Some random, semi-final thoughts on ODST. I've had a hard time summing up how I feel about the game. I'm tempted to say that I'm of two minds on it, but really, I'm of three.
tl;dr version at the bottom.
First, the story telling is the best in the the series. This is not to say the story is the best - Halo 2 has that title - but the clarity with which its told and the tools Bungie uses to tell it are suburb. They took a simple story and told it in a complicated way, and made it work. In Halo 3, they told a simple story in a simple way and it still didn't work. So when I read that the story would be 1) non-linear; 2) told from multiple perspectives; and 3) have a side-story element tie into it, my confidence was incredibly low that it would end up coherent.
But it works. The side story was perfectly integrated into the narrative, with a payoff in gameplay (the weapon depots) and story (intersecting into the final level, fleshing out the role of the Engineers). In particular: the way the audio logs are always found in sequential order; the quality of the acting, art and writing; the way the log locations are integrated into the environment (car alarms, etc) were just great touches.
The story of the ODSTs was nothing spectacular, but it was well told, and that has me very excited for what Bungie might do with a more ambitious tale in Reach.
Second, the combat is the best in the series. The weapon feedback, scaled back abilities of the ODSTs and tweaked AI made for incredibly satisfying encounters. When the missions are good (more on that in a sec), the game plays as good as any I've ever played. I won't belabor this one - they tuned the weapon sandbox beautifully. I know there's disagreement on this one. But I loved it.
One caveat: ODST plays like two different games. On foot, it's ODST. When you climb into a vehicle, you're back to Halo 3. And since large sections of the game are vehicle-focused, that means a lot of the game feels and plays *exactly* like Halo 3. It's a blessing and a curse: I loved the tweaked feel of the ODSts, so regressing back to something straight out of the previous game is a bit jarring. The problem - in so far as there is one - is that the vehicle play in Halo 3 was pretty much perfect. So I'm not sure what Bungie could do to change it. But I hope they figure something out with Reach, because I don't want the vehicles to feel exactly the same three games in a row.
So far, so good. And had the missions been as good as Halo 3's, I'd have had unequivocal praise for the game. But they're not.
The mission and encounter designs in ODST are a very uneven.
The night time hub world in New Mombasa works as intended: an atmospheric environment to have a handful of emergent Covenant encounters between flashback missions. I've read some disappointment that it wasn't Grand Theft Halo, but that was never in the cards. It does what it sets out to do, and does it fairly well (except for the layout, which bears no resemblance to anything humans would actually build, but more on that another time).
The flashback missions, and the ending sequence, are what I have issues with.
The first mission - Tayari Plaza - gets the game off to a perfect start. The blue haze drifting through the air is gorgeous and gives the mission a slightly surreal, post-apocalyptic shock feel. The music is driving yet slightly ethereal and restrained. And every encounter is pitch-perfect, from hide and seek initial firefight to the open courtyard punctuated by an epic encounter with Hunters. It is, IMO, one of the strongest pure infantry missions in the series.
Things go downhill from there.
There are missions in ODST that I never want to play again; I can't say that for any other game in the series. Oni Alpha Site, Kizingo Blvd, and everything after finding the Super are just plain bad.
One of the things I love about Halo 3 is how it sets up an entire encounter, and lets you tackle it with a wide array of tools and approaches. Halo 3 was filled with huge emergent encounters: the big dam at the end of the first mission; the vehicle encounters on The Ark; even the hallway battles in Crow's Nest were all set up so that you could scout the encounter and plan accordingly.
Very few missions involve the old standby of waves of reinforcements being dropped off, or monster closets bursting with timed batched of enemies pouring out.
ODST, I suspect because of the small development team and a lack of resources to stretch out the environments, basically relies on these artificial mechanisms through much of the game. It feels like a huge step backward from Halo 3.
Oni Alpha Site is a good example: you get to the top of the site exterior, and the doors are locked. You then play three waves of Firefight before the doors unlock. Once inside, you play five waves of Firefight, and then the elevator comes. Worse, even the setup makes no sense: anyone who's played the Oni Alpha Site map knows that the center floor is the killzone. You pull back and let the Covenant flood into the cross fire. But on the campaign mission, Bungie decided to set up the Marines - and their weapons - right in the middle of the crossfire. This makes no sense. And the two monster closest that open breaks any feeling that I'm playing a decent campaign mission. I think that's what Paul Beretone referred to as "maximizing the space" - making you play for a long time in the same area - but I never found it interesting or fun.
The same applies to Kizingo Blvd. - blow stuff up in the tank for a few minutes, then play four waves of Firefight - and to several other areas of the game.
And then there's the ending. I was initially cold on Data Hive, because it's hyper-repetitive hallways and emphasis on Buggers are two things I don't enjoy. But on my second romp through, I found it feeling a bit like the mindless fun of The Library in Halo 1 (yes, that's a slightly backhanded compliment). It's not a great mission, but it's a decent time romping through.
From finding the Super on, the rest of the game is bad. Not good. Very, very bad.
Whose idea was it to have a protracted escort mission be the climax to the game? And have the ending trench run broken up into what feels like a dozen small pieces, while we wait for a garbage truck to catch up? Or have the climax of the game be a very leisurely round of Firefight, right down to taking out three successive Phantom drops of gradually more difficult enemies? This was easily the most anti-climactic ending to a Halo game so far. The pacing was off, but so was the entire core concept.
I could go on about it - such as how Buck's AI on the back of the Warthog is idiotic - but I want to make one comparison to sum it up. The ending battle reminded me a bit of the mansion shootout in the first Gears of War. I'm holed up in a building, the enemy is massing out front, I need to defend it before I can get out of there. In Gears, there was a gradual shift in the combat as sniping the approaching enemy gave way to fighting the invaders down stairs, which gave way to a cat and mouse shootout throughout the mansion as the place was overrun. I thought the Gears campaign was just okay, but that remains one brilliant set piece. It could have been a compelling finish to ODST.
Instead, there's one Phantom that drops off a wave of weak enemies. When those are killed, a second Phantom drops off a batch of slightly more powerful enemies. And when those are killed - wait for it - a third Phantom drops off a wave a even more powerful enemies! (While some Wraiths some from nowhere for some climactic shelling - from behind a protective barrier, natch.)
This is not the kind of encounter design I've come to expect from Bungie. I'm assuming - hoping? - that this was a time issue. But regardless, it's just incredibly lazy game design, and is a transparent attempt to stretch limited assets into a longer encounter.
And that's my main issue with a lot of the game. The combat is pretty much perfect, but the quality of the encounters is just not up to snuff. Most of that has to do with Bungie wanting the game to be longer, so they lock the player into a room - over and over and over - to fight waves of enemies before you can progress. It happens in numerous missions, numerous times. It happens throughout the climax, including the trench run. I think the game would be a lot stronger if Bungie had resigned themselves to constructing encounters of higher quality, rather than using monster closets. It would mean a shorter game, but one that wasn't straining to find artificial ways to make the game longer.
Again, look back to that first flashback mission (Tayari Plaza), that sets up one interesting encounter after another, lets you tackle it in a number of ways, and then you move on. It's not a long mission, but every fight is perfect. I wish the rest of the game took that approach.
Christ that was an epic rant.
tl;dr version: great storytelling and combat, substandard level and mission designs mixed with a few standouts. I hope - and assume - that was because of time constraints and does not point to the direction Reach is moving in.
) and Alpha Site was really fun. The "2 and a half firefight maps" structure made it so I could figure out what to do fine and do it, but I had to take some chances along the way. And stupid Mickey doesn't want to do anything. We're up the elevator and he just stands there, leaving me to get naded. It was awesome because I got it down to 2 jetpack brutes and the hammer chieftan when mick decided to help. He grabbed one jetpack dude while I grabbed the other, but my foe lowered my already low health to a sliver of red. The chieftan rushed mickey, swung, and launched him straight off the edge. I could see his waypoint go down, and down, and down. Now the ape is chasing me, and I'm dodging in and out of boxes and firing PP shots at him when I end up back on the center platform. Mickey spawns in front of me, right where the brute is charging, and pours shots into him with me to take him out. So satisfying.ilu! Oh gosh :3
