ODST reactions

[Fiskmasen]

It's Adam Baldwin, Alan Tudyk and Nathan Fillion, can't go wrong there. And that's basically the only reason I played through the game.
Noteworthy is that I've only ever played through one Halo campaign in the past, that one being Combat Evolved, so I liked ODST - felt fresh somehow. I have no doubts about it being roughly the same as Halo 3, but I haven't played it so I can't make any statements regarding it. From my standpoint I liked the game, however short it was - but I didn't pay for it, so no worries.
Can't say anything about the multiplayer since I didn't spend any time with it.

 

[TheRundownRabbit]

Apathy.

...Well you asked.

Same here, Apathetic
The game had bad elements
the game had good elements
basically to the point were everything about the game is at an equilibrium so to speak

 

[happysock]

Good game, less than average review

 

[Eldritch Warlord]

Trust me, I *know* the city was deserted, hastily at that. I was being TOLD through all of Halo 2, 3, and ODST that it was deserted. But it never FELT that way. I never saw signs of life in the city. I never got that sense that anyone ever lived there. It never felt like life existed, or was abandoned. Even the random cars and bunt-out warthogs didn't make me feel like a war has just occured. It all felt like a set, a very dull, repetitive set, that Bungie would just drop little props into. It's 2552 during ODST, and I'm sure a city of New Mombossa's size was (in Halo lore) a mega city for at least one hundred years. Why does everything look so damn new, then? It takes a lot for a city to feel abandoned and not just empty, and in ODST it just felt empty.

Well, the game takes place mostly in Mbaraki district. Which contained among other things NMPD Headquarters, ONI's castle-like Alpha Site, the space tether, and skyscrapers housing offices for the Jotun and Traxus corporations. Not really a place people lived but a place people worked. Maybe it all looked so shiny and futuristic because it was built in the future? It really just seems like you're groping for things to complain about because I remember one time when I was walking away from the round-about in front of Uplift Nature Reserve (where you find the Drone Optics clue) "This really looks like a place people inhabited".

Also, I know it looked the same in Halo 2. That was last-gen! They can't spare the polygons and make it feel real? The fact that it did look so much like Halo 2's NM is really disappointing, IMO.

There's nothing wrong with consistency, did you really expect the buildings in an industrial port city to be glorious works of art that really showcase our improved polygon count? Plus the Mombasa Streets level is pretty damn big, that takes up RAM too you know.

And I'll say it again. No matchmaking in Firefight is a pretty huge flaw. I don't WANT to have to go play Halo 3 to get people on my friend's list so I can swap discs and play Firefight. Can you tell me the mode would not be instantly better if you could get into a full four-player game any time you want? Methinks Bungie wants to keep the Halo 3 pastures green for future map packs.

I sort of agree with the second sentence, and fourth. But most people (such as myself) are just going to play Firefight with friends anyway and don't really want to bother with random people online because the occasional griefers will be so much worse in this highly co-operative game mode. Plus matchmaking isn't exactly a part of Halo 3's campaign structure (which Firefight is a part of), I'm no software engineer (yet) but it could be a daunting task to reconfigure the campaign code for matchmaking. Not something that can be done by a team of around twenty in a year.

If you haven't guessed, I quite liked the game and I think it would be great if they did something similar with Halo Reach.

 

[Smituta]

Well, the game takes place mostly in Mbaraki district. Which contained among other things NMPD Headquarters, ONI's castle-like Alpha Site, the space tether, and skyscrapers housing offices for the Jotun and Traxus corporations. Not really a place people lived but a place people worked. Maybe it all looked so shiny and futuristic because it was built in the future? It really just seems like you're groping for things to complain about because I remember one time when I was walking away from the round-about in front of Uplift Nature Reserve (where you find the Drone Optics clue) "This really looks like a place people inhabited".

I appreciate you taking the time to actually read what I wrote and offer some counter-examples. All I can say is I never did feel the same. The one moment I remember seeing something and having a "wow this is a truly different part of the city" moment was when you saw the collapsed bridge with a huge towering inferno behind it ... that was a great visual moment. But for the rest of the city, it all felt disappointingly familiar to me. I have a pretty good sense of direction and tend to be able to spot landmarks even in virtual worlds, like GTA and Crackdown and Fallout, but nothing in ODST was memorable in that way. Personally, I find that we're saying "well, ODST took place in the business district" a very unsatisfying compromise/excuse.

There's nothing wrong with consistency, did you really expect the buildings in an industrial port city to be glorious works of art that really showcase our improved polygon count? Plus the Mombasa Streets level is pretty damn big, that takes up RAM too you know.

Again, ODST did nothing I haven't seen done better in other open-world games. If GTA can find the RAM to give me a nice big city that feels alive, why can't Bungie? And the consistency I was lamenting was that they couldn't produce a more believeable city, a more "real" place, even after a jump to a new generation's technology. The open worlds of Halo 3 looked better than a lot of the open worlds of Halo 2 ... why is Earth and a realistic human city so hard to do? I find the idea of wanting to be consistent to be, again, not good enough.

I sort of agree with the second sentence, and fourth. But most people (such as myself) are just going to play Firefight with friends anyway and don't really want to bother with random people online because the occasional griefers will be so much worse in this highly co-operative game mode. Plus matchmaking isn't exactly a part of Halo 3's campaign structure (which Firefight is a part of), I'm no software engineer (yet) but it could be a daunting task to reconfigure the campaign code for matchmaking. Not something that can be done by a team of around twenty in a year.

I just don't buy that Matchmaking would be all that hard to do. The Halo 3 online system has it, and Bungie practically pioneered it. Gears of War has it for Deathmatch AND Hoard. Left 4 Dead has it, and Valve had to balance schedules for the PC version as well. I just don't buy it being technical limitations, especially from Bungie, a former MS first party who works very closely with MS to make things happen. The fact that no Matchmaking works fine for you and your friends is little comfort, because I was very much looking forward to being able to hop into a full Firefight mode at any time; as it stands, no one on my friend's list plays it, and Bungie's lack of Matchmaking is making it so the feature I was most excited to play in ODST is virtually inaccesbile.