Halo 3: ODST

Halo 3: ODST Campaign spoilers, including the squad's objective and Sadie's Story premise. ODST does something I really want to give some attention to. It takes this enormous war and leaves you walking around a city at night, trying to find out what happened to the people you dropped in with. You’re the Rookie, an Orbital Drop Shock Trooper. The drop goes wrong, the squad gets scattered, and by the time you get moving, New Mombasa is a pretty terrible place to be alone. And you are alone for a lot of that walk. There are Covenant patrols in the streets. There are signs of fighting everywhere. You have a map, your weapons and your VISR, which helps you pick out what’s around you in the dark. What you don’t have is Chief’s armor or the feeling that this whole situation was built around you being able to charge through it. The game originally released on Xbox 360 in September 2009, but the story takes place during Halo 2. That’s worth pointing out because the name can make it sound like it picks up after Halo 3. You’re seeing another part of the invasion of Earth while Chief’s story is happening elsewhere. The way it tells that story is so good for this setting. The Rookie finds something left behind, and the game takes you back to what happened earlier through one of the other squad members. Then you’re back in the streets, with another piece of the night making sense. It gives those objects a purpose. You aren’t just finding a marker that says you’ve completed another section. You’re finding evidence that somebody you’re looking for was here, and then seeing the trouble they got themselves into. Buck, Dare, Dutch, Romeo and Mickey all have their parts in it. Their missions bring the bigger fights and the different situations, while the Rookie’s walk connects them. NMPD HQ, for example, takes you up onto the rooftops and into a defense against Covenant aircraft and troops. That’s a very different feeling from deciding whether to avoid a patrol on a dark street below. The music does so much for that nighttime part of the game. The quieter, jazz-influenced sound fits wandering through an occupied city with very little idea of how the rest of your squad is doing. ODST can let a stretch of walking feel lonely without having somebody constantly talk over it. And being an ODST changes the practical side of fighting. You still have useful weapons, and you can still do plenty of damage, but getting hurt matters. Health packs matter. The suppressed pistol and SMG give the game their own familiar feel, even when you’re fighting enemies you already know from the rest of the series. It’s worth looking around before starting something. If a group hasn’t noticed you, you have a chance to decide whether you actually need that fight, how you’re going to begin it, and where you’ll go if it gets worse. Then there’s Sadie’s Story, told through the audio logs around the city. That gives you a civilian’s experience of the invasion alongside the military story you’re playing. New Mombasa had people living in it before you arrived. Finding those recordings gives you more of that life and more of what happened as everything came apart. That’s exactly the kind of collectible that deserves a proper guide. There’s a story worth following there, and somebody should be able to find the recordings without a vague instruction to check somewhere near a building. Eventually the squad’s mission becomes bigger than simply finding each other. The Huragok they recover carries crucial information connected to the city’s AI and what the Covenant wanted on Earth. Getting out with that knowledge gives the smaller story a place in the larger war. And then you have Firefight. ODST introduced that wave-based survival mode to Halo, giving the squad another reason to stay together once the campaign was finished. Holding a position, keeping people alive, managing the useful weapons and dealing with whatever comes in next gives us plenty of practical material for guides. MCC’s version of ODST Firefight has received additions over time, so the original 2009 mode and the current MCC options shouldn’t be treated as identical. That can stay clearly labeled when we get to those guides. There’s a lot to appreciate about ODST. It gives Halo a different pace, a different sound, and a group of people whose immediate problem is getting through the night. New Mombasa is more than somewhere to drive through on the way to the next enormous battle. You actually have to spend time down there.