Halo 3: ODST - Regular Niggas: The Game
 

Well it's here folks. Dropped on 9/22/09, no more pesky Master Chief, you can now play as a bunch of regular ass space marines for the low low price of $60! Well alright, the ODST are actually better than the regular UNSC marines, but lets conveniently ignore that.

http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e1...ODSTBoxArt.png

The game bridges the gap between Halo 2 and 3, focusing on the events that happen on Earth while the Chief is busy dicking around somewhere else and not saving the Earth. This is where you, the Rookie, and your squad of five other regular niggas come in. You drop in from space to save the day, only some shit happens and you kinda miss the party and have to go around exploring the city to find out what happened to everyone else while you were dicking around not doing anything, Master Chief style.

The gameplay is pretty neat, for the most part. I spent most of the game running around at night with the Pistol/Carbine/Sniper and fought everything from afar, since up close combat will get you fucked up pretty quick without Spartan armor/shields. It honestly felt more like a mix between Call of Duty and Halo 1 than Halo 3, which is a pretty good thing.

The actual "missions" were all varied enough and full of "fuck yeah!" moments to make it feel worthwhile, even if the campaign was kinda short.

I know a few of you bums went out and got this too, so sound off already. What'd you think of the campaign and so on? Is Dutch not the best regular nigga ever? Has Skills already 1000'd it because he has no life?

Also, you bastards need to get on Firefight more. I looked at the leaderboards and saw that nobody has yet to top the benchmark that was set by The Greatest Team™:

http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e1...KINGBALLIN.jpg

(funny pictures of Daravon being lit on fire by invis Brutes/getting betrayed about five times by Tails to come later)

Hoping the discussion doesn't devolve into FULL-GAME PRICED DLC 2 HOUR CAMPAIGN SHIT GRAPHICS RROD MY FIRST FPS NO EXCLUSIVES like on the rest of the internet. Mine shipped a bit back and I'm still waiting for it to arrive. Been looking forward to it quite a lot. playin dat batman while I wait

Really? I think most of the impressions I've heard around here have been positive.

Yeah it's kinda short (7+ hours or so if you run straight through and don't bother to do any exploration and such) but the H3 engine still holds up rather nicely and the graphics look just fine. Music is also on the plus side as well.

I didn't mind the price tag since it comes with Firefight and all of the MP Halo 3 shit, which is perfect because my old H3 disc was unreadable.

Yeah, I seem to keep browsing around areas where people who haven't played the game insist on saying dismissive things about it. Plus the game apparently ran over ESheep's mother the way he was hissing in chat about it.

The campaign mode is certainly harder than Halo 2 and 3, even 1 on normal.

"you aren't even new to this halo thing are you, okay here's your controls now have a million aliens all shooting at you"

Pretty awesome to say the least. I haven't tried Firefight yet since there's been no night so far this week when #xblive people have said "let's play" so hopefully that'll change this weekend.

I've discussed this with Skills a little, but I'm inclined to say that this could possibly be the best Halo campaign going. It is a little short, yes, but it's pretty awesome throughout, the sense of atmosphere and characterisation are both excellent, and the music is pretty damn sweet too. There's no sodding flood showing up two-thirds of the way through the game either.

So yeah, I loved the campaign to pieces, and now look forward to playing through co-op with people on Legendary.

Also, if anyone's down for Firefight then count me in.

Regarding the price though, how was it priced in North America? In the UK it's been released at a lower price point and is generally being sold for £30, or around that price, rather than the more typical £40-45.

Mine shipped for €45 (about 64 dollars), while usually new PS3 and 360 games go for €59 (about $84).

Oh oh oh here's an important question. Is split-screen multi STILL locked at 4:3?

vvv Well fuck, it's no longer an urgent purchase. Shall likely wait until christmas on this one.

Sadly, yes.

I pretty much agree with Omagnus. By far my favourite Halo game. The game cost me 35 quid, which isn't too shabby. I've paid more monies for far crappier games, plus they've thrown in Halo 3 online so what's not to like?

I have been debating getting this but I'm not sure it's worth paying $60 for.. I mean it's basically Halo 3 without the overshields right?

And Firefight is the same thing as Gears of Wars' "Horde" mode right?

No, it's not Halo 3 without the overshields. It plays much differently, for starters. You play from the perspective of the Rookie, alone wandering the city at night, and a lot of firefights will be fought from a distance or using hit and run tactics since the enemy is very capable of surrounding you (especially in big plazas) and doing you in quickly. The other half of the game is played from the perspective of your teammates in large, open firefight-esque situations.

Essentially it is a Halo game, but it plays out much differently then the 3 main titles.

As for Firefight mode, it's Horde but with major improvements. The areas are much larger (and the maps don't suck), the enemies are greater in number, and the the skull modifications mix things up quite a bit. That and this one feels like an actual challenge. Horde mode boiled down to finding the best corner, mowing down through 8 or so waves until the Bloodmounts came, then shielding yourself up in a corner and killing those until the waves reset.

Firefight gets progressively harder unlike Horde, and I can see it having longer playability.

That, and Halo games have a control scheme that doesn't suck ass.

I ordered mine and should get it Tuesday, then I can teach you nerds how to get shot properly.

http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e1...ot-colbert.gif http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e1...ot-colbert.gif http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e1...ot-colbert.gif http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e1...ot-colbert.gif http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e1...ot-colbert.gif

(Really though? Awesome. I haven't played a game with you in fucking forever man.)

I wasn't going to get it originally (still haven't bothered to beat Halo 3 yet, or like 80 other 360 games either for that matter), but Amazon was selling it for basically 40 bucks ($48 gold box, and $10 off next game purchase). Should be the same deal still for anyone wanting to, you know, not pay full price for a brand new game.

Anyway, I haven't had the time to even start playing it yet, but I'm sure I'll catch up with you circle-jerking whorebags eventually.

OK, so just played a little session of Firefight and fucking loving that mode an awful lot. And I say little session, well one game lasted an hour, and the second two hours, not that either felt that long at all. The campaign alone had made the cost of the game worthwhile as far as I was concerned, but with Firefight mode too, well damn.

Good to hear people are actually going to be picking this up.

Any of you bitches down for some Heroic/Legendary bullshit this Monday? I'll be off Mon/Wed this week and should have plenty of time from the afternoon on to get some shit going.

Skills and I were talking about doing Legendary campaign stuff Monday (your) afternoon. This relies on Skills actually being around, but if so, you down?

I'll join in, if lag permits. Monday afternoon should be like Monday night for me.

Yes to both you and Bigblah. I'll be in #xblive for sure, and Skills has my phone, just have him ring me if I'm not there.

Also I heard there's been reports of lag during play in Firefight between people from different countries, is this true? It seems odd considering we didn't really have that issue when playing Halo 3, what's the deal?

Firefight seems like it's far more touchy than you'd expect. Playing with Shake was literally impossible. You wouldn't be able to move. Playing with Sim was bad enough, there would be periods where we'd lock up for several seconds to half a minute, but luckily it didn't drop him (and end the match) until we were in the third set. I hope it works for Blah.

Firefight and ODST Campaign run off the same netcode Halo 3 Campaign did, which me and Skills tried with Bigblah on launch day and it was completely unplayable (literally stuttering every second) even after multiple attempts, and we finally gave up. Firefight lag is weirdly inconsistent across continents, and it seems to come down to issues between individual players, even if they both have open NATs, etc. Me, Skills and Shake literally could not play one day (it would just freeze). The next day Shake, Goodhand and 2 others were able to play mostly fine. Then me, Shake and Goodhand tried some 3 player and it was fine for me and Goodhand, and Shake said it was okay for him but that there was some input lag (like it was on ice). But then we got a 4th person in and Shake said that actually improved things where he was still getting some lag but not as bad. It doesn't really make much sense, but the fact that probably 2/3rds of the people I would play Firefight with on a consistent basis are in Europe really kills the longevity of the game for me. Firefight (on most levels) is fucking AWESOME, and some of the most fun I've had with any game in months, but it's a pain getting 4 people in the same country together for a few hours to play.

The Campaign is pretty good (arguably the best Halo campaign), Firefight is fantastic when you can get it working, and the new Halo 3 MP maps are all pretty good. If you enjoy Halo at all it's probably worth picking up. It's also a pretty good deal if you haven't picked up some or all of the Halo 3 maps since they're all included. Really the only downer is the campaign/firefight lag issues; if they weren't there I could easily see myself doing Firefight for a long ass time, but now I only see myself playing it until MW 2 comes out.

Taco, you are completely insane about the difficulty; ODST is by far the easiest of the Halo campaigns on higher difficulties, you're actually the first person I've seen who hasn't specifically agreed on this. As a direct comparison, I was never able to finish Halo 3 on Legendary solo (got stuck on the next to last level). ODST I beat on solo Legendary the day after it came out in about 6 hours. There were single LEVELS on Halo 3 that took me that long on solo Legendary.

To be fair, I don't think Taco plays a whole lot of Halo (or FPS in general outside of TF2 maybe?) so his experience would largely differ with someone like yourself who has lived on Halo since the first on came out.

He specifically commented on it being harder than the previous Halo campaigns, which is the only comparison I made as well, so I'm not sure what that has to do with anything.

Basically I said you play too much Halo. I BEAT IT ON LEGENDARY LIKE A TRUE NIGGA BY MYSELF I DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU MEAN ITS HARD. You're failing to account for level of experience (ie, amount of time played, like I kind of mentioned in my post).

(which is entirely true based upon facts stated and number of games played)

I am facepalming so hard right now. I'm hoping it transcends time and space and smacks you in the back of the head at work right now.

Yeah, so I just tried playing multiplayer campaign. Still the same shitty netcode. Back onto the shelf it goes.

Just finished the campaign on Heroic. Fantastic stuff, I really enjoyed it. The gameplay may be similar to Halo 2 and 3, but the atmosphere is completely different. I read a magazine review which basically complained about all the things I enjoyed, including how the plot stayed below epic world saving levels. It had a lot of the qualities I enjoyed about Halo 1's more restrained storytelling, compared to the more bloated style of 2 and 3.

My only gripe perhaps was how while Buck looked like Nathan Fillion, Dutch didn't look like Adam Baldwin. He was doing Jayne quite a lot and the face didn't match so it was strange. I suppose it was also a missed opportunity that there wasn't more to the AI than was originally hinted.

Still, great experience. Terrific atmosphere, awesome music, fun dialogue, combat and setpieces. The audio logs were pretty interesting as well, although I thought they'd be individual stories instead of parts of one large one. Ah well.

I'll get this when I get back if anyone's still playing it in November and they release a patch so I can play firefight with Kyndig and Daravon without all the lag you've mentioned.

Of course you'll all be playing Modern Warfare 2 by then so I might swerve this, we shall see.

Much like Halo 3's MP, though perhaps more so, Firefight is something I can see myself diving back into from time to time when someone suggests playing it. So yeah, I don't see November being too much of an issue for an odd spot of ODST, though MW2 and L4D2 could delay things there a little. ;)

At least once MW2 drops, all the kids will stop playing ODST in favour of cheating at that so the random twat factor should be significantly reduced and it'll probably be dead cheap second hand by then.

Anyone fancy doing some Firefight tonight (well this afternoon for the North American types)?

Yeah, I'd probably play, if only to melee you in the head. I had a good time with it the other night.

I am down for this. We'd still need one more though since russ probably won't be home for another few hours.

Alright you bitches, now that I've finished helping Skills and Omagnus get what they need, we need to have one more go at this (plus Prime still needs Endure/FF:Lost Platoon) since I'm the only on without Deja Vu.

Skills, Prime, and Daravon, when can we do this shit this week?

I should be around most evenings (well afternoons again for you guys) I imagine. Just hit me up with a message when you want to do it.

Lemme know if anyone is up for some FF sometime this week. Tuesdays and Thursdays are prob the easiest for me. Still need Endure (As BZ, Dev and myself failed SPECTACULARLY last time).

Lost Platoon ftw.

Your first problem is trying it with only 3 people on Lost Platoon. You need at least one full time laser operator, and either 3 choppers or one hog plus gunner. 2 choppers are not enough to handle everything, especially when the drones hit.

Oh no LP is just my favourite map. We tried on Alpha Site (with a fourth, but I don't know who it was). Between my uncanny ability to die seemingly on command, and the hammer brute that JUST WOULDN'T DIE, it did not end well.

I'd like to help, since I still need roughly 100 points worth of achievements, including the two hard vidmaster ones. I may not be great at the game, but I am at least competent.

I'd be down for giving Endure a crack at some point. Though much like russ I'm not great but I'm competent (and I do pretty well in the Brute Choppers, apart from when Skills is driving into me).

Still need the two vidmasters endure and the legendary one. hit me up if you are on.

I also need Endure. And I'm free tonight. I smell a sitcom.

Yes, I had a problem with that too. I'm sad that only Hefler and Fillion got that treatment. I wish North, Tudyk, and Baldwin would have gotten their faces glued on their ingame models.

Also yeah, I need a bunch of those vidmasters as well, so I wouldn't mind tagging along if you ever need a spot. Pretty much the Legendary Highway(ODST), Legendary Last level(Halo3), and Endure(ODST) are the ones I need to check out right now.

Best part of ODST so far is the score. As it is, I think I'm tired of Halo's gameplay.

I'm off work at noon (central) tomorrow, probably have a couple of hours worth of stuff to do after that, but then I'm free for the whole night.

I close the restaurant tomorrow night, which means I go in at 5pm (central). I'm free until then.

I have to get a new 360 anyways but was ODST with the Halo 3 Disc a collector's edition of can I still pick that up? I heard they were bundling the H3 Multiplayer Disc with it but I just want to be sure since well.... I don't have any of my 360 shit anymore and I'm trying to rebuild.

Yes it comes with the multiplayer cd that includes all the new maps. I wasn't expecting it b/c I picked up the game on a whim. Worked great b/c my halo 3 cd was scratched to hell.

Overall I haven't played it long enough to say that I enjoyed the single player. I was disappointed that there wasn't a feature to put random people together in a firefight game (or am I to dense to find it?).

Nope, there is no random Firefight matchmaking. I wouldn't be disappointed if I were you, since history (and Halo 3) have proven that matching random people together for serious team based affairs is a terrible, terrible idea that never ends well.

That's true. Now that I think of it, it would probably end up being just like GOW2's Horde Mode. Where you'd get to level 10 or above and people would just randomly leave.

But then again it would still be nice to at least have the option don't you think? You can still team up with people on your friends list, but if you don't have any online at the moment you could take your chances with a shitty team.