Halo ODST .... no

In summary, Halo ODST was just more Halo.

I really liked Halo 1, 2, and 3. I like single player games. I like explosions. So that seems a sure bet for Halo ODST.

Wrong

Halo was groovy, and I spent a lot of time running, and leaping about, getting pummeled by many people on the PC as well as Xbox versions. It's great fun, frantic stuffs. However, in the last Halo game (Halo 3, not Halo Wars) I quickly reached a point where I was saying to myself,

"Why am I advancing into this alien outpost?"
and
"Why am I doing this, and which of the overly epically named space ships, on my side?"

It didn't really matter because the new settings and different layouts were enough to keep me plugging away. Often my plastic neon edged armor would give up and I would tumble to the floor, scattering my assortment of recently grabbed guns and grenades. But you get back up and try again. This time keeping an eye on that side where ten more little alien dudes will come spilling out chatting away in comic relief fashion.

Hang on, the fact none of this battle makes sense, and the story is terrible, is bothering me now. I need to do research. The research being the Halo novels.

Ok research done, I get it, good, back to work.

Ok done, thanks Halo 3, back in the box. And to myself, "Can't wait for another one."

Halo ODST shuffles off the end of my mysterious GameFly Queue, flops through my mail slot, and dribbles into my Xbox 360.

Big screen, surround sound, expensively budgeted tried and tested video game franchise, in the middle of the lazy gamer generation, what could possibly go wrong?

Well not much to start with. Wandered around the VERY dark city, looking at stuff, with the usual drill of finding the things that are supposed to be just like the rest but you can usually see the graphical difference so you know something opens, or activates there. Got into a building, and now its REALLY dark. My display is sort of showing the outline of things, but very little detail. More wandering around inside the building, and I notice a helmet sticking out of a madly flashing screen. A little text at the bottom of the screen tells me to press a button, button pressed and I'm in one of the stories of apparently a little earlier in that same location.

So I'm in the story now hearing the same noises as previous games, of cheeky little aliens and gruff larger ones. Wreckage all over the place, and little pockets of resistance. Usual thing. I reach a large open area and apparently have to get across to rescue someone who's speaking to me on the radio. The other squad members are well trained in keeping out the way and not wasting ANY ammo, so it's up to me, the hero of the moment to get across that area and into the building beyond. AHA! One of those, "oh no we are just another door", doors that's obviously not like all the others. It's open and I'm in, trying to get behind enemy lines. Crap, it's dark in here, where's my new thingie button to show the outlines of things, ok got it, onward. Up the stairs, along the corridor, up some more, oo new gun, along... wait, it's a shot gun, hmmm that means close encounters are going to happen if I keep heading this way. I know, back down the stairs and I'll take an earlier exit.

I'm at the door, open, too bright for edge enhancement, so it's back to normal. I hear the familiar call of big and little aliens, and the strange alien bullet noises, it's back to the action. Lots of strafing left and right between concrete columns to try and figure out how many of my particular bullets it takes to kill these particular aliens (it usually takes a while to get the hang of that in any shooter). Still not got a good idea of where all the bad guys are, and still my computer controlled squad buddies are hanging back, waiting for me to clear a path to the next section. I leap around, still not quite familiar with the controls, as it has been quite a while since I bothered with Halo 3, and I keep pressing the 'button that shalt do nothing' instead of the grenade one, for now at least. So far it's all going as I thought it would except....

I give up trying to figure out where all the fire is coming from, take a couple of long shots and clear myself a nice little vacation spot on a bridge, in the middle of the fight, but with plenty of good cover. Sort of looked like a futuristic bus stop. Run like heck (well I think I'm running, as I can't remember if there is a run button for Halo ODST, or you just go this speed all the time), and make it to the bus shelter. Then a group of bigger aliens come out of where their scripted closet was keeping them until I crossed that particular line. They advance, I then go into a pre-death spasm, of jump-fire-move-fire-way-too-much-at-nothing, and then die.

It was a strange feeling but as soon as I saw that familiar out of body camera angle, and stuff strewn on the battle field (my 3 grenades exploding moments later, as in my final moments of controller typing convulsions I managed to hit THAT button a few times), my dead ragdoll self laying out there, the thought of doing the SAME thing over and over again, just like the previous games seemed pretty crappy. It wasn't until THAT VERY MOMENT that I wasn't enjoying it.

Went from "Yeah!" to "STOP!" in about a millisecond.

Watching my plastic clad dude, drop all his plastic guns on the ground, just brought it all back, and the reunion was not sweet. I'm glad I didn't buy the game, and I was genuinely looking forward to another Halo shooter, as that's usually my thing. This was just that little bit too much EXACTLY the same as before. Thinking I'd been a little harsh on it, I tried again a couple of times, but after it seemed to put me WAY back in the game, and I kept getting to that same point each time, I knew it was time to take it out into the yard and end its misery. So it went back to that GameFly warehouse in the sky, where it will hopefully be reborn as something on the PS3.

Halo ODST, sorry.