Halo 3: ODST Member Review for the Xbox360

Covenant showed up.  A Covenant ride into slipspace and New Mombasa, once immaculate and free, now a war-zone between the Humans and the Enemy.  But humanity has a secret weapon: the Orbital Drop Shock Trooper.  You are one of these secret weapons, and you're to drop into the fray and finish the problem, at whatever cost.  But does this game sound as epic as it should?

retail price.  But with their updates, they decided to make it a full $60 price tag.  With its sellers being the Open-World your ODST can roam, the new addition of Firefight, and more multiplayer maps for its stout multiplayer experience.  Even though it comes with all of this, the game feels WAY too small for the $60 price tag.  Though ODST does have more content than Halo 3, the multiplayer is the exact same multiplayer as Halo 3 with a couple new maps.  This game would've been perfect at around the $30-40 price tag, but this does not warrant a full retail price tag.

city, for about the first hour or two.  When it becomes a constant grind-through to get to the next objective with no real reason to face the enemies, really hurts the whole reason for it being there.  The open-world feels like a tacked-on time spender to lengthen the hours of the campaign.  I can tell you that half of my game was walking [since there's no sprint.] through the city either finding random collectibles or facing random hordes of Covenant with no reward to it.  Your ODST is given a new visor to roam around the darkened city, it will help you run through the enemies with ease and find hidden collectibles.  You're given this because you're going to need all your human self can get, since you don't regenerate health, which leaves you in finding health kiosks, which can be a pain in the ass to get.  Needless to say, I'm not too impressed with the open world and if this was the selling point for this title, they really messed it up.

the bigger action part of the game.  Each flashback is triggered by you finding a certain object in the open world.  When you find this certain object, you play that characters time after the drop, all leading to the ending.  The voice-work for the characters is top-notch and enjoyable to listen to.  It really gives life to the game when the Rookie plays the clichèd "Strong, Silent Type" which has been over-used for way too long.  Also, I won't spoil the ending, but getting to the ending is probably the most boring piece of Halo I've ever played.  Unless you like driving the Warthog.  Then you'll be in heaven.

should act pretty familiar.  Firefight is the Halo version of Horde with the ability to use Skulls to make it harder and get more points.  That's about it.  Add on with the already mentioned multiplayer maps and you have Halo 3: ODST in a nutshell.  For what should've been an expansion, customers had to shelve out $60 for a game that used a worn tactic to increase hours played, added some multiplayer maps to the fray, and put Horde mode in Halo form.  As great as Halo 3 was, this does not feel like the same game or a better game released by the same company.  This should've stayed as an expansion pack, but I can't recommend this to anyone outside of the Hardcore Halo Community.

• + Flashback Scenes are Awesome
• + Voice Acting is Good
  
• - Tacked on Open World...
• - ...And It's Still Short.
• - Lackluster Firefight
  
• - Nothing really new for MP
• - Absurd Price Tag