Halo 3: ODST

Another Friday night in Collegetown, USA; another Halo game beaten in four-player cooperative fashion. This time around, we dared to attempt it on the "legendary" difficulty setting right off the bat. We were, of course, victorious. I'll cut to the chase. ODST plays very similarly to the original three Halo games, and many times you feel little to no difference at all. But something about the game feels lacking, to say the least. Maybe it's the fact that the game was originally intended to be an expansion pack of sorts: mere downloadable content for players. Instead, they fleshed out the story a little bit more, added a generic (but very widely praised) "Firefight" gameplay mode - kill wave after wave of incoming enemies - and ended up with a game that was certainly more than just an expansion, but less than a full game. I don't mean to say that the effort was enitrely half-assed, but come on. It's not a full-fledged game - why sell it for the price of one? In a guilt-assuaging attempt, the game comes packaged with Halo 3's multiplayer mode - all two dozen or so maps' worth. The thing is, I'm sure at least 95% of people purchasing ODST are people who already own Halo 3. The story was also nowhere near as epic or impactful as any of the three Master Chief Halo games. It was still fun to play through the campaign, but it never once compared to any of its predecessors. And that's saying something, because the Halo storylines range everywhere from generically awful to mildly creative. A definite positive worth noting is that this time around, the game never felt too "beat-em-up," even on the legendary setting. There were nine levels, but really only seven if you don't include an introduction and an oft-interrupted "find the clues" level that triggers flashbacks which encompass the rest of the levels. The whole ordeal took us four hours or so, and I'm sure anyone could beat it alone on the normal difficulty setting in even less time. Ultimately, the game can't be - or at least shouldn't be - compared to the original Halo trilogy; it's not even a full-fledged game, and serves as nothing more than a brief interquel between the second and third games. While Master Chief is off saving the universe, this game is about little more than protecting some mostly-meaningless squidlike floating thing. I'll say no more to "spoil" the game, but honestly, there's hardly a meaningful plot to spoil at all. In the end, I don't regret playing or purchasing this game; I just wish its creators had left it alone as a fully fleshed out half-game instead of turning it into a half-assed attempt at a full game. Because it isn't one. It just isn't.