Halo 3: ODST First Playthrough (via MCC)
1I thought Halo 3 was pretty impressive, but tragically short. I figured ODST, being an offshoot, might be even shorter, but really wasn't sure what to expect otherwise. Ultimately, I feel it is both more and less than the sum of its parts.
Much of my initial playthrough of ODST was unfortunately soured by the game failing to set expectations. The actual storytelling seems to occur in pieces that are scattered across a hub world, with no clear indication of whether they'll come together in the end, or just result in a scattered meaningless mess. This is further not helped by the fact that the stories likely make the most sense when played in the order suggested by the VISR system - in which case, what's the point of a hub???
For that matter, the hub itself did not come off as interesting in the slightest. I've been spoiled by Selaco, which manages to portray a segment of a desolate futuristic cityscape in spectacular detail, where every nook and cranny has something new and unique. ODST goes for a similar aesthetic (though with way more bloom) with none of the substance. Every stretch of road looks nearly the same, and navigating it takes forever and there's no compelling reason for it. It's like playing the seafaring sections of Ys X all over again.
It wasn't until the late-game where it finally became apparent what the game was doing with its missions, and put in that context, it's actually decent! I wish they could've done a better job making that clear up-front, but I guess that would've undermined the suspense. It would've made me feel better about continuing to push through it though, which seems kind of important for a video game.
The hub began to make a little more sense in the late-game as well, as it was only then that I finally began finding audio logs. These were initially mentioned very early on, but I feel they should've fully tutorialized collecting the first one, to give the player an idea of what to look out for - as there are several types of signs, as it turns out, sometimes even literally. (And given how much else is tutorialized to death in ODST, I feel like this wouldn't be much to ask. That was another issue I had with the game - often I'd end up in a tutorial message without even realizing it and accidentally click through it without reading it.)
The audio logs paint an entire separate side story, and collecting all of them leads to a difference in what transpires in the 2nd-to-last mission. I spent nearly as long going around collecting all of them as I did on my initial playthrough - and that was with a few glances at a guide map to keep things moving along. For how time-consuming collecting them was, I unfortunately don't feel the end payout was at all worth it - the steps along the way were far more compelling.
The other thing that bugs me overall about ODST is... it doesn't feel like it had to be a Halo game at all. Yes, it was shoved into the Halo universe, and it uses the Halo 3 engine, but it feels like it was trying to be something completely different. Hell, they completely turned the shield/health mechanic on its head, to where your shield is "stamina" and has no gauge whatsoever, instead causing a red vignette. (PS, this is one of my pet peeves in video games: don't obscure my view when I'm low on health and it is therefore MORE important to SEE CLEARLY.)
Ultimately, ODST did not sit terribly well with me, and doesn't feel like time well spent. I did feel overall more positive on it after seeing how the main plot ended, but that doesn't undo how flawed the experience felt along the way, and the utter waste of time the audio logs felt like for the measly payout in the end.
00:00 - Intro
02:18 - Game start
5:50:57 - Collection of remaining audio logs