Well, did a quick search and didn't see any ODST thread since Sept. 24, so ...
How do ya'll feel about it? Hoping for an objective calling-to-terms of its successes and failures here, not some fanboy fellatio session, nor a hater roast. As for me ..
Gameplay: while its hard to detract a game like Halo for its majority-wins console FPS adroitness, I felt that the gameplay was far too familiar to be worth a bother. The overworld hub map is basically a Halo game with unacceptably sparse combat, and a Halo game stripped of its combat is like a tofu hotdog: incredibly unsatisfying. The visor added underwhelmingly little to the whole experience, useless for the most part except for finding the next clue. It seemed to be taking a page out of the Metroid Prime playbook, but it forgot to add environmental interaction and, well, anything fun. The vehicle portions were probably the best part, due mostly to invincible AI gunners.
Visuals: pretty par for the Halo course. The game looks slightly better than Halo 3, but far fewer interesting environments to play in. I personally felt the entire city of New Mombassa felt incredibly dead, and not in the hastily-abandoned way Bungie wanted. The whole thing (especially the hub) felt like a Fischer Price plastic playground, and the odd flashing police car or burnt-out warthog merely felt like very shallow window dressing. In a post-GTAIV world, it takes a lot to make a city feel lived in and real, and Bungie failed pretty spectacularly here.
Story: This, I feel, is the game's biggest failing. Sure, on paper the story seems to work: good voice actors going through the motions of what should be a very solid C-grade sci-fi military story. But in execution, the game was just incredibly clunky, uninspiring, and dull. The characters, for all their animation, looked ill suited for a serious world and storyline. The actors, while delivering decent performances, had some pretty terrible gung-ho jargon-filled dialogue. The "romance" between Dare and Buck was so incredibly trite as to be borderline offensive. And all of the other characters are one-note cliches. By the time I found myself underground fighting through endless identical corridors looking for Section 8, the "big reveal" was so absurdly stupid and ultimately pointless that I could barely stand finishing the game. In the end, the game was a collection of good voice work marred by a terribly vapid story, generic characters, and a hub world detective story that was heavy on style but empty on substance. For Christ's sake Bungie, fire Joe Staten and find someone who can actually tell a goddamn story worth hearing. Oh, and the audio logs hidden throughout the game tell yet another mundane story, with the added benefit of insanely over-the-top radio actors.
Multiplayer: Bungie created matchmaking with Halo 2. To release ODST without matchmaking is unforgivable. I never owned Halo 3 and so I don't have a list full of Halo fanatics to play ODST with. Gears of War 2 can do matchmaking for Hoard, but Bungie can't bother doing it for ODST? This makes an otherwise interesting mode a more or less non-issue, because I won't be playing it. Way to utterly drop the ball, Bungie.
Overall: an incredibly pedestrian game that would likely be lambasted were it not for the Halo name. A unique premise and story set-up give way to more repetitive Halo run-and-gun and a pointless, dumb, annoyingly shallow story. With a multiplayer that fails to meet even the most fundamental criteria for a post-2007 release, I'll never know if the game was worth keeping. Hello eBay.
Can't wait for the ZP review.
How do ya'll feel about it? Hoping for an objective calling-to-terms of its successes and failures here, not some fanboy fellatio session, nor a hater roast. As for me ..
Gameplay: while its hard to detract a game like Halo for its majority-wins console FPS adroitness, I felt that the gameplay was far too familiar to be worth a bother. The overworld hub map is basically a Halo game with unacceptably sparse combat, and a Halo game stripped of its combat is like a tofu hotdog: incredibly unsatisfying. The visor added underwhelmingly little to the whole experience, useless for the most part except for finding the next clue. It seemed to be taking a page out of the Metroid Prime playbook, but it forgot to add environmental interaction and, well, anything fun. The vehicle portions were probably the best part, due mostly to invincible AI gunners.
Visuals: pretty par for the Halo course. The game looks slightly better than Halo 3, but far fewer interesting environments to play in. I personally felt the entire city of New Mombassa felt incredibly dead, and not in the hastily-abandoned way Bungie wanted. The whole thing (especially the hub) felt like a Fischer Price plastic playground, and the odd flashing police car or burnt-out warthog merely felt like very shallow window dressing. In a post-GTAIV world, it takes a lot to make a city feel lived in and real, and Bungie failed pretty spectacularly here.
Story: This, I feel, is the game's biggest failing. Sure, on paper the story seems to work: good voice actors going through the motions of what should be a very solid C-grade sci-fi military story. But in execution, the game was just incredibly clunky, uninspiring, and dull. The characters, for all their animation, looked ill suited for a serious world and storyline. The actors, while delivering decent performances, had some pretty terrible gung-ho jargon-filled dialogue. The "romance" between Dare and Buck was so incredibly trite as to be borderline offensive. And all of the other characters are one-note cliches. By the time I found myself underground fighting through endless identical corridors looking for Section 8, the "big reveal" was so absurdly stupid and ultimately pointless that I could barely stand finishing the game. In the end, the game was a collection of good voice work marred by a terribly vapid story, generic characters, and a hub world detective story that was heavy on style but empty on substance. For Christ's sake Bungie, fire Joe Staten and find someone who can actually tell a goddamn story worth hearing. Oh, and the audio logs hidden throughout the game tell yet another mundane story, with the added benefit of insanely over-the-top radio actors.
Multiplayer: Bungie created matchmaking with Halo 2. To release ODST without matchmaking is unforgivable. I never owned Halo 3 and so I don't have a list full of Halo fanatics to play ODST with. Gears of War 2 can do matchmaking for Hoard, but Bungie can't bother doing it for ODST? This makes an otherwise interesting mode a more or less non-issue, because I won't be playing it. Way to utterly drop the ball, Bungie.
Overall: an incredibly pedestrian game that would likely be lambasted were it not for the Halo name. A unique premise and story set-up give way to more repetitive Halo run-and-gun and a pointless, dumb, annoyingly shallow story. With a multiplayer that fails to meet even the most fundamental criteria for a post-2007 release, I'll never know if the game was worth keeping. Hello eBay.
Can't wait for the ZP review.
