AU Shippin' Out September 21-25: Halo 3: ODST

Fans can start strapping on their boots and charging up the ol’ plasma rifle ahead of this week’s release of anticipated first-person shooter, Halo 3: ODST. Designed as a prequel campaign to the events that take place between Halo 2 and Halo 3, this stand-alone expansion puts you in the role of one of the orbital shock drop troopers present during the invasion of New Mombasa by the Covenant. The game adds new weapons, locations, and all previous Halo 3 multiplayer maps from the Heroic, Legendary, and Mythic map packs on an additional disc. ODST also includes a new cooperative Firefight multiplayer Mode, which sees you battle waves of enemies that increase in difficulty the longer you're able to survive. Halo 3: ODST is out Tuesday, September 22 exclusively on the Xbox 360.

Also out this week is Aion: Tower of Eternity, a brand new massively multiplayer online role-playing game from MMO veteran developer, NCsoft. The game features standard fare player-versus-environment and player-versus-player combat using RPG archetypes, including clerics, sorcerers, and warriors. The game also adds midair combat rather than simply relying on flight to navigate the fantasy world setting in which the game takes place. How this will do in an already saturated MMO marketplace against the likes of behemoth World of Warcraft remains a mystery, but Aussie preorder sales are already suggesting it could have some legs. It's out Tuesday on the PC.

September 22, 2009
Halo 3: ODST (360)
Aion: Tower of Eternity (PC)

September 23, 2009
Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 (PS3, Wii)
Professor Layton and Pandora's Box (DS)

September 24, 2009
Section 8 (360, PC)
Spyborgs (Wii)
Need for Speed: Shift (360, PS3, PC, PSP)
Dead Space Extraction (Wii)

September 25, 2009
Katamari Forever (PS3)
Batman: Arkham Asylum (PC)
Dirt 2 (DS)
Mini Ninjas (360, PS3, PC, Wii, DS)