by: John Olin

October 10, 2009

As a genuine Halo fanboy I can’t say that I had to big of hopes for Halo 3 ODST but I knew that at the very least, it was going to be more of what I craved and that was Halo. I’m pretty sure that if Microsoft made Halo tampons I would pick them up for the old lady when the need arose. With Halo 3 ODST it was no different, and like 2 million+ suckers out there I decided to cough up the sixty-dollar admission fee and dive into the world of the Orbital Drop Shock Troopers. Suffice to say, Halo 3 ODST will surprise naysayers with its up close-and-personal gameplay, entertaining Firefight mode, and its overall solid package. What won’t surprise you is that despite packing a lot of content the journey won’t last long, and the price is most certainly not worth it.

So what took us so long to write up the review? When I initially received the title we had Noah Hess’ take on the game already done, but I wanted to do a little experiment and see what happens when the hyperbole ceases to pump through your brain, and if the same seven-month plus addiction I have had to every other Halo (excluding Halo Wars) would last here. Needless to say, besides an achievement here and there, some Firefight, and the occasional stint in Halo 3’s multiplayer I’ve overcome both the hype and addiction in less than two weeks. What’s worse is feeling like I bought a prize horse with its legs broke. Don’t get me wrong, Halo 3 ODST is incredibly addictive at first, but the lack of new content and lack of content in general would make it a tough sell, had it had something other than the Halo brand attached to it.

The “Halo Tax”
Once the “Halo Effect” wore off the second day and I had beaten the game on it’s easier than past Halo titles “Legendary” campaign difficulty, dabbled with Firefight, and messed around with the three new Halo 3 maps I began to feel a part of myself die. In less than three days (or a weekend) I had 32/47 possible achievements, and these achievements also are tied directly in with much of the game’s replay value. I began to realize that just as Microsoft’s “Apple Tax” was about brand, Microsoft had a $20 “Halo tax” added on to Halo 3 ODST. Another way to look at it, is taking the awesome Valve created compilation pack The Orange Box as a means of measurement against Halo 3 ODST. While it had older content like ODST, it still managed to pack in three different games that were totally new, and could have been $60 by themselves had Valve chose to let greed get the best of them. The only people that will really get at least close to their money’s worth is the small percentage of Halo players that hadn’t bought a single Halo 3 map. In that case you receive the three downloadable map packs on a second disc included (with a total value of $30) and three addition maps you can only buy in ODST. If you are one of the five people that never bought any of this content congratulation, otherwise let me show you the way to Suckerville.