Review: Halo: ODST

[maantren]

Indeed. Companies want you to buy the game the day it comes out, so they want to have the reviews at the ready. The only way to coordinate that is to get copies to reviewers early. No big conspiracy at work, just timing. Same with the adverts. It's really not all that different than movies. Movie reviewers are either sent the movie before it's released or allowed into an advanced screening of the film.

It's a little more complicated than that. I worked on 2 magazines and a TV show that did videogame reviews, and saw firsthand the subtle & overt pressures brought to bear by publishers and PR firms. They have swag, previews, access, and advertising money to play with: it's usually not as simple as 'give us a good review and we'll buy $x worth of ads', but it is fundamentally their job to try and get positive coverage. Good outlets like The Escapist resist or ignore the pressure, but there's a reason so many prominent sites give 'blockbuster' games (ie those with a large PR budget) such crazy high review scores in their first week...

Cheers

Colin

Well, yes, I'm quite aware of all that, having been writing about videogames for almost ten years now. I never said such pressures didn't exist, merely tried to point out that not everything is a conspiracy.

Sorry, wasn't trying to lecture It would be cool to see a site go out on a limb and do a detailed piece about those pressures, though, in the absence of good info it's easy to see why people go straight for the conspiracy angle.

Cheers

Colin

 

[LordKraven]

The game is exactly what I assumed it to be, another Halo remake will all that was good taken even further out and more crap pushed in. Halo 1 is the only one I ever liked, it had a good balance of single and multi playing so if you tried to tackle the game alone you never felt empty or unrewarded.Halo 2 I still bought it but that was the decline in quality on the game. Story mode was about half the length and easy even on hard settings, it started aiming at only multiplayer and thats the only thing they supported. Halo 3 came out and i dident waste my money but friends did and I gave it a fair go, played the story...in 4 hours, 3 with friends. The multiplayer was the same retake of big map X slayer or big map Y CTF and that was 90% of game play right there. And even to standards of FPS games its very shallow and lacks a good amount of featured all for making the backround look nice. I bought this game ODST and returned it the same day because its identical to Halo 3 aside from the fact your not a Spartan. You can down thing quick with no real challange, your allies don't help a whole lot and the game is still once again short, but at least they kept there very shallow and boaring multiplayer well supported. There are many things I can go on about on how Halo is very short, limited and shallow in so many was, and lacks qualitys of a good FPS (a.k.a. Call of duty, Gears of War, even Army of Two was more fun) but I won't, mainly becuase most of Halo's fan bace already know what i'm talking about and the only defence they will trow to it is that it's awsome and sold a lot of copys. So before you spam me with hate mail, take a good long time to think about why you like it and why it is a good game to you then send me good hard facts and things that could be used as a real debate.

 

[awsome117]

The game is exactly what I assumed it to be, another Halo remake will all that was good taken even further out and more crap pushed in. Halo 1 is the only one I ever liked, it had a good balance of single and multi playing so if you tried to tackle the game alone you never felt empty or unrewarded.Halo 2 I still bought it but that was the decline in quality on the game. Story mode was about half the length and easy even on hard settings, it started aiming at only multiplayer and thats the only thing they supported. Halo 3 came out and i dident waste my money but friends did and I gave it a fair go, played the story...in 4 hours, 3 with friends. The multiplayer was the same retake of big map X slayer or big map Y CTF and that was 90% of game play right there. And even to standards of FPS games its very shallow and lacks a good amount of featured all for making the backround look nice. I bought this game ODST and returned it the same day because its identical to Halo 3 aside from the fact your not a Spartan. You can down thing quick with no real challange, your allies don't help a whole lot and the game is still once again short, but at least they kept there very shallow and boaring multiplayer well supported. There are many things I can go on about on how Halo is very short, limited and shallow in so many was, and lacks qualitys of a good FPS (a.k.a. Call of duty, Gears of War, even Army of Two was more fun) but I won't, mainly becuase most of Halo's fan bace already know what i'm talking about and the only defence they will trow to it is that it's awsome and sold a lot of copys. So before you spam me with hate mail, take a good long time to think about why you like it and why it is a good game to you then send me good hard facts and things that could be used as a real debate.

When you said Gears of War was a good FPS, I lol'd hard.

 

[skibadaa]

8 hour campaign time? Halo 3 was longer than that and Halo 3 was a pitifully short half assed load of wank. I might buy this when it costs me £4.99 from a pre-owned bargain bin but im damn sure not gunna pay £39.99 for one nights worth of play. Honestly, i cant believe i thought for a second that bungie had come to its senses and made something even remotely as good as Halo/Halo 2, i hope they pull thier collective heads out of thier asses for Fall Of Reach.

 

[Bobby Smiles]

You'd really have to be dense to consider Halo's design shallow. Especially when compared to a glorified lightgun game like Call of Duty 4 or even a Half-Life 2.

That or you've never even attempted playing the game on anything other than Easy or Normal, which are the entry level difficulties.

And I don't know what the Brits here are on about: I got this game for £27. If you want to talk about a price hike, look no further than America.

Blaming such a thing on Bungie is just petty, though.

8 hour campaign time? Halo 3 was longer than that and Halo 3 was a pitifully short half assed load of wank. I might buy this when it costs me £4.99 from a pre-owned bargain bin but im damn sure not gunna pay £39.99 for one nights worth of play. Honestly, i cant believe i thought for a second that bungie had come to its senses and made something even remotely as good as Halo/Halo 2, i hope they pull thier collective heads out of thier asses for Fall Of Reach.

What was wrong with 3? It added so much while balancing a lot of the tedious baggage the rushed Halo 2 created. Now that game was unquestionably bad.

Still made it better than the vast majority of shooters out at the time, though.

 

[JusticarPhaeton]

Golly, sixty dollars to play a slightly modified version of Halo 3, which was in itself a slightly modified version of Halo 2, which was a slightly modified version of... Halo: Combat Evolved? No thanks :/

I hate when game devs make a huge hit and thereafter just crank out the same stuff to make money fist over fist. I've already played my fair share of Halo games and I don't think they're anything all that special anymore. And please don't give me the whole 'It's an incredible story wrapped in fantastic gameplay! spiel.' I've definitely seen better. Bungie is just milking the momentum and fanbase while it still can.

 

[Bobby Smiles]

Bungie is just milking the momentum and fanbase while it still can.

You misspelled Microsoft there.

Additionally: Half-Life 2 Episodes.

 

[samsonguy920]

Shhhh.....you had me at "it has Nathan Fillion."

..and Alan Tudyk, annnd Adam Baldwin. I kinda been blurring over all the other fanboy riffraff going on here.

We're not most reviewers.

And don't ever think of changing that!

All things even, this makes me want the game all the more, which would mean me having to get a 360....darn console-loving Bungie...grrrrgrrrgrrr.

 

[Tdc2182]

Halo 3 ODST: More generic plot line, more ten-year-olds shrieking over X-Box Live, and more gameplay that's been done better elsewhere.

Can't wait.

The biggest problem i have with the game is that it has a high price tag even though it's really just a level pack with a new story for Halo 3. According to the review, there are NO new enemy's!

Not even any innovative guns.

 

[Dommyboy]

Isn't there just like one new enemy?

 

[blankedboy]

Run away! It will suck!

Can't be stuffed. I think it'll me much more entertaining to play Superman 64. At least you know it's TRYING to be shit.

Wait...

 

[dracoslayer16]

Hmm, seems my theory was right about this game. They made it as a quick sold separately version of GoW's Horde mode. After realizing how much people liked GoW's horde mode, they realized their mistake and panicked. "Hey we've got that expansion pack in the works, lets just throw horde mode in there and call it it's own game." They could have at least had the decency to try and hide that it's an expansion by taking "Halo 3" out of it's title.

 

[Xerach]

Wow so much hate for this series here. Personally I've gotten close to 10 hours from the singleplayer on heroic but I'm fairly methodical and check everywhere for stuff. The atmosphere and the feeling of isolation in this game is something i haven't seen in a very long while. The musical score by Marty is spot on greatness as are all the sound effects. I've enjoyed the singleplayer a lot more than I did 2 and 3.
Firefight is an excellent addition and it's going to be taking a lot of my time. I'm sorry so many here are stuck in their automatic "hate halo" phase. I do agree it should have been more of a 40 or 50 dollar purchase though considering it's existing tech. Still when it drops to that price range I hope most give it a second look.

 

[FinalHeart95]

I'll just get it for christmas. That way I get the game I want without spending the rediculous $60 for it. It should be around $40 in my opinion.

 

[Hamster at Dawn]

The campaign is about 6 hours on normal. It's good while it lasts and there's replayability with the coop modes but overall it's not worth the money unless you're a real halo fanboy. I recommend a rent or else prepare for the price to drop. See what I did there?

 

[toapat]

Curious, I've read the campaign is roughly 4 hours on Normal, and watching the video it looked as if that was the mode you were playing (that or they really made it easier to kill things in Heroic).

The overall impression I've heard is that this game just isn't worth $60, so I'm going to hold off for a bit even though I honestly do want to give it a whirl.

when has a halo game actually been worth $15 of that flatline $60 pricetag

 

[Haro]

I don't think its either fair to judge this game on campaign length or originality.

a) It's still a halo game, I don't see why they would want to or have to change the gameplay completely. And even though you have most of the old enemies and weapons, the gameplay really becomes rather different, especially at high difficulty levels.

b) Good things often come in small packages. If you think the campaign is too short, might i recommend ratcheting up the difficulty? as I said before, it not only changes the gameplay significantly, but it also will prolong the game. win/win. And may I also point out that there are games that are short that are considered excellent, and games that are long that are... not so much. Its like comparing Portal and Devil May Cry 4. If you have played both (as i have), having a shorter campaign is often better.

Ultimately, I don't really care if people buy the game or not, or agree with me or not. However, I do think that people shouldn't make such face value judgements of the game. At least rent it, or try it out if a friend has it. If you don't like it, fine. However, I honestly think that, out of all the halo games made thus far, this one could be the best. except for Halo PC, of course. that was a gem.

 

[Warped_Ghost]

ODST was really only a filler between halo 3 and halo Reach so you have to consider the fact ODST was only made in half the time all the other halo's. I still bought ODST and liked it because of long campaign and firefight but I am not a multiplayer type of guy.If your a multiplayer guy then dont buy it but if you like campaign its worth the 60$.

 

[Dr Pussymagnet]

Isn't there just like one new enemy?

Yes there is, I've only seen it once so correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm guessing it's the Engineer from Halo Wars.

I assume it just heals other Covenant because during the one encounter I had with one, it made Brutes glow and it felt like they were harder to kill.