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Halo 3: ODST, just what is this game? Why do you want something that was just tagged on top of the Halo 3 franchise? Where’s master chief!?

Master chief is right where you left him. Between Halo 2 and Halo 3. Yes, this game takes place in an entirely different area with an entirely different crew. You play the role of the Rookie. The new silent protagonist. Left alone in New Mombasa to figure out just what is happening. Split from the rest of your squad, you roam the streets and find pieces of a giant puzzle. All while the city’s AI helps you find your way.

Developer: Bungie

Publisher: Microsoft Games Studio
Date of Release: 22/09/2009
Platform: Xbox 360
Genre: First Person Shooter
Players: 1-4 ODST Campaign and firefight and up to 16 in Halo 3 Multiplayer

The Graphics:
It’s pretty much Halo 3 with a new HUD. For the franchise, it’s pretty much the biggest evolution it’s gotten in a long time. The rendering is still sub HD rescaled. In my eyes it’s pretty good. I’m not really picky about seeing scars on my space marine’s gigantic bodies or anything of the sort. I do think that the facial models could have been done a whole lot better however. It’s not as bad as Castlevania: Lament of Innocence however. But then again that was a PS2 title. The enhanced vision is very nice and helps a whole lot.

The Game:
The exposition in the campaign is very good. I’d say I love it a lot more than the previous titles. It’s a different beast however. It may have the same graphics engine, slightly tweaked maybe, but it doesn’t really feel the same. There’s a map that allows you to navigate around very easily. Although in the overworld the signs point you in the right direction. You’ve got a lot more tools at your disposal. Less weapons however. But that’s not a very big problem. The Halo 1 pistol is back, this excuses all.

I have a beef with this version of the game however. On one console you can have a maximum of 2 players for ODST. This means campaign and firefight. If you want to fill your game with 4, you need to have two consoles. On all previous titles 4 players on one console was possible and I believe it may have been the norm in most places. I know I usually played with many friends.

So basically the hub world has you playing as the silent protagonist. The rest call him Rookie. Once you reach a point of interest on him, you trigger a scenario to the likes of the Firefight mode. In these scenarios you play as other members of your squad. You’ll see a lot more combat and action in these. The pace will be a lot slower with the rookie.

I completed the game at heroic and in the coming weeks I plan on doing it on Legendary. It does have quite the difficulty leap between the two I find however. I think I will play this through the xmas break as well.

The Sound:

The music is awesome. You’ve got your mix of Jazzy noir detective music in there with the usual tribal epics. I really enjoyed this one.

For the voice acting they took some talent that may be familiar to you sci-fi buffs. A few from the cast of Firefly/Serenity. Nathan Filion for one! I enjoyed hearing them and quite often in Firefight you might hear Nathan yell out “Bam said the lady”. Which is always good for a laugh.

The Bottom Line:

It’s slightly different than previous Halo titles, but if it wasn’t your cup of tea before. Chances are it might not be still. However, I do suggest trying the story mode with a friend at least.

This game has two different version that you can purchase in stores. The special edition, comes with a controller and the game and just the game. In the game package you have Halo 3: ODST and the Halo 3 Multiplayer disc. Now my beef right here is that, in Canada, at EBGames, I was being charged nearly $90 for just the standard edition while the Collectors was a few dollars more. I’m guessing the price will decrease soon enough because that was ridiculous. On amazon.ca I see it for $69 so that’s not so bad.

In the package you also apparently get to play the Reach beta at some point when it become available. However I don’t have a clue how they want us to redeem this.

Pros:
- I like the ODST story.
- Firefight.
- Halo 3 Multiplayer bundled if you don’t already own it.
- Halo Reach beta when it comes around.

Cons:
- Storyline is rather short. (If your looking to sink hours in a campaign you may only find that through replay and trying to get scores.)
- Price may be steep.

The Save Factor:
This is a hard sell for Bungie.  I think the idea of packaging the multi with ALL downloadable maps is a very nice bonus. Especially for those who might not have halo 3 or didn’t want to pay for additional content. The $69 dollar price range for the regular edition is rather high in my mind. I do think this is a wonderful game but I’d say wait until it’s $60 or below. As for the collectors edition. I highly suggest it, you get an additional controller for just a little over standard retail! I have 6 controllers total now. Lots to spare and change depending my mood. For the Collectors Edition $99 is a rather good Save Factor.

The Image Gallery: (taken from Bungie.Net and Wikimedia)

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The Elephant in the room for the next few weeks.

Here’s what I got

Here’s a short video if you care to watch.

So what are my impressions on this so far?

I like it. The music is moody. The voice acting is very familiar. I like retracing my squad’s steps in the campaign mode. Did I say it was moody? So far the campaign has kept me interested. After a bit we decided to get into the Firefight mode. I was slightly let down by the fact that it only allows two players on the console at a time. On all previous Halo games you could play 1-4 on just one console. I’m looking forward to putting more time into this. I’ve read the campaign is fairly short.

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So I tried to find why the game was collectively bashed by reviewers as one of the worst games of the year, if not the worse when there was a lot worse games that came out, and even some of those that were rated incredibly highly (see GTAIV). I realized that there was something screwed up with the reviewing industry as a whole, and decided to check what was wrong with it.

Unreasonable expectations
That’s one of the big problems with the reviewing industry, and gamers as a whole. People set completely stupid expectations for no reason. “Too Human has been in development for a bunch of years, it HAS to be one of the best things ever!” and then when the game comes out and isn’t the best game ever, people overreact about ever single little flaw, and, despite the game not exactly being bad, the community as a whole completely shun’s it. It happens with a lot of games. It happened with Brawl, it happened with Twilight Princess and it happens with just about every big release. Whether it be critically acclaimed or not, most games will have a bunch of people saying it wasn’t as good as they thought it would be, and just ignore it completely, no matter if it’s good or not.

This can be easily corrected. People just need to stop hyping the hell out of every game coming out and then their expectations will be more likely to be met. For example, with Brawl, I had high expectations, but I KNEW that it wouldn’t be incredibly different from Melee, and the reason for my high expectations was because both games would be similar. But people were expecting something that would completely shatter the foundation of the gaming world. Of course, it didn’t do that, and the people who expected too much were disappointed. Just tone down your expectations, and don’t base your reviews on your unreasonable expectations.

Scores (and the way people write their reviews)
OH scores. Now I like those. The one thing in gaming that not only has changed in all those years, but has just become completely stupid. Scoring games has become a confusing and weird thing. And most of the time it has to do with how much they were paid to give a good score. In forums I mostly see people ranting about how awesome the game they like is better than others because it has a score that is 0.1/10 higher than the other big game.

So what is 9.3/10? What makes it so different from 9.2/10? And what do all those scores mean. Before, 6/10 (or 3/5) was an average score. Not a bad game, but could’ve been much better. 7 to 8/10 was a good game with a few flaws that make it hard to play, or less fun than it could be. Over 8/10 is a great game, with few flaws taht keep it from being incredible, and over 9 is a must-have, with 10 being a pretty much unnatainable score unless it really broke the boundaries of the genre and did something simply amazing (Ocarina of Time comes to mind). Anything under 6/10 is no good unless you really like the series or genre, and the lower it goes, the worse it is. But now, ALL OF THIS CHANGED. Now, anything under 8 is considered bad unless you like the genre, and between 8 and 9 is considered average. And over 9? Well it depends on the hype and the fanbase. Seemingly 9.3 and 9.4 are completely different scores from what I read, and a game that gets 9.4 is gonna be VASTLY better than a game that gets 9.3 (using the gaming community as a whole to illustrate this, you should see all the fuss about huge scores given to KZ2 yet it not passing other games in their average score, even if by just 0.1 points). This is completely ridiculous.

The way reviewers score needs to change. Or needs to stop completely. “But a review without a score isn’t a review!”. Well of course it is. Read the review. See what the game is about and if that interests you. See what that person thought about it, and then if that didn’t satisfy you, read more reviews (without looking at the score, preferably) and watch video reviews which really show what the game will be like. Reviewers, if they want to stay with a /10 scale like they’re using now for the most part, need to actually use that scale properly like I described earlier.

Don’t look at scores, look at gameplay videos and such, and read what the flaws and good things about the game are. That way, instead of stupidly just buying anything that get 9 or above, you’ll find gems, games that score lower but that are still great.

Repetitiveness (AKA The “this game is no different than others in the series so i’ll give it a low score, but Halo is no different than any other FPS on the market so we’ll give it 10/10″ syndrome)
Now that is one of the funnier aspects of video game reviewing. By now, First-Person Shooters is the big genre, and for the most part they go with the “let’s be like Halo”style. And, other than a few”bad” ones out there (such as Haze), even if they look and play just like the Halo series, they constantly get praised for their awesomeness. But let’s, once again, use Brawl as an example. As most non-stupid people expected, the basic gameplay is quite similar to Melee in just about every way, other than the new air-dodge system (which makes wave-dashing impossible) and a few other new elements. But the basics are the same. Reviewers though, thought it was reasonable to review the game lower because it played similarily to Melee. “It’s more of the same” or “It’s not as much of a change from Melee as I thought it would be”. But does that REALLY warant giving a lower score? Not really. Brawl is still a really good game.

But now, let’s look at what’s wrong with this picture: A bunch of FPS games(that are pretty much flooding the market by now) that play pretty much the same are all awesome and not repetitive at all, but Brawl, which was the first game in the series, is not liked as much as it should because it plays like the one before (despite having a bunch of new gameplay elements, a more fleshed-out story mode, a bunch of secrets and just being genuinely super fun to play). Why is it fine for FPS to all be exactly the same (thank you Mirror’s Edge and Portal for showing me that there’s still some innovation that can be done with the genre) while it’s not okay for Brawl to be like Melee? What kind of idiotic double-standards are that? Not saying that all the FPS coming out n the recent years are bad, there’s a bunch of really good ones (Halo, KZ2, CoD4 and WaW), but if certain games and series can be looked down upon because of that, why are FPS (or other Gears of War-like games for that matter) somehow free from this? I really don’t understand that.

Reviewers getting paid
Well, this HAD to come up, didn’t it? It’s no secret that big video game sites often get paid to give high reviews for games. There’s no denying it. It went to the extreme of that when Gamespot released the Kane and Lynch review. They were getting paid a LOT ot advertise the game, and obviously to give the game a great review. But the reviewer (Jeff Gerstmann), gave it a relatively negative review. Pointing out all the flaws, saying what was done wrong. Basically, he was DOING EXACTLY WHAT A REVIEWER SHOULD BE DOING. But because gamespot was funded for the game, he was fired on the spot. Yeah, crazy isn’t it?

That’s right. Reviewers aren’t encouraged to do their job properly. They’re asked to give the scores they were paid for and ignore anything bad about the game. That makes reviews a bit… hard to believe. That’s why user reviews are a lot easier to believe, or blogs such as this that have no link to video game companies (yet… trying to find out how to get review copies…).

What is important in a game?
That’s one thing that really needs to change. Gameplay is obviously the most important part of a game, and that should be reflected in the score more than it is now. Good graphics is great, but if the game just requires you to press a button from time to time and nothing else, the super badass graphics will not make it better. A story is important but if the parts in-between story segments aren’t fun, the ZOMGAWESOME story won’t help make the game better. I love good music in a game as much as the next guy, but that’s just as important as graphics when you compare its importance to gameplay.

In the end, a reviewer should tell you if a game is FUN TO PLAY. The graphics, sounds, story, those are all secondary elements to a game. Sure, if they’re all superb they should affect a game’s score in a review, but if they’re not exactly up to par doesn’t mean it should be hated. Case in point: If a game isn’t fun to play, any of the secondary elements won’t help. That’s the message reviewers should be trying to give when reviewing games, and elements like graphics, sound and story shouldn’t affect a person’s enjoyment of a game as much as gameplay does. If a game has horrible controls, bad physics(yay for cars rocketting hundreds of feet in the air after hitting a wall*coughGTAIVcough*) and is just no fun to play, none of the other elements will make it good.

Conclusion
So what am I trying to say? Well, the video game reviewing world is filled with corruption, bad practices and people who don’t know how to write reviews. That can easily change. Change the way review scores are done, change the way review writing as a whole is done, actually look at the important parts of a game instead of being superficial about it, stop being hypocritical, keep your expectations low so you’ll almost never be disappointed, don’t just give high scores because you were given money and last but not least: GAMES ARE SUPPOSED TO BE FUN. You have to realize that you’re playing with a toy. A technologically advanced and expensive toy, but a toy nonetheless, and you shouldn’t threat games any differently that you do toys or movies o other forms of entertainement. You’re there to have fun, and nothing else, and reviewers should reflect that idea.

Jobocan, over and out!

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I’ve compiled a list of the great games coming out next year, so check it out to see if it’s gonna be a good year for you.
Of course, some games are not confirmed for 2009, and there might be some games that haven’t been announced yet, so this is in no way a 100% complete list, but it should include enough to have interesting games for every gamer out there.
Well, without delay let’s jump into this!

 Arc Rise Fantasia
Looks like a “Tales of…” game, could be interesting. An interesting Wii game

Another Code / Trace Memory
The first on the DS was pretty interesting, the new Wii version could be good.

Batman: Arkham Asylum
Lots of potential here. The atmosphere seems great, now we need to see some gameplay.

Bayonetta
This looks crazy. Disregarding the hot chick getting naked to do certain attacks… the gameplay could potentially be at a Devil May Cry level of awesomeness

The Beatles
Made by Harmonix… If you like The Beatles, why not?

Bionic Commando
Despite the lame looking main character, the game looks pretty fun.

The Conduit
A first-person shooter on the Wii, graphics look good, and if the controls are as good as Metroid Prime 3, it could be really good.

Cross Edge (X-Edge)
Darkstalkers+Disgaea+a bunch of other random franchises? There’s Prinnies, so I’m in, but the game actually looks good. Look forward to this on the PS3 in March.

Duke Nukem Trilogy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6K00DCK1l98 Not much more to say, since I saw NO info on it, but if it does come out in 2009, I’ll be getting it for sure.

Dragon Quest 9
It’s Dragon Quest, nothing more to say. Changed from action RPG to turn-based during development, let’s see how the first numbered DQ game fares on a handheld.

Deadly Creatures
You control a spider or a snake througha huge desert. I’ll definitely rent this, lots of potential. Finally something on the Wii.

Dark Void
I remember seeing a trailer for this, looked pretty fun… Not much more to say since I know little about it.

Deus Ex 3
Haven’t played the previous games in the series (maybe i should…) but if this does come out in 2009, it should be well worth looking out.

Diablo 3
May not be a 2009 release for sure, but I’ve been anticipating this since the expansion to the second one came out. A 2009 release would definitely be awesome. The game looks awesome, and is probably gonna be as good as the first 2.

EyePet
This better fucking be free… If it is i’ll download it just to see how it works. Then delete it because it’s gonna suck despite being a fun little toy.

Fat Princess
Looks to be a fun little downloadable game. 

Fight Night Round 4
Really liked Round 3, so this one should be fun. And Mike Tyson is there! Ear-eating for illegal move would be awesome

Final Fantasy Dissidia
We should have a review for this soon, but until then those people who don’t know japanese like me will have to wait until the US version in 2009.

Final Fantasy XIII
Probably not a 2009 release in the US, but in Japan it should be out. Let’s hope that a current-gen FF is gonna be really good. I really can’t wait to see what they’ll do with it.

Final Fantasy Versus XIII
I have yet to see any gameplay, or know when it’s coming out, but it could be pretty nice, and a 2009 release would be good.

Final Fantasy Agito XIII
Not sure what this one is about, all I know is that it’s a cellphone game gone PSP. We’ll see.

Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time
A Wii/DS game? How will that work? Well, we’ll see, it could potentially be really fun… As long as it’s better than the FF:CC on the Gamecube…

Forza Motorsport 3
The 360s response to Gran Turismo 5… oh wait… Well I didn’t play the previous games, but I did hear some good things. I’ll be sure to try this one out (now that I have a 360)

Ghostbusters: The Video Game
YES PLEASE. The trailer was so awesome, I’m sure to buy it. The game looks quite interesting other than the fact that it’s Ghostbusters.

God of War III
I hate God of War. Lame QTE-fest….. But it’s long awaited, and if it comes out in 2009 it’s gonna be one of the biggest PS3 games of the year. No matter what I think it’ll be big, and even I will give it a chance.

Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars
GTA, on DS. Interesting idea, I’m curious about this.

Halo 3: ODST
It’s Halo 3, nothing more to say…

Halo Wars
Incredibly generic RTS that Halo fans are already trying to make lamer! “This button should shoot grenades!” WTF. Well, it’s potentially interesting, but we’ll see.

Heavy Rain
Great graphics… QTE-fest, but I think the main focus here is the story, which changes depending on what you do, and if you die the story actually goes on. Will definitely rent this. Not sure if it’s a 2009 release, but whatever.

The House of the Dead: Overkill
Killing zombies is always fun. So this should be fun too.

InFamous
An open world game using a guy with lightning-based super powers. Lots of potential, let’s hope they do it properly.

Indiana Jones
Not much info on it. If it comes out in 2009, I’ll check it out.

Klonoa: Door to Phantomile
It’s a remake of the first Klonoa. Will be fun.

Killzone 2
Great graphics. That’s just about all I know. We’ll see if it’s gonna live up to the hype

Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days
KH on DS. The very short gameplay I’ve seen looked fast-paced and really good.

Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep
KH on PSP. Looks great.

The King of Fighters XII
Proof that 2D should never die, even in current/net-gen consoles. It looks great and seems to play great.

MadWorld
Not sure about this. If the gameplay complements the over-the-top violence, should be good.

Mario & Luigi RPG 3
The first 2 were kinda fun.

Massive Action Game
256 players online. That’s basically all I know. No gameplay was seen but people are hyping this up like crazy. Let’s prepare to be disappointed right away.

Muramasa: The Demon Blade
2D beat-em up game I think? Made by Vanillaware, the guys behind Odin Sphere. Should be an interesting Wii title.

Ninja Blade
I lost all interest when Wintrale told me it was just a big QTE-fest, but it might still be interesting. The demo coming soon should help make a good decision on this.

Onechanbara: Bikini Zombie Slayers (Wii)/
Onechanbara: Bikini Samurai Squad (Xbox 360)
Japanese Schoolgirls killing zombies with katanas. On 2 consoles, so most likely you’ll be able to experience it. I’ll most likely be going for the 360 version though.

Prinny: Can I Really Be the Hero?
You play as a Prinny, who wouldn’t want to get this? The demo was great, let’s hope the full game is just as good.

Prototype
Another game I know nothing about, but it’s really hyped. We might see what it’s all about in 11 days though (official website countdown)

Phantom Brave Wii
ORLY? Okay, I’ve already played a lot of Phantom Brave on the PS2, but if you didn’t, check it out. Really fun strategy RPG.

Punch-Out!!
HOLY SHIT! PUNCH OUT!! Though Nintendo seems hell bent on making lame games like Wii Music, it seems they got the right idea as to what to do for “core” audiences, and this looks awesome.

Resident Evil 5
It’s Resident Evil…yay! Rental only for me since I suck at RE games, but still potentially interesting.

Sin and Punishment 2
I have yet to get the N64 version on the Virtual Console, but I did play it once and it was fun, so the sequel should be nice.

Sonic and the Black Knight
Okay, after what sounds like a deception with Unleashed, I can’t really get excited for this. But there might be potential.

Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis Collection
Now that’s Sonic at its best. And there’s a bunch of other games that aren’t Sonic too. You might already have all of those on other compilation discs, or emulators, but if not, and if the price is right, why not?

Splatterhouse
Remake of the first? That’s what I read. Could be good. Maybe.

Star Ocean: The Last Hope
Not exactly sure what to say about this one. It’s Star Ocean. The previous games in the series were fun. I’ll be sure to at least rent it.

StarCraft II
The first starcraft was and still is great, the sequel looks just as good. Check the 21 minute battle report, great stuff there.

Street Fighter IV
A sequel to SF2, fun. From various videos I’ve seen it looks really good, and the console versions have more characters than the arcade.

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
The first was fun, if the sequel improves on a couple elements it could be really good.

The Witcher: Rise of the White Wolf
Didn’t play the PC version, but it seems interesting enough, especially since the console versions will apparently have more stuff in them.

White Knight Chronicles
Another game we’ll hear about relatively soon on here, with hopefully a review in January. Level 5 makes relatively good games most of the time, this could be nice.

Wolfenstein
Wolfenstein 3D was good for its time(though it didn’t age well) and Return to Castle Wolfenstein was really good. If it comes out in 2009, I’ll be playing it.

Yakuza 3
The first 2 were good, let’s see if the PS3 one is good as well.

 

So that’s it for now. Lots of great games coming on all systems, this sounds like it’s gonna be another great year in gaming, no matter which system you have. I did leave some games out, but I couldn’t find ALL the games coming out in 2009. And some are probably yet to be announced.

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