On Thursday, I had a chance to head downtown Toronto to attend a preview event for the upcoming Halo 3: ODST, coming exclusively to the Xbox 360 next week. For those who have been under a rock for the past year, Halo 3: ODST – formerly known as Halo 3: Recon – puts you in the boots of a rookie Orbital Drop Shock Trooper before the events of Halo 3 take place and although the game was originally planned to be a short expansion, it has grown over time to a full size title that is expected to take 8-10 hours to complete.
As I made my way into the dimly lit room, a massive screen showing trailers was on the far wall, while the center of the room was lined with a row of giant screens back to back, one side playing the campaign and the other playing the new Firefight mode. Another player and I decided to give the campaign side a go, unleashing our combined skills in Covenant murder, diving into some split screen coop.
The game starts with a lengthy introduction, after which you and your squad drop into orbit over the planet, where things begin to go south, literally and figuratively as you and your squad get separated above the city of New Mombasa. As you awaken and release from your pod, you start your trek to track down the other members of your squad.
If you have played Halo 3 before, then you are going to know what to expect from the core of ODST's gameplay, although the game does have a slightly different feel at times. Where as with Master Chief, you almost always felt like an unstoppable tank of a man and would go in guns blazing wherever you went, you now need to use a little more strategy and plan your attacks out with a little more tact, as my many deaths taught me. The gameplay is very similar to Halo 3 with a few glaring exceptions.
The major exceptions being the lack of regenerating health and dual wielding weapons, but other than those two things, you are going to feel very familiar staring at the screen. Players will now need to grab med kits from stations as you start to take damage and they also have use of their helmets, which have a few tricks other then saving your melon from a bullet.
You can activate your visor with a flick of the X button to turn on a nightvision-esque view during the murky night missions that help edge out objects and buldings in a ghostly glow, highlighting the cityscapes in a more visible fashion, as well as highlighting enemies in a red silhouette. The visor will also double as your HUD and as your map, showing where objectives and waypoints are. Pressing up and down on the D-pad will give you a more direct view of your objective with an icon that pops up in case you need an extra hand.
