The game shines in some parts and completely falters in others
STORY:
Both interesting and horrible the game takes place in between halo 2 and halo3 you are a Rookie in this orbital drop shock troopers squad (ODST) your mission is to drop on a covenant battle ship as you and your squad are dropping the ship slipspaces in the city itself and it knocks you and your squad all apart from each other and you wake up six hours later to look for and re-live some moments of your squad's past in the heat of the battle in the city...also they crowbar a love story into it and its the worst piece of trash you will ever see the two lovers quarrel while a battle is going on and it always seem out of place when they talk about their relationship and the characters are very annoying you will adore the rookie because he has Gordon freeman syndrome of not talking like the rest of your very annoying squad mates
Gameplay:
They added some new elements to the Halo formula to make this game not feel like a cut and paste expansion and they do it pretty well but they forgot a couple of very important things along the way
First things first lets mention the new aspects the weapons are both the silenced SMG and new pistol and well they are both mixed the silenced SMG (which is your default weapon) isn't that powerful it looks cooler than it actually is you want to use it because its new but it plays exactly like the SMG the pistol on the other hand is amazing against un-shielded opponents you will make head shots on jackals and grunts a second nature and when the brutes finally loose their shields kill them with your pistol another new element is you are weaker and melee kills won't really do it like master chief you need to rethink your strategy against all familiar opponents (even grunts) the game feels newer because all your old strategies will fail you need to think about what to do mostly take them out from a far you don't have rechargeable shields you only have a health bar that will go down if you do master chief strategies also there is a cool visor mode that brighten areas up nicely
The game also boasts a free roaming city well that is a lie the game isn't that open worlded it is basically one huge levels and that's it you only play in the open world sections as the rookie and you basically have to explore at night New Mombasa after the battles are fought the city is pretty void of any life there are some covenant patrols but you can hide from them or take them out from afar with your silenced pistol also the map system is annoying you lay out a plan how to get from point A to point B only to be stopped by a very annoying immovable shutter and have to rethink your whole plan and backtrack a lot of times that is not open world that's horrible programing
Also what happened to the brilliant A.I. that we all know and love this is the game's biggest problem when you play the past segments you are in a battle with human A.I. team mates and they don't do anything we all know friendly A.I. in all Halo games were bad but this is barely adequate you want to know what they do? nothing!!!! I have died more times from enemies flanking me and I know my teammates are in that location I turn around they are literally staring at the covenant that's it they just look at the covenant and point at them and you do most of the work and its annoying (due to limited health) at least in Halo 3 they actually shot and killed enemies...also the A.I. of the enemies aren't up to par either they still use the same tactics but their path finding is pretty bad they will get stuck in stair wells and walk into walls and makes you actually miss the Halo 3 A.I system
Another annoying aspect of the game is the very limited ammo system the guns the enemies drop or you have are limited to a surprisingly low number now yes this game isn't all run and gun but I found myself fighting brutes with only a plasma pistol and thinking why? why isn't there any ammo here? the covenant weapons are also drained of ammo and use it for a short time even in the battle segments it just makes no sense
Multiplayer:
The only fun part of this game there is 4 player co-op or Fire fight now fire fight is like a Gears of war2 Horde mode which sounds fun and it is but the problem is at every round they add random skulls into the game and the waves don't seem to get bigger ya it just seems every round (and I played fire fight for hours on heroic and got the vid master achievement and continued not bragging) it gets harder due to skulls they add and once again annoyingly limited ammo system but it is fun with 4 people and there are 10 maps to fight in (but they are just from the single player campaign) and you will spend some time on it
Also the game comes with a halo 3 multiplayer disc meaning every single halo 3 map and 3 new ones are on it its amazing for people who never played halo3 multiplayer or never bought the DLC but for vets its just 3 new maps and that's it no inclusion of the ODST weapons which is disappointing
Graphics:
The graphics are the typical halo graphics they didn't really do anything the only thing they did was make it dark...too dark really some times the visor won't light up certain areas how dark it is
Audio:
The same in any halo game decent music, same covenant voices and human voices...but your ODST allies and cut scenes are just annoying I hate them so much I skip them
Pro's
Changes the halo formula so it doesn't feel cut and paste, new pistol is epic, can't run and gun, fire fight, the city is interesting to explore even when there is nothing to shoot at, like how it takes place between halo2 and halo3, no flood!!!!!, controls are the same,halo 3 multiplayer maps for those who never cared or are new, hold onto the ODST disc for the new Halo Reach beta
Con's
A.I. system, your allies personalities, the weirdly placed love story, the legendary end cutscene (wtf?),very limited ammo, not open worlded, city is too dark at times, not very long, fire fight has mandatory skulls and limited ammo, no inclusion of ODST weapons in halo3 multiplayer, a decent amount of bugs in glitches which is odd for a halo game
Overall:
The only thing that saves this game is the multiplayer co-op and fire fight the story is decent until you get to the middle of the game if your a fan you probably already picked it up but if you didn't then I would say yes you will fall in love with halo again for atleast a while and it will oddly get you back into the multiplayer....good luck getting recon!!