Here’s an act of sacrilege for you; while I maybe a well into the realms of geekdom, there is one major discussion point that always gets the same reaction of disbelief from other similarly nerdy types.  I hope you’re sitting down for this one:

I hate Star Wars.

There, I said it.  It’s a paper-thin plot congealed in wooden acting, bad scripting, and peppered with characters that have as much depth and layers as the screens it was once projected on.  I don’t care how many times you try and figure in some backstory that some hack, desperate for cash, agreed to write in order to give the plot some backbone, it’s a crap series of films that were only worsened by the blatant cash-in of the ‘prequel’ trilogy.

The Halo series shares a similarity in that nerds around the world will try and fill in a complex backstory, giving detail and shade to the Master Chiefs adventures that Bungie would love you to think actually exists.  In reality, it’s the same as Star Wars. Good guys vs evil alien bad guys, aliens get shot at a lot, the end.

Bizarrely, Halo somehow escapes the clutches of it’s god-awful storylines, and actually manages to be a fun, if flawed game, so long as you skip the cutscenes and don’t bother pretending to try and follow what’s happening (you – good guy, aliens – bad guys. That’s all you need to know).

ODST continues the series in a very similar vein to Halo 3 – perhaps mainly due to the fact that they’re still using the same game engine, and ODST was – at least in game design terms – somewhat a rush job.  However, there are some distinct changes.  Firstly, you don’t play as the armour-suited Master Chief, instead taking the form of one of the improbably named Orbital Drop Shock Troopers (hence the ODST in the title – geddit?).  Due to only being a standard throwaway meatheaded soldier, you’re not equipped with the usual rechargeable shields, and you’re puny arms aren’t capable of dual-wielding weapons.

Single Player

Halos single player is always the side that let’s the game down.  In ODST, you switch between ‘newbie’, an unnamed, unvoiced plot driving device who searches through a desolate and rather drab city in search for your missing comrades by following beacons that appear around the map.

In theory, the device isn’t a bad one, the actual process of mulling around in a city that barely contains any enemies can be a long hard slog which eventually just starts to feel like a shoe-horned element which is only there to try and up the total length of the game.

As Newbie reaches each beacon, he finds a remnant of his previous colleagues, which then takes you to play the sequence of how it got there in the first place.

All well and good, but… it’s basically Halo 3.  Again.  Only this time you don’t have much in the way of vehicles, left only with what may as well be a skateboard, there’s nothing in the way of new enemies or weapons, and most of the ‘flashbacks’ are fairly short.

There’s really not much else to say about the single player – if you enjoyed Halo 3, you’ll enjoy the game.  It’s nothing special, but it’s also reasonable fun, and a fair way to tick off some of those extra hours of living you’ve been wasting.

Multiplayer

ODST has a form of multiplayer called Firefight, a co-op splatter fest that allows you and your friends (or a bunch of american teenagers who taunt you, your choice) to pit your wits and pistols against an ever-increasing horde of alien scum.  It’s weird that I use the term ‘horde’, because if you’ve ever played Horde mode on Gears of War 2, then.. well, lets just say it’s a fairly similar style game.

The game also ships with a second disc, which contains Halo3 multiplayer in a stand-alone form, along with the collection of maps that previously you’d have had to purchase via XBL.  While this is nice for those of us who didn’t spend their cash on a few extra maps, you have to wonder if this is particularly a good deal for the Halo fanboys who would’ve bought Halo3 and the relevant maps already.

Halo ODST as a package is fairly good fun if you enjoyed the previous games, but it’s real downfall is the fact that most of the people who are avid Halo fans would probably not benefit from the addition of Halo 3 multiplayer and relevant maps, while the game itself just skims being overly short and a little unimaginative considering that it’s a full priced release.

If you’re missing your fix of Halo, or just want to get into the multiplayer for a while without being kicked off every few minutes for not having the right map, then ODST is at least a temporary respite despite it’s downfalls.