Halo 3: ODST

Over the weekend, I played through the single player campaign of Halo 3: ODST. I’d read some of the reviews of the game, which had dampened my expectations a bit, but I’ve enjoyed the other Halo games, and was willing to give this one a shot anyway.

Of all the Halo games, it’s by far my favorite.

Reviewers complained about the exploratory “hub” world, they complained that the firefights felt like stuff we’d seen and done before, they complained that the campaign was too short, and not worth $60… nonsense, I say.

First, to address the value issue - the campaign took me about five or six hours to finish. While that may be short for a Halo campaign, it was exactly what I was looking for. The best example of a game being the “right” length, to me, was the original Max Payne. The game was exactly as long as the mechanics could sustain a player’s interest, and not any longer. ODST feels the same way, to me. Couple that with the full multiplayer experience from Halo 3, and a Firefight mode you can easily sink a dozen hours into, and how this isn’t worth more than most other games on the market is a little beyond me.

The biggest thing that ODST really brings to the table, though, is a sense of pacing. I played Firefight, one of the multiplayer modes, with a friend - to get to the “Par Score,” where we’d get an achievement, took 2 solid hours. That entire time, wave after wave of the Covenant, there was no letup - no rest. It was utterly exhausting.

With ODST, the nighttime exploratory bits provide a radical change in the pace and atmosphere of the game. The flashbacks almost all culminate in a really intense firefight - the night sections that follow give you a chance to breathe, regroup, and get your bearings. In a genuine way, they let you *rest*. And when the conflicts build up again, you’re ready (and excited) to take them on.

More, the story and atmosphere more than held up their end of the bargain. Maybe it’s rabid Firefly-fandom speaking (with some BSG love thrown in there), but the voice cast did a spectacular job of bringing the characters to life. Nathan Fillion as Buck, in particular, was perfect. Sure, he was basically Malcolm Reynolds, but it was still fantastic.

In the end, though, it comes down to the fact that the story was interesting, the mechanics of gameplay were pitch-perfect, and the game was the *right* length for the experience. If the Halo 3 multiplayer stuff is something you already have, I could see waiting for a price drop, but I honestly hope that Halo: Reach is a lot more like ODST than the previous Halo games.

How’s this all tie in to what we’re doing? I think for me, it’s the question of perceived value. That’s something we struggle mightily with in the new mobile economy. I’ll probably have more on that later - but I just wanted to point out the positive aspects of a game I think has been kind of unfairly maligned.