This was a challenging sell for Bungie as I remember many were a bit upset with the price tag when it was announced. However, I think they did a pretty good job!

This was the second to last Halo project for Bungie. They had a contract to produce five Halo titles for Microsoft. Since many of Bungie's resources were already being diverted towards development of Halo Reach, ODST made perfect sense.



It is immediately profoundly different from other titles in the series in the sense that you no longer control a Spartan. Instead you will control an Orbital Drop Shock Trooper (ODST) by the name of Rookie in the city of New Mombasa during the Covenant invasion. You don't have shields anymore which is again, quite different for Halo, but it's fun because it completely changes the gameplay. You can no longer run directly into the center of action and run 'n gun. You have to be more tactical, hang back more, and use cover. This for me was refreshing.



The soundtrack was very well done, as is the case with the other Halo games from Bungie...you will notice a moodier, jazzy tone that fits the story well. The game tends to have a darker atmosphere so it's a nice fit. I was happy to see a different take on the same universe from Marty and Michael. As with the other games, there are a few tracks that slid into my Spotify playlists.



The visuals are pretty in-line with Halo 3 as it uses the same engine, but they did add a couple other visual things like the VISR mode which nicely highlights enemies in your HUD. Can definitely be helpful with the large proportion of nighttime missions, which by the way look great. There were some nighttime missions in the other Halo games but this game explored that aesthetic much more.



ODST also introduced a new mode for Halo: Firefight! It seemed at the time to be somewhat of an answer to Gears of War's Horde mode which was wildly popular. In said Firefight mode you will face waves of enemies until you can no longer survive. In typical Bungie fashion modifiers will occasionally be applied which change the gameplay and add difficulty.

I don't remember there being any traditional matchmaking for this game, which was kind of a bummer. You had to already have a party of players ready to go to play Firefight, which makes it more of an online cooperative mode. It could be challenging to find people to play with if your friends didn't own the game. Thankfully, the internet exists!

Overall this was a cool, different take on the Halo series from the creators themselves. Was definitely cool to see a different side of this world. If you like Halo but haven't tried this game before, give it a shot! You might like it.