Halo: ODST Retro Review
The Short Version: It’s sad that when the time comes to look back at the Halo franchise, ODST will be seen as an Excellent Well-developed Expansion turned to Full-Priced Game in order to Exploit its large fan base. Sad but True.
The Review:
What you’ll Like:
• A Welcome Highly Polished Extension of the Halo Experience!
• Great Voice Acting!
• Excellent Level Design Work.
What you’ll Hate:
• Wallet Rape. This IS an Expansion turned into a Full Game to Exploit the Halo Fanbase.
• A 4-Hour Campaign? (or less) w/ one new Multiplayer mode for $60??!??! Unacceptable.
• Most of the Game is played in the ODST Vision mode which takes away some of the visual flair.
• The “open-world” element ultimately felt pointless, you’ll be backtracking and avoiding conflict before long
Final Verdict:
6/10
Issue your own Final Score Above!
- Related Posts:
-
Good Dev, Bad Dev #1
May 22, 2013
-
Xbox One Reveal: Angry Rant
May 21, 2013
-
Metro: Last Light Angry Review
May 17, 2013
-
Guns Of Icarus TGS Battle Royale!
May 11, 2013
Gaming Comics
Good Dev, Bad Dev #1
Glue
Unjust Battles
The Confessionist
Fight the Biscuit!
Recent Reviews
- Metro: Last Light Angry Review
May 17, 2013 
Star Command iOS Angry Review
May 6, 2013
Star Trek The Game Angry Review
April 30, 2013
Injustice Angry Review
April 19, 2013
Defiance Angry Review
April 12, 2013
Partners
110 thoughts on “Halo: ODST Retro Review”
Ok, yeah. ODST was totally a DLC that never got in. Why did youtube remove the review though?
So don’t hold me on this, but apparently, originally ODST, was suppose to be DLC for Halo 3, which was why it was suppose to be a 3 hour “short campaign”
However, Microsoft, didn’t like the fact that they were going to market an entire potential $60 for $10, so they forced bungie to market it as an actual release game.
So it originally being a DLC makes since as to why it was done in less than a year
Fire fight is kinda good but I dident buy the game my friendnwhos a playstation person played halo 2 and 3 at my house he saw halo odst and said ill buy this if well play it thru I said idk I heard its horrible so he buyers it any way so I think hey free game no its fucking garbage he still thinks its awesome it sucks. Game informer says odst makes master chief look weak I said I must find out odst is absolutely wrong of that. Thank you for taking time to read this long comment.
You know, although it’s a failed game it kinda has pontential in my opinion. The HALO games has you playing as a spartan, which is master chief except in reach, but how would it feel to be a human soldier fighting the covanent forces without the spartan armor. I love playing as a spartan but sometimes i wanted to play as a human soldier too. This game had potential but it some cases of it, it did fail. If they can some how put this kind of game of HALO where you play as a human in a different time like humans was still fighting humans than the covanent showed up and you and the rest of humanity stand together and fight the covanent. Of course there are spartans in the game but you dont play as them but they are A.I. in the game which they will help you out from time to time. But like i said this game had potential of playing as an odst or soldier of the U.N.S.C. instead of a spartan. but if you guys are going to say something about my comment like its a bad idea or that it’s shit then go ahead, but think of it though. And give a reason or an opinion about it.
I completely agree with you. As a non-Halo fanatic, but a genuine Halo returnee, I found ODST enjoyable mainly because it was different. I think the concept was a good idea, just not executed to its full potential. Definitely didn’t deserve the high scores, but doesn’t deserve to be beaten on either. It’s a good game, just not a great one.
man the animations look so wonky in this game! the look childish! stupid!
I don’t even think the game was that great; it was Halo, but they nerfed aspects of it. Weapons that had been weakened to balance out dual-wielding were still weak, even though you couldn’t dual-wield, making them garbage. Your character was weaker, you couldn’t use devices, and the stupid filter on your helmet just killed the immersive atmosphere they tried to build.
its true the game dont deserv a high scorce
YOU ARE ALL FAGGOTS HALO 3 ODST WAS AWSOME .
no you are blind to what it is.
lol i remebered the only reason i bought it cuz i didn’t have halo 3, yet loved it and played it at my friend’s house. i also got this with Orange box for the Xbox….enjoyed that more than Halo ODST and played TF2 more than firefight and ODST campaign
this is another case of dumbass marketing ruining great developers. i understand joe’s pain, if i got this for a full 60 dollers, i would be pretty dahm pissed too. but thankfully, i was able to get it for 15 bucks used about 9 months after it came out, and i wasn’t blinded by my wallet’s suffering. if you look at this as a DLC, or a cheaper spin off game, its amazing. bungie tried something different, your not a super human getting told to save the universe, everything not super dramatic. your just an average odst with higher than average skill. for the first time its freeroam too. and the story for the rookie was gripping and i felt for him at these stranded night parts trying to find your squad. i dont even remember the rest of the crew besides that they were voiced by the cast of firefly (which i personally oved) the graphics were tight, and since it was freeroam with spawning enemies, you could steal around or flank instead of the linear traditional find a spot of eneimies and rush in because your some badass super human. its way more fun when your playing with a freind in the city. virgil was also a nice plot device and it actually made me feel that this whole city was with me, the audio logs were also a nice addition. they kinda made no sence, but whenever i found one it made me feel the dread of all the civilians and this random girl whos important somehow and made the city seem more alive. and firefight can keep you entertained when you get bored of the story for about 4 or 5 more hours. its something different and refreshing and all in all it was good if you look at it as a dlc/spinoff and don’t buy it full priced.
loved* stealth*
I per-ordered it for 45 bucks. Enjoyed the campaign, had a very good story, narrated in a different style, with more tension and suspense. Hence the different light effect through out the game . One of my friend just loves this game because of the same reason, the atmosphere. The producers tried something different, they should not be bashed since they delivered it well. I’m kind of disappointed that you gave it only a 6/10.
On one side you have the quiet city at night patrolled by enemy troops. While on the other side you relieve certain moments of your team. Which brings to the game the halo style, with full-action packed mission.
The campaign was actually expanded. It took me about 10 hours on heroic. I normally play slowly to check every little detail. So I would give it an 8. No more no less,because a lot shorter than the other halo games, and the campaign could get a bit repetitive fro some, since it’s always in the city.
I personally hated the campaign in Halo 3 so much that I didn’t get ODST until it was $18 used at a Used Movie and Game store across the street.
I HATED the campaign in Halo 3. It was NOT up to par with previous campaigns and I found the power-ups stupid, stupid STUPID! That crap belongs in multiplayer- NOT in a serious campaign! Completely took me out of it how clearly Bungie put more effort into their multiplayer over their single-player.
I did enjoy ODST’s campaign. It felt more grounded and less silly than campaign of Halo 3. I appreciated the sense danger, returning to health bars. It felt like somewhat of a throwback to the original Halo (something Halo Reach did with great efficiency).
And Halo Reach was such a great improvement I completely forgave Bungie for my disappointment with Halo 3.
i think this game is pretty good 7/10 it’s the halo exaperience without you being an unkillable bada** robot with no voice except on the cutscenes. and no flood!
odst sucks I don’t understand why people say it was a great game and it better than the other halo games it sucks 9.0 wth i’m a big halo fan and i was upset when i played this.
I think your 6/10 was too high for a dlc full priced game
i am mad late with this comment, but know i am right
I think your utterly wrong. You can’t understand the different take on this game. It’s suppose to be different from all the others. And because it is, some people like it a lot, like myself. Oh and a “true halo fan” likes all the games and can forgive some of it’s problems( but they don’t have any), doesn’t matter how bad they are( not the case with any halo). I liked every single one of the including halo wars wars and odst. They tried something different and they delivered well. Odst it’s a good game
i wish bungie was making Myth games …. Myth 2 Soulblighter was badass!!
never really liked halo … something about the art style… too cartoon for me
LMAO!!!!! 2:27 is soo funny…
“oh yeah, 30 seconds of fun” LMAO joe looks so funny in the corner like that
nice review
i love odst i trust your review joe but i mean i got it christmas so i didn’t get wallet rapped graphics were fine but come on its Xbox the NES had better graphics story was good except for the cliffhanger ending & i noticed you didn’t mention ms endasha final verdict 8/10 draw backs firefight was cheap & story to short
I bought the game when it was one $20, and I still feeling like I got ripped off. It was too short and by the time I was finally liking what was going on the game was over. Not sure if anyone else had this problem but the save game did not work for me, I had to basically start all over again when I loaded the game. To me, this was more like a $10 or $15 game.
Joe,I and agreeing and disagreeing with you.Yes,I agree with you that this game is over priced and unfufilling.But I disagree with you because THIS GAME IS AWSOME!The outdoor sections of the game are great,My favourite was the ONI Alpa level
wow….thats all i gotta say…wow… I feel Raped
There was a spider on the halo suit at the end, look closely at the chest piece when he is moving, there is something moving. Man, what was that!!!
What? Where exactly… I dont see one.
I payed an extra 20 dollars to get the edition with the wireless controller, so I think that made it worth it. Otherwise, yeah. I recommend a used purchase.
Ironically, I think this review is too short. Is this the full one?
Joe is right, I got it soon after it came out, maybe a week after. It was a great game, but it was far to short with only Fire Fight added to it that was unique, but boring after a while. It was fun for a few hours, but then I didn’t really want to play it again. The story was perfect, but just far too short. I’ll rate it a 6/10 as well.
for me this is how the game should be
Story: For me if you are playing as a ODST they should make you have missions as you are playing as a soldier showing how you are developoing and then you become a ODST they should show parts of Halo 1 and 2 and then you become a ODST on Halo 3 helping soldiers on the war of the Covenant. And at the last level they tell you to find Master Chief crash site like on the Halo short film and what happens after that. You play as Master Chief and the Abiter why not as a soldier becoming a ODST?
Trainig as a soldier: Well just imagine call of duty take cover of enemy fire and killing enemys and troing granades on targets :B
Campaing: You start as a soldier and you are on middle of Halo 1 and 2 you are a soldier fighting the covenants on places that master chief as never their. Then they tell you that master chief disappear or something like that and you se how the war was without master chief. Then you become a ODST and you are on another training mode were you see how the ODST are. And you are on war during Halo 3
Training as a ODST: you have to kill targets with your night vision, killing enemys with the silent machine guns and kill an enemy with your team like a cutscene on Halo ODST were they are killing a brute.
Campaing: You are on your first ODST mission with your team on a city to save survivors and helping the soldiers. On a mission you must recover information of the covenant so you must use your night googles, your silent guns, flash granades (you cant use other guns and granades because they make alot of noise) and your knifes. Then they see a security camera showing of master chief on the space ship he was on the ending of Halo 2. At that point you play as master chief killing enemys on board as you are trying to kill the last prophet the prophet escapes and the ship blows up the camera shuts down. You tell this to the Admiral and he tells you that he allready knows that and the pieces are coming to planet earth and they are telling this to all the soldiers and odst on planet earth and blah blah and then you are on a mission on africa and well just imagine the short movie of Halo 3 they made for Halo 3 game play and thats the end of the game
sorry for all my spelling errors :B
Please dont do anymore retrospective reviews anymore! They are so boring!
What the fuck is going on with ODST It should be named FSGE FUCKING.STUPID.GAME.EVAR
this is not a shoothing gallery or that fucking shit bu what the fuck after i play halo ODST ……i found halo reach really!!!!!!!! U might say “This guys comment is making fun of halo ODST” and when u play it you say This piece of fucking shit im gonna set the god damn dosc on fucking fire its bullshit uggghhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!…..*GamersHellDude is frustrated*The only thing they could perfect on this game is ITS PERFECTION……U THINK IM SATIFIED BUNGIE you dum shit WHAT THE FRICKIN FUCKIN HELL BITCHIN FUCKING PIECE OF HELL TRASH!!!!
and listen how dissapointed joe looks. i feel mad at bungie/microsoft for doing this! joe diserves better!
this game was really bad. after all the waiting and i got that huge dissapointment
ahahahahahha
I liked this game but only because all my friends had it and firefight was the only good part so we just played that alot. Plus i didnt have any of the map packs so the multiplyer disc for me was a pretty good bonus i still dont think it was at all worth retail price though
joe you are totally right, a 5-hour game for 60 dollars (especially from a company like bungie) is total wallet rape.
That is just a pathetic thing for Bungie to do…
its not really bungies fault they r just the developers its microsoft who made it full retail
What’s really sad is it would have been a shining example of what great DLC should be.
This Video was better than that “game”, and the video actual served a purpose in my life! The was a reason why a FREE copy was in many Xbox 360′s elites, it was an ADD ON to the system!
I’d give this a 6.5 out of 10. To Bungie’s credit, I was kinda glad to see the Human-Covenant War through the eyes of someone other than Master Chief ( The Arbiter doesn’t count; Elites are just the Covenant Spartans), so it Deserves more than a six. Why not give it a full 7/10, you may ask? Well, since Bungie/Microsoft decided to rake in the extra market value that comes from a full game compared to an expansion, one would expect that they coulda, shoulda, and (at least if I ran the Halo Project) woulda put more effort into the campaign. If you wanna talk multiplayer, the more tactical approach in ODST could have been exploited for some enhanced or even new game modes and/or maps.
Summary in 10 words or less:
Halo Gear Solid: expansion pack at expanded price
I would have to give the game a 7 out of 10 because of the fact it felt more of a budget title then a full on game like halo 3 but my favorite thing about this game would have to be the music its often somber tunes captured the feeling of the player being in a city occupied by a powerful enemy you have to be careful when fighting them, also I liked that bungie was trying something new then what we are used to in a halo game.
i plyed all halos even halo wars i dont have live but i have psn so i thought it was short but because i plyed all of them its decent & it comes with a 2nd disk 4 multiplyer do a dragon ballz review
haha screw this microsoft just loves taking you for every penny you have
I have to agree with you, Joe as ODST happened to be my first Halo game. It was confusing and took awhile to complete on normal on my first try., and I pretty much hated it. Months go by, and I finally get to play Halo 3 campaign, and that was a great game, considering the story line and game-play. After going back to ODST, I recently completed the campaign on Legendary, solo, over 4-5 hours. I was disappointed with elements of game play such that the characters could be substantially weaker at times, the overwhelming amounts of enemies at times, and times when you had bad weapons for a particular situation, or entering a situation with all of these elements made it a bit of frustrating experience. But I see where you are coming from, where the campaign was too short, multi -player was bad, and the game’s price was horrendous. I would agree with you on your rating, or it would give it a 5.5/10 to a 7/10 for not combining ODST and Halo 3 multiplayer into a great game that had so much to offer, for a full price.
And as you stated that your not a part of the fanclub, which probably means they didnt send u a copy of Reach?
Will you still Review it after it comes out?
Umm.. but this wasn’t a full-priced title – at least not in the UK!
The story was, for me, stronger than Halo 3′s story and I didn’t get the on the Halo 3 DLC, too busy, so when I got ODST at $39.99 I got more bang for buck. But it was really UNACCEPTABLE for the campaign to be 4 to 5 HRS. long!
But at $39.99 it was ok.
Hey where did you get that awesome suit and silenced smg prop.
Altho I agree that the campaign was short and ”unraveling of what happend to your squad in the shadows of new mombosa” or something was boring shit
Honestly I dont thing it deserves a 6/10 more like a 4/10 The only fun things were one ONE!!!! map on firefight Lost Platoon and holding the line (when on the bridge charge instead of retreat) oh and Angry Joe if you read this you should Review Darwinia+ its an Xbox 360 Arcade game and it kicks ass
If there’ll be a new ODST game maybe it’ll be longer than 4-hrs. tops, and maybe it’ll have new weapons. That would be sweet!