Quick Look: Halo 3: ODST

If you liked Halo 3, you'll Like Halo 3: ODST Rise of the Abbreviations. That said, I enjoyed it and its focus on the characters. All of the cutscenes were charming, thanks to the Firefly crew voicing the main characters. I even didn't mind the slightly hammy romantic scene near the end.

Charm aside, mechanically the game is supposed to play differently than Halo 3 thanks to you being a 'ordinary' grunt instead of the Master Chief, but honestly I didn't notice a substantial difference. You'll take cover more and be more cautious, but since the game throws much fewer enemies at you your weakness are kind of subdued. So the game isn't too hard, and it feels rather short as well once you finish. You'll definitely be left wanting more once the credits hit.

ODST is a good direction for the franchise to go in, with the beautiful open-world night time exploration, and its great attempts at bringing in more character to the Halo universe. But the Halo formula is starting to wear thin a bit, and it remains to be seen how Bungie can keep the next Halo game as fresh as ODST is.

Yea. I'm done. I'm off to play Firefight for another 3 hours.