Halo 3: ODST Hands-on

Format Xbox 360

Developer Bungie

Publisher Microsoft

Genre Action

10 Comments

Bungie sees ODST as somewhat of a departure from its previous Halo games. Which is true - the main campaign gives players control of an ODST in an open-world environment and the ability to play levels in any order you like.

But you know from the second you throw your first grenade and melee your first face that this is still good old Halo, through and through.

As huge fans of the series we feel a sense of relief that ODST, which was rumoured to be an all-out stealth game, doesn't mess about too much with the tried and tested formula. However, there are some significant differences from Master Chief's outings.

To start with, considering they're supposedly inferior in strength and agility, playing as a lowly ODST brings with it plenty of changes. Bungie says that the human troopers move more slowly and don't jump as high as the super-powered Spartans, but to be honest we didn't really notice in our hands-on time.

What we did notice though is the increased damage taken from long falls, melee attacks and explosions that actually shunt you off your feet. You've got no shield either, and no radar tech on your suit.

This time around you're forced to make do with a health bar that doesn't recharge unless you collect health packs. But this actually makes less of a difference than Bungie makes out, because in place of your old shield is "stamina".

Like Call of Duty 4, when you get shot the screen goes a shade of red, but this doesn't take away health. When the screen reaches its deepest red, bullets begin chipping away at your health bar so you have to hide for a few seconds and allow normal colour to return. It's like having a shield anyway, but with a health bar too - basically like Halo 1.

Bigger differences are evident when you leap into the main campaign. The opening scene, which reveals just how much the Halo graphics engine has improved, shows you tooling up for a mission infiltrating a Covenant ship. Only the ship makes a jump into space, wrecks the city below and sends you slamming into the ground.

Waking from unconsciousness six hours later, your team is missing, the city is deserted except for roaming Covenant patrols, and you're left to uncover the mystery of exactly what happened in the city alone. This forms the hub world from which you will gain access to other levels in the game.

It's like nothing in any previous Halo; dark and eerie with a calm but moody background tune setting the tone. It's an absolutely enormous open world - larger than any level in any other Halo game, Bungie tells us. And you can go wherever you want.

Or at least you will be able to. At first, most of the city is closed off, and you use your new visor - which amplifies light and outlines enemies and objects of significance - to locate a ringing payphone. Interact with that and you get information from a city-controlling AI called the Superintendent.

The Superintendent, which would usually control the street lights and other mundane tasks says Bungie, gives you a map and waypoint markers to areas in the city where a significant event has taken place. This is the structure of the game; you fight your way to a waypoint marker, locate a significant item there and this triggers a flashback of what happened earlier.

You play these flashbacks, which form the games individual missions, as the ODSTs. Bungie only showed us the level on the bridge that was shown at E3, but by the looks of it these missions are more like your traditional Halo levels, with a set path and mission objectives.

Bungie tells us that once you've done the first couple of flashback missions the city is opened up and you're left to experience further levels in any order you like, uncovering the mystery of the city piece by piece.

Another big change comes in the package: ODST comes on two discs; one holds the main single-player campaign and Firefight mode (more on that in a minute). The other disc, called Halo 3: Mythic, contains all of Halo 3's multiplayer components to date. So that's all 24 maps (including all DLC and three new arenas; Heretic, Long Shore and Citadel), Forge mode, Saved Films and file sharing.

Owners of Halo 3: Mythic will, of course, be able to play against players with the original Halo 3 disc. But the good news for Achievement junkies is that both discs in the ODST package count as their own game, and so have their own set of 1000 achievement points each. Which is nice.

Following our quick demo of the single-player campaign, we got the chance to go hands-on with the game's new Firefight mode. As you should already know, Firefight is like Horde mode in Gears of War 2; you're thrown into a map with up to four other players and you work together to take out waves of enemies of increasing difficulty.

There are a few interesting twists here, however. First, the team shares a pool of lives. There's no end to Firefight - you just keep going until the team's lives are gone, but you can earn more lives as you shotgun-melee your way through the reams of incoming Covenant.

The other twist is Skulls; different status changers that are activated in different rounds. The 'Tough Luck' skull is activated first, which makes enemies harder to kill than usual. 'Catch' is next, giving enemies unlimited grenades and an overwhelming willingness to throw them. A 'Black Eye' skull makes it necessary to melee enemies to recover stamina. That one's a bitch, and they get tougher.

We played three maps, one of which, Alpha Site, was being shown for the first time. Alpha Site is an indoor map with balconies around its exterior. Here, dropships land to unleash the Covenant armies (when you hear the announcer below "reinforcements!", look out for incoming dropships).

Weapon and ammo supplies are stuck to a huge central pillar, including a rocket launcher, which was fantastic for wrecking dozens of Covenant just as they disembarked their ship.

If you've been scoffing up every mention of ODST on the 'net, you'll have heard of the other two maps, Security Zone and Crater. Security Zone is an open, outdoor level in bright sunlight, with small bunkers around the outside where weapons and health supplies lie. These stocks respawn after every round, in which there are several waves of Covenant.

Crater is a night map set within an indoor-style structure but with an open rooftop - so plenty of places for dropships to unload. Gun turrets on upper levels and outer corridors provide good camping spots.

We had awesome fun with Firefight. Just like Gears' Horde, it's a game of teamwork and communication. Players have to stick together or be overwhelmed by the incoming masses. But point tallies also add a competitive spice to to the action: no one likes being the n00b at the bottom of the points table.

Needless to say we didn't want to go home. The saving grace is that we only have two months to wait until the game's September 22 release date. And for us, it's going to be an impatient countdown.

Mike Jackson