by GrathiusXR:

©2009 Arthur Kotsopoulos

Well Halo 3: ODST has finally hit stores worldwide and boy what a lead up it has been. With the Real life Warthog dropping in Sydney for gamers to see and feel, Midnight launches around EB and special offers all throughout the Xbox Community, it seems that ODST has been much more well received instead of being labeled a hyped up meh game.

Coming in a 2 disc format with Disc 1 containing the main ODST campaign and Co-Op Firefight, with Disc 2 containing all 24 maps for Halo 3 Online Multiplayer side of the game it seems there is enough content within the game to satisfy any gamer.

Whether you are an avid multiplayer man, a single-player person or someone who enjoys some solid co-op gaming with friends, then this package is well suited to all styles What we are doing here in ODST Single Player Campaign Pt 2, is touching on the co-op portion of the game to see just how well does it stack up with single player?

Is the experience better? More frantic and challenging? Or is co-op an easier tuned down version of the singplayer player ODST campaign?

That’s what Pt 2 of the review is here for.

Co-op comes in 2 forms, offline and online, with 2 players max being able to play offline and up to 4 players available to play online via Xbox Live. The differences here are at a minimum and in terms of layout and structure as everything is untouched, so the Co-op campaign is virtually the same as if you were playing the Single Player Campaign on your own.

But the beauty of this is not that everything is the same, it’s the fact that you can have so much fun going through each mission again and again no matter how many times you frustratingly get stuck or melee’d and need to restart from the last checkpoint.

Playing on Legendary does bump up the difficulty in co-op mode somewhat to make it a bit more challenging than playing Legendary on Single Player. The only real downside to this is that certain missions can be completed in under 10 minutes because of the frustration that the AI can give at times.

Some levels have parts in them that when the enemies get annoyingly painful, you can easily progress through a door without needing to defeat all the enemies in an area in order for it to trigger a progression and then allow you to finally leave that area and progress further.

A good example of this is on one level where you are in an open outside area. You not only have Brutes, Grunts and Jackals all wanting a piece of your backside and kill you, you also have 2 Wraiths at any given time bombarding you with a relentless attack of plasmas shots that can accurately hit you even if you are completely out of their line of site.

However, after a few minutes of this, the AI eventually gives up and comments that you now have to retreat instead of staying and defending the area and ideally defeating all the enemies. In order to feel satisfied you can easily fall back run through the door and the crisis is averted.

Shorter games & missions

This sort of thing makes for an easier mission and can often shorten the different levels and games pretty much.

I didn’t enjoy the Single Player Campaign as much, especially seeing that half the missions feature very similar scenarios which in the end does make for an extremely short game campaign wise, something that ODST is being heavily criticized for in most reviews on the net at the moment.

Some of the ODST’s Campaign features offers areas where you must defend your position from wave after wave of Covenant, allowing you to hone your skill-set in the face of overwhelming odds. Playing the Co-Op Mode allows you to become even more skilled for when you want to tackle the Firefight Mode which is accessed after having completed the ODST Single Player Campaign.

These things are good within the overall gameplay, however, these sequences occur a little too frequent for my liking within the campaign which can detract you from the experience and and can leave you somewhat less excited for Firefight Mode when it does arrive at  the end of the Campaign.

If you play the campaign with any of the Halo 3 Skulls, Campaign becomes pretty much a less linear Firefight Mode and again, whilst this is not a such negative thing, it can also detract from the excitement leading upto the Firefight.

But hey, who doesn’t love the confetti and little boys screaming ” yayyyy ” when Grunts are head shot with a pistol, this on its own never gets old inside the Co-op Campaign.

So basically, all things aside, the Co-Op Campaign is virtually with the exception that you can actually have a laugh or two with your mates at the good, the bad and the down right frustrating times that are encountered. It’s best played in Co-op just for the sheer fun and taking advantage of what Xbox Live has to offer.

Not since Halo 3′s 4 player co-op campaign has there been any other game that really featured any co-op experience which was/is as fun. Whilst some do have only 2 player, I’d have to say that 4 play- is really the way to go and the best way to get the most out of not only the game at hand, but also the full benefits of Xbox Live.

Co-Op is a mode that can truly enrich an already great single player game. If you are still ‘sitting on the fence’ with this one as to whether or not to buy ODST, how about thinking of it like this.

Halo 3: ODST is an out-n-out co-op game, so whether you love playing the single player campaign or not, or if you are not interest in the Firefight Mode or even the great Multiplayer aspect, then grab ODST now simply to have a blast with friends over Xbox Live.

I think that in the future, when campaign has been replayed over and over several times, you won’t find as many people on your friends list in which to enjoy the experience with. But you never kow, gamers are a fickled lot, and anything could happen.

So a big fat kudos to Bungie for releasing yet another excellent Halo game in the ever growing franchise, and for supplying an overall amazing game. It is certainly a great way to start the ‘end-of-year AAA blockbuster period where titles come and go so fast you don’t get time to blink. This is an excellent start on the lead up to the holiday season. Shame I don’t have deeper pockets.

Apart from the random moments of horrible lag during campaign and the strange habit that the Halo 3 Engine has of making heaps of objects appear right in front of you, causing brief moments of frustration, in my view it is the best co-op experience you will have and for these 2 main problems is why the co-op earns a solid 9/10.

©2009 Arthur Kotsopoulos

“9/10

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