Think of Halo 3: ODST as a centaur. Or as a gryphon. Or as a mermaid. Or as any other creature that is half an entity and half another. In the case of Halo 3: ODST, it is clearly half Master Chief and half human. Half classic firefights, pitched battles that never let you hold your breath and get the adrenalin pumping, and half quietly sneaking through a dark city, almost afraid to shoot the enemies. Half complex story delivered in interesting ways and half military stereotypes acted out in a flat manner. Half attempt at innovation from Bungie and half need for commercial success on the part of Microsoft. Half exciting experience and half disappointment. Think of Halo 3: ODST as being a game too ambitious to be an add on and too shy to be a full-fledged installment in the franchise.
Make no mistake, after getting into the action, this is a game you can actually play continuously until it is done, finished, complete. Bungie doesn’t make those kinds of mistakes that would render a fan put down the controller and say they’re done because of low quality. But after delivering better and better experiences over the years, the company needed to do something innovative. A quantitative improvement, like the one from Halo 2 to 3, would just not do, they needed to deliver something qualitative. Unfortunately, ODST is just a more contained, sometimes … (read more)