 Halo is a series where you play as a super soldier saving the world and over time the series became tone deaf towards the concepts of humanity and vulnerability. In Halo 3, ODST you're not a 7 foot tall super soldier with the power suit and armor abilities. You're just a normal 6 foot ODST rookie in the aftermath of Newman Bossa looking for your team who is most likely dead. ODST is a dramatic shift in tone from the 3 previous games because you're not important or special. You're just a normal person. And where it's fun being the demon and destruction slaying aliens and saving the world, you forget that there's a war across the galaxy that's leaving billions of innocent people dead. Halo 3 ODST is especially unique because it's not special unique. The game premise itself takes place from the aftermath of a mission from Halo 2, but instead of going through slipspace as the Master Chief you wake up alone in your pod that crash landed on the streets of a city that's been overtaken by the Covenant. Halo 3 ODST is a contained story. There's no stopping a world ending threat or saving the day. You're just a normal soldier and that's why this game works so well. Halo 1, 2, and 3 throws you into combat with the starting missions. You defend a ship, rescue marines, kill bad ass aliens, but in Halo 3 ODST you remind of the UNSC's in a war that's killed billions, and that humanity is also losing. Orbital Drop Shock Trooper. You're not a Spartan, but you also aren't a Marine. You have no shields, you die easy, your weaponry is tactical but not heavy, and every mission involving members from your team consists of you either falling back or defending certain areas for EVAC. In Halo you've always been a lone wolf on the offensive taking names and saving the day, but for the first time you're part of a team that's in way over their head, with only one goal of just surviving the day. The game starts with your team going on a combat drop for a mission that's classified, then the slipspace jump from Halo 2 sends out an EMP affecting everybody's drop. Six hours later you wake up scared, confused, and alone in the pitch black city of Newman Bossa. When looking around you realize that within the last six hours the city has been overrun and taken over by the Covenant. Loan ammo and completely alone the rookie finds clues on the whereabouts of his team and what they did after the drop. When the rookie discovers clues you can switch the perspective of who the clue is about. Through the campaign you play as the rookie, Buck, Mickey, Dutch, and Romeo. The rookie is isolated and tactical, where when you play Dutch's missions they take place 30 minutes after the combat drop leading you to fight in the trenches with marines. As Mickey you're blowing up bridges so you can retreat and fall back. As Buck you try to find your team and get to safety. And as Romeo you, uh, snipe shit. That's pretty fun. Atmosphere is a great way of setting a tone in a story. In ODST you don't have green scenery and epic music accompanying you throughout the game. Instead you have gritty visor effects, sad music, and overwhelming uses of red and blacks. Bro that's how I feel skill and weed for my mom's remote night. Halo soundtrack is iconic because of the rock instruments and ODST flipping that is unique and bold. Martin O'Donnell and Michael Salvatore did the soundtrack once again but instead of going for the approach of drums and guitars the music is composed with jazz instruments. The music is in D major giving the tone of depression and confusion. Neon Knight for example has this excellent piano string. But when playing as Buck and Dutch whose missions are a majority of action you're still accompanied by action music. But given a majority of time you'll be playing as the rookie you'll be constantly surrounded by this amazing soundtrack. You have one hand tied behind your back in comparison to Halo 3 in terms of combat. You can't do wield, heavy weapons are limited, and a majority of time you'll be using the science SMG variant accompanied by a science pistol. A night vision mechanics is introduced for the first time and lets the players see outlines of enemies and allies but increases the noise and saturation on the screen. The player's night vision is useful in dark settings but when used anywhere else it becomes too distorted and bright. The ODST visor is necessary for the game since it takes place in a majority dark setting and is way more immersive and practical than a flashlight. And with the absence of shields your health is increased by med packs that are spread throughout the city. Your trooper could still eat a couple shots but when you're critical anything could kill you. The game takes place during Halo 2 but since it's Halo 3 you won't be slaughtering elites. The loophole around this though is that while your team is fighting to get out of the city the Covenant Civil War from Halo 2 is in progress. Veronica what's with all the dead elites? What do you mean? Looks like a family feud like they were killed by Brutes. Is there something I should know? It's classified. Some things never change. While it does conflict with immersion fighting Brutes is still fun and challenging. And with the story of Halo 3 ODST a new Covenant enemy type is also introduced called Engineers that gives shields to anybody near them. Before transitioning to the technical aspects of the game I want to take a moment to acknowledge the game's marketing in 2009. The game was originally named Halo 3 Recon but later changed to ODST and had a CGI trailer. While it was nice the one you probably know was the iconic live action one. To be honest the trailer has nothing to do with the game but I think it's interesting and shot well. It also gives you the insight on the ODSTs and makes them feel unique. Also the music. Now to the technical aspects the game has been this smooth port and is well optimized. That's pretty much it. It's not really to talk about the technical aspects. It runs well and it's an old game. And within the multiplayer of the Master Chief Collection game modes were added in Halo 3 including the Science SMG and Pistol. But their only temporary as Firefight was a permanent addition. When thinking about Halo Firefight Reach comes to mind but Halo 3 ODST was the first game to introduce Firefight and it still works really well. Firefight is a wave based game mode where you try to stay alive while fighting waves of enemies. It's honestly pretty simple. Unlike Reach though you still aren't a Spartan and a chieftain with a gravity hammer could fuck up your squad pretty easily if you play stupid. You could choose multiple maps in the campaign to play on but winning a match on heroic is going to take commitment. You have limited lives and no shields and the enemies get stronger while you get weaker. The ODST up to also gives customization options for Halo 3 and Halo 3 ODST. As you rank up levels you unlock tokens that can be redeemed in the battle pass to get characters from the campaign to play in Firefight. Halo 3 ODST isn't a fantastic game but it's a damn near perfect one. It's a great shift to pace and has one of the best playable campaigns in the franchise. Way better than Halo 3's at least. ODST shows that high stakes don't make a great game and sometimes being the little guy can be just as impactful. While other halos are great ODST stands out because of its atmosphere and world building. 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