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[Dizzy]

Awful game. The whole city part felt pointless, and instead of giving you a meaty campaign they have you little bitesize sections which ended as they were only just starting to get good.


I like how the game was meant to be budget priced, and then they threw it up to full price just because it's Halo. Then tried to justify it by slapping in the same multiplayer and maps that we had already bought years earlier.

 

[Yager]

The best OST in the entire franchise. I don't know, I really enjoyed the campaign, but I can understand that some people didn't like it.

 

[∀ Narayan]

Probably due to how much heavier it was with the story and the mysterious mood. Whereas the Chief games are OO RA FUCK YEAH CHIEF USA USA USA

Sure, those are definitely factors that can't be ignored, but I think the smaller and more close-knit development may have a lot to do with it as well. Something as simple as the map layout in ODST reminds me of the maps that make up the campaigns in the Marathon series. The terminals lend a lot to the Marathon vibe as well.

I hope Destiny is open and atmospheric much in the way that the Halo series is in many instances. I would like it if Bungie surpassed everything that they've pulled off before with Destiny. We shall see.

 

[Superman]

I just bought an Xbox 360 at the end of the generation, just to catch up on all the exclusives I missed out on.

And ODST was easily the weakest of all the Halo titles, without a doubt. I knew from the moment I dropped out of that cockpit, that drab game wasn't for me.

I wholeheartedly agree. I've played and beat every Halo and I thought ODST was the easiest and worst of the series. I actually preferred Halo 4.

 

[sith ewok]

ODST is an amazing game, It's one of the best halo games ever released and has a great story to boot. So OP i disagree with you fully also The worst Halo game by far is Halo 2 now that's a crap game.

I agree with this statement completely. ODST is my second favorite Halo title behind only the original. Loved the campaign....

 

[jelly]

A change of pace for sure but thought it was great. The encounters were excellent and the flashback missions were all pretty good which is saying something for a Halo campaign which usually are very low and high. I guess if you don't like the empty city part then the game will struggle to grab you but I liked finding my way about and using those little hideouts filled with guns and mongooses. The characters were good and real with a bit of fun to them which was a nice change to Master Chief.. Atmosphere was pretty perfect.

Halo 4 is a teen military love in were no fun is allowed.

 

[Gestault]

Methodical, semi open-world Halo title where you played as a single, underpowered drop troop searching for the rest of their team over the course of a night after being knocked unconscious during a failed combat drop. Linear action-sequences played out in flashbacks during the daytime hours leading up the present time. Fascinating level design where automated safety and security features in the environment are being manipulated by a maintenance AI to help direct you. Audio documents are left throughout access terminals which tell a parallel storyline in the form of a radio-play. Ends up revealing some of the more interesting turns in the Halo wartime storyline. Some of the most interesting squad-based enemy AI I've seen in games. A more human storyline with some of the best voice acting in the series alongside some of the worst facial animations out there. Incredible jazz influenced soundtrack.

Among my favorite Halo games. Also firefight.

 

[Banjo-Kazooie]

I rather enjoyed ODST for many reasons as others, but mostly for the OST and Firefight..mmmm

 

[Mobius 1]

One of the best Halo games, easily. Also the best soundtrack in any Halo game.

This.

 

[Abounder]

I too enjoyed ODST, but I am a Firefly fan. Still I think the atmosphere in the campaign mode was fun, and I enjoyed the new multiplayer mode

 

[jem0208]

Opinion seems to be pretty damn split on ODST.

Personally I thought it had one of the best campaigns of any of the Halos. Considering I'm a pretty massive Halo fanboy that's a mighty honour. I loved the atmosphere of the city, especially due to Marty's soundtrack. The overarching storyline while not an epic like the other Halos was kept interesting by how you had to piece together what had happened and why you were there. And the gameplay was kept very similar to Halo 3 so they couldn't go wrong there.


Oh and Firefight on Lost Platoon is fucking awesome.

 

[Prince Vultan]

It was campaign DLC for Halo 3 when it was announced that MS forced Bungie to put out as a full priced product at the last minute, hence why it is arguably not quite as 'substantial' an experience as the other Bungie Halo games and why it has no multiplayer of it's own, just the Halo 3 multiplayer component copy and pasted onto the ODST disc. It was a decent game, but it's easily the worst Halo Bungie released by a long way whereas if it was just released as the DLC it was announced as it would have been great tbh.

Back when that game first came out it was a bitter bitter pill for those of us who already had Halo 3 to swallow when the promises that it "absolutely wouldn't be a 60 dollar game" got thrown in the toilet. Still pisses me off to this day. Easily the lowest shit Bungie ever pulled, but I seriously doubt it was their call.

 

[Sotha_Sil]

I honestly can't remember any gameplay or what the story was about. All I remember are the soprano saxophone solos.

 

[93xfan]

For me, it was worth it just for the soundtrack. Also, I really enjoyed having part of the Firefly cast doing the voices.

 

[PNut]

get you're answer op?

 

[Demoncarnotaur]

ODST could have been better, and a little more feature rich.. but overall it is easily on my favorite Halo campaigns. Gameplay wise I am in love with it, and its story telling was great as well. The atmosphere this game presented mixed with its combat scenarios was a blast to play through, and they really did some unique things. Sure, the HUB world could have been a little more filled with happenings, but it still hit the right notes for me.

 

[Acidote]

My least liked Halo game by far. At least the ad campaign was excellent, as good Halo 3's ads were.

 

[Walshicus]

If memory serves, Bungie were 50:50 on whether to make an ODST game or an Arbiter-retakes-Sanghelios game (remember his last lines in H3?) I loved ODST, but I'd also like to have had the chance to finish the Arbiter's arc.

 

[ProfessorMoran]

ODST was aIl right, although not nearly as good as it could've been, but yeah, it didn't do a very good job of filling in the holes in Halo 2's storyline.



Not as good as Halo and Halo 3, about as good as Reach, better than the rest. So no.

The enemies and level design alone make Halo4 the worst game of the series, as good as Reach? Not even close, it might be prettier than Reach, that's about all Halo4 had going for it, and 343i didn't accomplish this without sacrificing gameplay by making things way more linear.

 

[FUNKNOWN iXi]

ODST was aIl right, although not nearly as good as it could've been, but yeah, it didn't do a very good job of filling in the holes in Halo 2's storyline.

Halo 3: ODST was such a huge wasted opportunity. I loved the atmosphere they achieved in New Mombasa, the music, the visuals, the mood while exploring the city, but there was shit all to do in it. Sure, there were Sadie's logs and some easter eggs, but the whole setting seemed underused.

The gameplay, too. For all its subtle differences, it was too similar to your usual Halo. Now, I understand they didn't want to alienate the user base, but there was a big opportunity to go in more of a, say, Deus Ex direction, to flesh it out more and make it feel more distinct. Exploratory parts of the game didn't feel rewarding enough, and they clashed with the flashback sequences which played practically like every other Halo game out there. And why did all the characters play exactly the same? There was a big disconnect between the cutscenes where they tried really hard to distinguish the different members of the team (they only partially succeeded, in my opinion), and the flashback portions in which you got to play each of them only to discover that they all felt more or less identical. The Superintendent AI was also grossly underutilized, especially considering how prominently it was featured in the game's marketing campaign.

In fact, I'd say that the setting and the story potential in all Halo games remains underused. There are so many small things they could do to make the world seem more alive, bits and pieces of background information they could scatter around for those willing to look for them (and hell, even in the menus and loading screens, why not?). A good RPG developer could do wonders with the setting. And don't force this ridiculous overemotional stuff on us, flesh out the world more, give characters more identity in the gameplay portions - not cutscenes - and the emotions will follow naturally. Play Half-Life 2, developers, it came out way back in 2004, for Christ's sake.

Can't say I disagree with this, especially the bolded. That being said, I'm curious to read your thoughts on Halo 4 if you have any links/posts to share.

 

[ThatsMytrunks]

ODST was a great example of how to do a Halo game without Master Chief. It was a great vignette of a squad surviving and investigating. The mood, the characters, and the visuals were enough to make it my favorite Halo campaign.

Not to mention it was basically Firefly the video game, in terms of cast.

Nathan Fillion (Mal) voices Gunnery Sergeant Edward Buck
Adam Baldwin (Jayne) voices Corporal Taylor H. "Dutch" Miles
Alan Tudyk (Wash) voices PFC Michael "Mickey" Crespo

 

[DragonSworne]

Personally, it's the best Halo game because I don't like playing as Master Chief.

 

[enzo_gt]

Great atmosphere with some of the poorest, forgettable characters and world design in the Halo franchise. It's like an experiment in the franchise, but it has way too many flaws that keep it from ranking high with the other Halo games. Halo fans may like it because we can stomach its shortcomings and enjoy another game with solid core mechanics but ultimately still got the least burn of any Halo game. The open world was significantly underdeveloped, stealth mechanics did not work consistently, and ultimately worked better when linearized through the missions.

Firefight was a bit half baked; only half of the levels were any fun to play on and the matchmaking situation was a disaster. Decent proof of concept though. Reach sort of suffered a similar fate and took it in a more arcadey direction, ODST still had the better version.

The entire game was sort of missing the ingenuity in design and polish of the rest of the franchise.

 

[Charcoal]

Don't shoot the pink

 

[rezn0r]

the only Halo I didn't fly through start to finish... Gamefly'd it back when i used GF and sent it back before beating it. but this thread just made me grab it from eBay so that I can finish. for $7

 

[Llyranor]

Actually my favorite Halo.

I really enjoyed playing as an ODST instead of a Spartan. Felt more tactical in co-op, since you weren't a one-man superhero. And Firefight was glorious.

 

[BurnOutBrighter]

I can't remember any of the characters for the life of me. Worth it for the atmosphere though.

 

[Haunted]

I've been pondering this games existence since I beat it about a year ago. I still don't get the point of this game. Everything about it seems inconsequential in the grand scheme of the Halo universe. Your team of weak ass regular douche bags slogs their way through the streets of some city where everywhere you go looks the same and back again. In the end, your team rescues an Alien that seems like it's going to have some decisive importance in the overarching Halo universe. Only to never be mentioned again.

I hated every second of this game. The only reason I finished it was because my friend was achievement hunting all the games in the Halo franchise and I wanted to be a pal. He can never say I don't do anything for him.

Spinoff titles rarely have large effects on the main storyline, ODST is no different.

 

[BigTnaples]

ODST was amazing.



Seeing the war from a different point of view. Seeing the pure terror inducing sight of hunters tossing cars like toys when you are not a super soldier spartan, but an average sized man, was awesome.


Feeling more vulnerable, open ended world, silenced weapons, great characters, fun tie ins, amazing gameplay, awesome production value, enhanced focus on first person perspective immersion, a view into the wars effects on civilians of Earth, etc etc etc...


Plus, firefight was freaking awesome and the ad "We are ODST" is one of the best in history.

 

[SmackAttack]

Dat soundtrack. Game was awesome too. Loved wondering the city at night with the music.

 

[EGM1966]

It was a new MP mode and a DLC expansion puffed up into a full title when MS realized how weak their exclusive lineup was looking at that point.

Personally I found the campaign weak and stretched and the MP was just the MP from Halo 3 with Firefight tacked on - i.e. it really should have been an expansion DLC pack.

I'm not in the camp that think it was amazing I found it the first pedestrian Halo title and the first sign that the franchise couldn't deliver the magic every time without fail.

 

[Admiral Snackbar]

ODST is my favorite Halo, by far. Firefight, the soundtrack, the actors and the return to Halo: CE shooting. I truly enjoy it consistently.

 

[FullMetalx117]

ODST beats Halo Reach and Halo 4 imo

 

[Noogy]

ODST served the purpose of giving us the best Halo OST. I mean, OST is right there in the title. Sorta.

 

[KDC720]

I loved ODST.

The soundtrack, campaign, and voice acting (dat Firefly cast) are some of the best in the series by far. Firefight was a great addition and an interesting take on wave defense game types. The detective structure and open world were interesting additions and worked well with the Halo gameplay. It was a great experiment by Bungie when all is said and done.

My only real complaint was that the ODST's felt like shorter, slightly less powerful SPARTANS rather than regular old solders. Flipping a 2 ton tank over as an ODST is a bit immersion breaking.

 

[derFeef]

ODST is best Halo! It was also 45€ here on release so that helped a bit.

 

[Queen of Hunting]

it was bungies way of getting out of the halo contract early. they had a contract of making a set amount which was then up for renewal which microsoft tried really hard for to keep them, they made odst as the last halo game to cut ties.

 

[MormaPope]

it was bungies way of getting out of the halo contract early. they had a contract of making a set amount which was then up for renewal which microsoft tried really hard for to keep them, they made odst as the last halo game to cut ties.

Uh, Halo Reach came out after ODST.

 

[Oozer3993]

It was WAS NOT done to "burn off" a game in Bungie's contract. It was created because the people who had been on Peter Jackson's Halo Chronicles project needed something to do when that was cancelled..

“The core of the ODST team was the old Peter Jackson Halo Chronicles team,” Staten explained as we sat in a conference room at Bungie headquarters in Kirkland, Washington. “During Halo 3 — and before I started working on ODST — I was the point man for Bungie working on Chronicles. I spent a lot of time with those guys dow in New Zealand when the movie was happening. Gradually that team built up in size. Paul Bertone, the design director of ODST, Mike Woo, our art manager, started to wind over to Chronicles.”

But the Halo movie lost its financing, Jackson’s involvement diminished and Chronicles was no longer a viable option for Bungie. “When that project fell apart we were left with this really experienced core team of guys, all of whom had been around since Halo 1,” Staten said. “At the same time, the [Halo]Reach team was spinning up and we were left in this position where we had a team, we had a good vibe and we had this window — a very narrow window of about a year. All we needed was this spark to light a fire to begin an idea. Literally, Paul and I and [Bungie co-founder]Harold [Ryan] , the studio managers and a couple of other people sat in a room for a month — Harold wasn’t there for a month — and when we came out and Harold looked at the numbers and the budget and said, ‘Yeah, let’s do it.’”

Bungie also used it as a way to keep the some people busy while Reach was getting started up.

Staten kept referring to only having a year to make the game. That puzzled me, but once he explained it, ODST’s connection to Reach and Bungie’s overall structure finally made sense.

“If you have a studio like ours where you don’t have multiple teams working on stuff — you just have a big monolithic development group — there are waves you want to roll people on and off of projects,” Staten said. “We knew the resources we were going to use for ODST [which included a]massive amount of environment artists, the designers. It was a great opportunity to give those guys real work while Reach was getting through concept and pre-production.” Once Reach would be ready for them, the ODST team would need to be done. The timing worked more or less, Staten said. ODST development took 14 months and the game was pretty much finished this spring.

It's amazing to me that a game created pretty much as just a way to fill employees' time came out so well. That's a testament to the talent working at Bungie.

 

[C.Olimar788]

It's the best of all the Halo games by a wide margin because it's not just "go shoot a buncha guys and feel good about yourself gogoGO you're such a badass mister chief"

Going through the city was very moody and way cooler than your typical Halo campaign. It almost felt like a Metroid Prime game. Almost.

 

[SicSemperTyrannis]

Halo 2 is my least favourite also. Perhaps because I never got to play it online? I thought ODST was really special but people were probably expecting a full Halo sequel or something, so I can understand the disappointment.

I played it online and the campaign is still the absolute weakest there has been. The MP however is the franchise high, though all the hacking/cheating/lameness ruined the game about a year into it.

 

[Kimppis]

Wait... it was a full-priced title? Wat. For how long? Because I surely didn't pay 60-70€ for it here in Finland. And I think I bought it pretty close to the launch.

I never played firefight, but the campaign is the most balanced before Reach. No bad levels. It's really that simple. I really like the first three games and their campaigns (Halo 2 is actually my favourite, lol), but some of the levels are pretty shit. The Library, Quarantine Zone, the ending in Halo 3... To be honest, I don't remember anything about the ODST campaign, other than that it was solid all the way to the end.

 

[Madness]

Was supposed to be a cheap expansion to the Halo 3, Microsoft turned it into a full fledged retail release and hastened Bungie's desire to leave greedy MS altogether.

Ultimately I loved it. Campaign was a nice change of pace, new characters with great voice acting, the firefight was the best, and because it came with the mythic disc, it also helped keep the new DLC in rotation for Halo 3 multiplayer.

It's alright if you didn't like it, no one has to like everything, but to act as if you can't understand why others did, makes you look like a fool. I personally wish more emphasis on exploration and hub worlds became a thing in future Halo titles.

 

[Overdoziz]

Nothing beats walking through the streets of Mombasa during the night.

One day I'll get a capture card and grab some screenshots that aren't as horribly compressed as the ones you get from theater mode. Until then this will have to do.

 

[bobs...onGaf]

ODST was pretty great and a nice package too. Retailed cheaper than most games and had a solid campaign + Firefight + the full Halo 3 multiplayer which was fantastic.

Halo Combat Evolved Anniversary though I do not understand. They literally ported the campaign, threw on a new graphics layer and stripped away the part that most people actually wanted... multiplayer. Halo CEA is the Halo game to be moaning about not ODST!

 

[Overdoziz]

ODST was pretty great and a nice package too. Retailed cheaper than most games and had a solid campaign + Firefight + the full Halo 3 multiplayer which was fantastic.

Halo Combat Evolved Anniversary though I do not understand. They literally ported the campaign, threw on a new graphics layer and stripped away the part that most people actually wanted... multiplayer. Halo CEA is the Halo game to be moaning about not ODST!

Bumper Jumper tho

 

[HK-47]

Does the story have to have grand, overarching implications for the entire universe?

 

[Oozer3993]

Was supposed to be a cheap expansion to the Halo 3, Microsoft turned it into a full fledged retail release and hastened Bungie's desire to leave greedy MS altogether.

False. Bungie had bought their independence back from Microsoft before ODST even went into production.

 

[IHaveIce]

Halo ODST is better than Reach or 4

ODST was pretty great and a nice package too. Retailed cheaper than most games and had a solid campaign + Firefight + the full Halo 3 multiplayer which was fantastic.

Halo Combat Evolved Anniversary though I do not understand. They literally ported the campaign, threw on a new graphics layer and stripped away the part that most people actually wanted... multiplayer. Halo CEA is the Halo game to be moaning about not ODST!

I agree with this. CEA was truely just say "Hey we are 343 we made already a game, it is a Halo CE remake, what fans always wanted, so hey like us"

But fuck dat noise, no multiplayer, CoOp was laggy as shit and unplayable prepatch, new graphics are nice but nothing important.

False. Bungie had bought their independence back from Microsoft before ODST even went into production.

Pretty sure they had to deliver still some Halo to get free, don't want to look it up now, but they had to do something to get the independence back

EDIT: Also LOL at all the people who are saying "they just packed in the multiplayer that everyone already had" ugh this disc packed in with Halo ODST was the reason Halo 3 was the only Halo game with a decent population with DLC maps cause they were all on dat disc.
And well game was not full price here, it was 40 € for me, 60 € with the special controller

 

[Valhelm]

ODST is great. I love how it isn't some grand campaign, but instead just a chapter in the life of a normal (yet incredibly badass) helljumper. It's the kind of story that sweeping, epic franchises like Halo usually avoid, and I really commend Bungie for doing their best to make a game that was more personal, more low-key, but no less stunning than the other entries in the Halo series.