to go for this when they’ve already spent the money on buying the previous title as well as all the add-on map packs to keep it up to date.
The problem we have here is that the single player game is a pretty good one, but the majority of the online section is old stuff we’ve already had before. Not even Firefight can hide the feeling of being conned into spending at least £35 on what is technically a quick to finish main game and a rehash of old code everywhere else. The other niggle is that for a franchise that started with the title of Halo: Combat Evolved, you have to say that the core gameplay hasn’t really done that. You look at Rainbow Six Vegas 2 and Modern Warfare and look at things like the inclusion of sprint buttons, which this doesn’t have. The competitors also have the inclusion of different weaponry, whereas the main arsenal given to you is more of the same again with some key offence missing due to the timeline, like the plasma sword for example.
Even with these problems, you can’t take away from the fact that O.D.S.T. has a decent game buried amongst all the familiar content and it would be a shame if you avoid it because of the possible feeling of resentment with the way this product is made up. If you don’t have ANY of the content then I would go ahead and buy this and find yourself with the main components of the Halo Empire and all its multiplayer goodness. For those who already have over 50% of what is here then renting might well be your better choice and once the single player is done you can go back to putting sticky grenades on your mates in a custom slayer match, just like you’ve always done.
Overall, a cheaper price point (say £20 – £25) would have made this a necessity, but as it stands it just feels like an expansion pack gone mad and it won’t please the collective, I can tell you. Dangling the carrot of the Reach Beta just makes it even harder to take. Even so, I have to give some credit to a well written and nicely designed single player experience, which is worth playing, but it’s just a shame it’s trapped in a sea of re-released duplication. Let us hope they don’t do it again with the next instalment in the saga or else there will be a REAL uprising.
VideogameUK verdict: 7/10
