Gaming Weekly W39: Halo 3 ODST
Monday, September 21, 2009Orbital Drop Shock Troopers
Halo 3. ODST will be released here in Sweden tomorrow, the game is a standalone expansion of Halo 3 and is a Xbox 360 exclusive. The game takes place during the events of Halo 2 and Halo 3, where the player assumes the role of one of the Orbital Drop Shock Troopers called The Rookie.
If you look at the intro cinematic from gametrailers you will realize that the game has a pretty new angle on things, the game seems much more cinematic and personal than before which I like. Together with the really moody and immersive music I believe that this could be a killer single-player experience. It looks like the animations for the characters are hand-animated, no mo-cap which gives the game a more cartoony feel to it than for example Uncharted, but I like it.
Since you don’t play as Master Chief you won’t be a super-powered soldier anymore, that means no more super-high jumping, no advanced armor, reflexes or speed and instead of the chiefs’ energy shield you’ll get a stamina mechanic. The healthsystem is dependent on the stamina system, if the player takes enough hit to stamina threshold the player will take a permanent hit to the healthbar. Players can restore their health with healthpacks scattered around the game environments.
I believe this will be a great way to remind players to actually take cover, when playing and it will especially make a difference in multiplayer with the new healthsystem, apart from Halo 3 everyhit in Halo 3: ODST actually counts (to a certain point). I played Halo 3 multiplayer a lot, and it’s really really good. I actually miss it, however the difference to playing it now than before during the release is that only the veteran players remain and every time I try the multiplayer I get my ass kicked. So I look forward to playing this game with my friends. The 4-player campaign is something to look forward to, (that’s right my friends, you better be buying this game!)
The thing is I’m not actually looking for a new game that reinvents the Halo experience, I’m actually quite relieved that the Halo 3: ODST still has that strong halo feel to it, and the gametrailers review reminded me how great and fun Halo 3 was. Great and unexpected things happened right out of the physics engine. I’ve had so much fun with Halo 3 and I believe that ODST could be or is a great game. We’ll find out soon enough I guess.
Bungie
Ahh, the famous Bungie. Bungie is from the start founded from to undergraduate students of the university of Chicago. Alex Seropian and Jason Jones. The company produces awesome games like Marathon, the Myth-series and Oni in its early years. Years later Bungie was aquired by Microsoft and then created Halo: Combat Evolved. Bungie is a typical video game developer whom has almost always produced quality games, I mean when I played Oni I really liked it, I thought it was awesome.
After the release of Halo 3, the company told the world that they would split from Microsoft with the license to Halo belonging to Microsoft, but it was also known that Bungie would be the developers for Halo 3: ODST and Halo: Reach, Halo: Reach will probably be the last game of the Halo-franchise.
