Halo 3 ODST

Halo 3: ODST is a first-person shooter video game, developed by Bungie and published by Microsoft. It was released on the Xbox 360 video game console exclusively on September 22, 2009, being nearly two years after the initial release of Halo 3. Players assume the roles of elite human United Nations Space Command soldiers known as Orbital Drop Shock Troopers (ODSTs) during the events of Halo 2 and Halo 3. After the alliance of alien races known as the Covenant attack Earth, the player explores the ruined city of New Mombasa to discover what happened to their missing teammates, separated from each other as they entered the city.
Bungie initially conceived ODST as a small side project to produce in the lull between Halo 3's completion and Halo: Reach. Instead of featuring recognizable characters such as the Master Chief from previous games, the developers focused on the ODSTs. Story director Joseph Staten penned a detective story utilizing film noir settings, design, and characters. Composer Martin O'Donnell abandoned his previous Halo themes to create a quieter, jazz-influenced sound. During development, the game grew in scope to that of a full-sized game

Halo 3: ODST is a shooter video game with gameplay taking place from a first-person perspective. Although the gameplay of ODST bears a strong resemblance to previous Halo titles, the player does not assume the role of the enhanced human supersoldier Master Chief. Instead, the player controls a lone UNSC soldier, known as the Rookie. Since the player does not possess Master Chief's advanced armor and reflexes, he cannot jump as high or move as fast. Instead of the Chief's damage-absorbing energy shield, the game uses a stamina mechanic. After taking damage, the screen flashes red; the player regains stamina by resting. If the player receives more damage past their stamina threshold, their health takes a permanent hit. Players restore permanent health via the use of medpacks scattered around the game environments.
As an ODST the player has access to exclusive weapons, including a suppressed submachine gun and pistol that is a throwback to the Halo: Combat Evolved weapon.
The soldier HUD is different from the previous series, with red outlines for the enemies thanks to a new feature called the VISR (Visual Intelligence System, Reconnaissance). The VISR also gives you a compass and outlines important items in yellow, but has no radar. However, the aiming reticule remains. It also includes an open world environment.
The game's campaign mode can be played alone or with up to three other players. As the Rookie, the player's goal is to discover what happened to his missing teammates. After finding a piece of evidence left behind (a sniper rifle hanging on a lamppost, for example) a flashback is triggered and the player assumes the role of the missing soldier in a daytime setting. After players find the first beacon, the choice of where to go next is up to the player. This leads to the option which, unlike other Halo games, will allow the player to play the campaign levels in any order they want. Lead producer Curtis Creamer has stated that the campaign's length is similar to that of previous Halo games.
Multiplayer
In lieu of a complete ODST multiplayer option, the game ships with Halo 3's multiplayer contained on a separate disc. The 24 maps consist of the original eleven Halo 3 maps (Construct, Epitaph, Guardian, High Ground, Isolation, Last Resort, Narrows, Sandtrap, Snowbound, The Pit, Valhalla), the Heroic map pack (Foundry, Rat's Nest, Standoff), the Legendary map pack (Avalanche, Blackout, Ghost Town), the Cold Storage map, and the Mythic map pack (Assembly, Orbital, and Sandbox) as well as three new maps (Citadel, Heretic, Longshore). The exclusive maps are also counted as Mythic maps and are tied into Halo 3's achievements. In addition to the Halo 3 maps, ODST will include a fully integrated version of the forge map editor from Halo 3. The Halo 3 multiplayer does not require Halo 3 to play and ships on a separate disc. Additionally, installing the second disc to the hard drive will not enable you to use the original Halo 3 disc to play with the new maps.
ODST also contains a new game cooperative game mode called Firefight. Firefight has been compared to Gears of War 2's Horde mode, where players take on increasingly difficult waves of varied enemies and see how long they can last. Firefight includes new medals as well as the ability to play co-operatively with up to three other players over Xbox LIVE or System Link. The team has a team pool of lives, which is added to after set rounds, and the game ends upon their depletion and all player's deaths. Skulls have been incorporated into Firefight as a means to increase the difficulty and provide variation. Some of the maps used in Firefight are unlocked as the player progresses through the single-player campaign, and there are a total of ten, of which three are unlockable. It is also noted that the enemy characters appearing in each wave are randomly generated, meaning players are unable to anticipate the strength of the next wave prior to its arrival. As you progress inside Firefight, you will get more and more characters to unlock. Players are awarded medals for making special kills, and individual and team scores are tracked throughout the games. Firefight also incorporates the Halo 3: ODST score, adding music that reflects the general mood of a map. Inside Firefight, the player(s) has/have a shared pool of 7 lives, which are replenished after completing special bonus rounds.

Setting
Main article: Halo (series)#Story

Halo series chronology
Halo WarsHalo: ReachHalo: Combat EvolvedHalo 2Halo 3: ODST

Halo 3 ODST takes place in the 26th century, where humans under the command of the United Nations Space Command (UNSC) are locked in a war with a theocratic alliance of alien races known as the Covenant. During the events of the 2004 video game Halo 2, the Covenant discover the location of Earth and launch an assault on the city of New Mombasa in Africa. Though the UNSC manages to repel most of the fleet, a single ship lands above the city and eventually retreats via a slipspace jump, creating a shockwave that destroys much of the city. While the rest of Halo 2's storyline follows the carrier to a ringworld called Halo, ODST focuses on the aftermath of the shockwave, where the Covenant still occupy the city.
Characters
The game's protagonist, the Rookie, is a young unnamed member of a special military unit, the Orbital Drop Shock Troopers, known as ODSTs or Helljumpers. ODSTs often deploy in small, one-man Human Entry Vehicles (HEVs), launched from spaceships in the upper atmosphere. During the game, the Rookie is separated from his five teammates and must find out what happened to them with the guidance of a city maintenance AI known as the Superintendent. The Rookie's teammates are Buck, Dutch, Romeo, Mickey, and Dare, a UNSC Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) agent in charge of the squad's operation.
Plot
The game begins with Dutch, Romeo, Mickey and the Rookie discussing plans for assaulting Regret's ship. Buck arrives and introduces Dare, an ONI officer who is put in charge of their mission. The team enter their HEVs and drop through the atmosphere towards the ship; at the last minute, Dare changes their trajectory to miss the carrier. The ship enters slipspace, sending a shockwave and an EMP towards the ODSTs; the Rookie's pod collides with another and crashes to the ground, knocking him unconscious for six hours. He awakens and proceeds to find clues as to what happened to his squadmates. Along the way, he discovers clues and evidence of his squad's exploits while he was unconscious.
Buck awakens after the drop and fights through Covenant to find Dare. When he arrives at her pod he finds only her charred helmet. Romeo saves Buck from an Engineer and the two resolve to get out of the city. Dutch drops near a nature preserve and helps Marines while he goes to the city. Mickey commandeers a tank and fights his way along a Mombasa boulevard. Meeting up with Dutch, the two defend an ONI base from the Covenant, blowing a bridge to slow the enemy. However, they are quickly overrun and forced to destroy the facility to keep it from being captured. Fortunately, they are evacuated by a Pelican and they make contact with Buck, arranging a rendezvous at the police headquarters. However, when Buck and Romeo arrive, they see the Pelican get shot down and crash. They rescue Dutch and Mickey, but Romeo is seriously wounded in the fight, insisting the squad to hijack a Phantom transport. However, instead of leaving the city, Buck decides to turn back and find Dare.
Back in the city, the Rookie is assisted by the Superintendent, a "dumb AI", which leads him to Dare's position. She and the Rookie team up to reach the Superintendent's data core, which possesses crucial information on something underneath the city that the Covenant are looking for. After fighting through a large Covenant force, they reach the core to find an Engineer hiding within. Dare explains that the Engineers had been enslaved by Covenant and this particular one decided to defect to the humans. It had downloaded the Superintendent's data into itself and Dare's mission is to escort it to safety. The Rookie, Dare, and the Engineer reunite with Buck and they manage to fight their way out of the city. As they fly away in the captured Phantom, the squad watches as the Covenant destroys New Mombasa to excavate whatever is underneath it.
In the epilogue, the squad is keeping guard over the Engineer in a UNSC orbital station. Sergeant Johnson then arrives, informing the Engineer that he intends to ask it everything it knows about the Covenant and whatever it is they're looking for.

Development

Design
Much of ODST's development team started work on director Peter Jackson's Halo Chronicles, during the production of Halo 3. However the failure of the Halo film and the subsequent cancellation of Chronicles meant that a sizeable team no longer had a project. At about the same time, production for Halo: Reach began, and Bungie realized that there was a window of time for the team to create a new product, what producer Curtis Creamer described as a two-to-three-hour "mini-campaign". After looking at the proposal and the budget, studio head Harold Ryan gave the go-ahead.
With a game engine already assembled, and the Halo universe fully realized, the team began honing the concept. Bungie was interested in bringing changes to the classical Halo format which had remained essentially unchanged over three games. The developers spent weeks deliberating what characters to focus on. Having players control previous protagonists such as the Master Chief or Arbiter would have brought with it story baggage and expectations. At one point, they considered making the game a Covenant-themed story about an elite strike force. Instead, the developers looked at human characters; while they considered making Avery Johnson the protagonists they settled on were the ODSTs. "The ODSTs have always been fan favorites," Bungie community director Brian Jarrard explained. "We never really got inside [the ODSTs]," Staten said, and saw that game as an opportunity to flesh out the black-armored soldiers.
Making the player an ODST required game play changes to preserve the classic Halo formula but branch it in new directions. The addition of silenced weapons and a revamped pistol were attempts to split up the functionality of Halo 2 and Halo 3's "battle rifle" weapon and give the ODSTs some unique and "cool" armaments; the sound designers ended up increasing the volume of the SMG in order to make it feel more powerful. The health mechanic was added to provide a level of tension; "it reminds you that you're vulnerable," Staten said.
With the main characters in place, the development team had to decide on a setting. "The events that unfolded on Earth is something fans still clamor for after being 'short changed' in Halo 2," Jarrard said. "Fans wanted to know what happened back on Earth, how humanity was defending it." New Mombasa's urban environments fit the intended feel of the game, as Bungie felt that the change of protagonists required a change in location: "We know the kinds of problems Master Chief solves," story director Joseph Staten explained. "He goes to ancient, alien ring artifacts, fights galaxy-consuming parasitic alien monsters and destroys alien empires [...] The ODST, they maybe take small parts in that larger struggle. But the kind of fights they usually get into are usually the kind of fights they can tackle in a day."Returning to a previous setting offered the artists new challenges and opportunities to expand the scope of the city. Having the player walk through the streets at night inspired a film noir ambiance. Color shifts and a high degree of contrast pushed the game's look beyond what previous Halo games had offered, but the team had to make sure that even dark portions of the city were playable. The entire core development team looked at commissioned concept paintings to decide how lighting schemes would affect the gameplay. The genre also influenced the character names and archetypes. The player character, for example, fit the concept of a lone, hardboiled detective. To increase the depth of the surroundings, Bungie added touches such as advertisements, trash collectors, and civilian versions of military hardware seen previously.
Bungie began development of ODST in March 2008. ODST was the first Bungie title completed in less than three years; production lasted 14 months. Since the team—numbering around 70 plus a five-person core design group—had such a small window for development, they had to prioritize features; for example, only a small new subset of artificial intelligence behaviors were added rather than completely redesigning the enemies. Because the game featured an open world that was different from most Halo missions, certain gameplay tweaks, such as revamped weapons and an overhead map, were necessary. Whereas in a traditional Halo game the designers would know from what locations players would approach groups of enemies, ODST required a different strategy. "We had to make sure we had groups of Covenant patrolling the city who could react from wherever you attack from and look intelligent doing it," Creamer said. Though the game engine remained unchanged, graphical enhancements such as fullscreen shader system and parallax mapping added greater detail and realism.
The Firefight game mode was a late addition to the game. Staffer Tim Williams built a prototype shortly after Halo 3 shipped, placing the player in a portion of a Halo 3 campaign map and fighting enemies. When development commenced on ODST, William's concept was adopted and refined. Designer Lars Bakken described one advantage of the game mode as providing a more friendly multiplayer environment than hardcore players online. The designers adopted the campaign scoring and medal system from Halo 3 to add a competitive edge.
By December 2008, the game was "representational", meaning that players could experience the game from start to finish, albeit in an unfinished state. The entire Bungie staff was pulled from other duties to play through the game and offer feedback. Among the unfinished elements was the lack of finished dialogue delivered by voice actors; story writer Joseph Staten filled in placeholder audio. The entire game was completed just before its presentation at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in June 2009.

Audio
Bungie's audio director Martin O'Donnell and his partner Michael Salvatori composed the music for ODST, as they have done for previous Halo games. In contrast to Halo' signature gregorian chant, there is no choral music in ODST, and no previous Halo themes make a return appearance. Two out of the game's three hours of music were packaged in a two-disc soundtrack released September 22. Due to ODST's shift to a new protagonist, O'Donnell wanted to create new music that was evocative of Halo but branched in a different direction. Because the game tells a "human story, not a cyborg story", O'Donnell said, the score was more "intimate and personal". For the Rookie's rain-slicked investigations, O'Donnell felt that a jazz-influenced approach worked best in echoing the noir atmosphere. Other characters did not have any themes written for them specifically, but rather became paired with motifs that suited them.
O'Donnell began writing the game's music while Bungie was creating the game's announcement trailer. Salvatori joined the project in February 2009 and helped complete the music chores in two months. Once O'Donnell felt they had enough material, the Chicago-based Salvatori flew to Seattle, finished arrangements and recorded live musicians. Most of the music was recorded during winter and spring 2009. Additional composition chores were handled by Bungie sound designer C. Paul Johnson and orchestrator Stan LePard. Orchestra sessions were handled by the Northwest Sinfonia at Studio X in Washington, who had also recorded the music for Halo 3.
Members of Bungie were fans of the defunct television series Firefly, and in Halo 3's development brought in several of the actors to fill Marine voice roles. Three of them: Nathan Fillion (a Halo fan himself), Adam Baldwin, and Alan Tudyk voice the non-player characters of the four man squad in ODST. Tricia Helfer voices the ONI agent Dare; Helfer and Fillion recorded their cinematic dialog together in the same room, a rarity in voice acting. Staten said that "their performances were stronger having them together at the same time". While much of the cinematic dialogue was written by Staten, combat dialogue could be improvised by the voice actors. Adding Sadie's Story into the game doubled the amount of voice work in the game. After the voice roles were filled, Bungie licensed Fillion and Helfer's likenesses for their respective characters.

Announcements

Microsoft head of Xbox business Don Mattrick told MTV in July 2008 that Bungie was working on a new Halo game for Microsoft, independent of the franchise spinoffs Halo Wars and Halo Chronicles. An announcement of the new Halo project was expected at the Electronic Entertainment Expo 2008 game exposition, with Bungie unveiling a countdown on their web site, but the announcement was shelved by Microsoft. Microsoft stated that it wanted the game to have its own event. On September 25, 2008, a year after the release of Halo 3, Bungie debuted a teaser for the new project on their web site. A full trailer was released during the Tokyo Game Show on October 9, 2008, officially unveiling the game's name as Halo 3: Recon and a release date of Autumn 2009. In an unusual approach for Bungie, the trailer was comprised of pre-rendered graphics, instead of being created using the game engine or existing assets; story director Joseph Staten explained that it was too early in the game's development to spend a large amount of time on the trailer, and it would not have allowed Bungie to add touches for fans to discuss.
In post-trailer interviews, Bungie staff members told gaming press that ODST was the last installment in the Halo trilogy. Though Bungie did not consider the ODST a full game (community manager Luke Smith compared it to The Frozen Throne, an expansion to Warcraft III), the game will ship with all Halo 3 multiplayer maps, and does not require Halo 3 to play. Smith made sure to point out the game would not be a crossover into the stealth and squad-based genres, noting "This isn't Brothers in Arms: Halo or Splinter Cell: Halo." On November 25, Jarrard announced the game had been retitled to Halo 3: ODST as a "more straightforward" description of the game.
Bungie and Microsoft first showed ODST in a playable form at E3 2009, where the game's release date and retail versions were finalized. Bungie initially marketed ODST as a title smaller in scope than previous numbered entries in the series. When the game's retail versions were announced, however, the game received a standard price of $60, which Bungie and Microsoft attributed to the game growing beyond the planned scope. "Over the course of development it got a lot bigger than we were anticipating," said Bungie's Lars Bakken. "We thought of it more as an expansion and then it grew well beyond that." Producer Curtis Creamer explained that since the development platform was stable, "we were able to create quite a bit more content than we originally thought we would". The game's length increased from original estimates of 3-to-5 hours to 8-to-10. The discrepancy was not discussed until E3 2009, when Microsoft decided it was a full game. Unlike the post-launch support for Halo 3, there are no plans for ODST downloadable content.

Release
Halo 3: ODST ships as a two-disc set. The first disc contains the campaign mode as well as the firefight co-op mode, while the second disc contains the multiplayer mode with the complete set of Halo 3 maps. Owners of the game receive an invitation to participate in the upcoming Halo: Reach multiplayer beta in 2010, while pre-orders include a token to unlock recurring Halo character Sgt. Johnson as a playable character in the Firefight multiplayer mode. The Sgt. Johnson skin is downloadable from the Xbox LIVE marketplace. This code is included only by certain retailers. A special edition "Collector's Pack" contains the game and a special ODST-branded wireless Xbox 360 Controller.
By April 2009 market research firm OTX reported that ODST was the most highly-anticipated video game, a spot it also held by late August. Before its release the title was the top-selling game on Amazon.com based on preorders alone, and spent 107 days atop the merchant's top 100 video games and software list. Copies of ODST were sold early in France. Microsoft responded by launching an investigation and threatening to ban any players on Xbox Live playing ODST before its official release; Xbox lead manager Stephen Toulouse later clarified that they would not ban legitimate buyers.
Microsoft prepared a "mammoth" advertising campaign for the game, with Entertainment Director Stephen McGill affirming that the game "is absolutely a key title to us... this is the first time we've ever done anything like this, and Halo 3: ODST is a great way to kick it off." Alongside extensive promotions through Xbox Live, online, print, and television advertising. Marvel Comics published a limited comic series, Helljumper, that features ODST's main characters. Among the other promotional material released for the game was a live-action trailer posted to the internet on September 4. The short was created by advertising agency TAG SF, with props by Legacy Effects and effects by Asylum. The short was directed by production company MJZ, who also handled the award-winning Halo 3 "Believe" advertisement. Legacy designed and fabricated weapons, armor, and a Covenant Brute costume within two weeks. The production then filmed scenes in a Hungarian strip mine for three days; the actors featured were a mixture of ex-military and special operations soldiers.
ODST launch events were held around the United States. Bungie and Microsoft sponsored an official launch event at the Experience Music Project and Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame in Seattle. Featured at the event were discussion panels about the series and advance looks at other Halo content such as Halo Legends. About 800 fans attended from around 6–11 pm before heading to nearby game stores to get their copy of the game.

Halo 3: ODST has garnered positive reviews. It currently holds an 86.45% and 85% average on critic aggregate sites Game Rankings and Metacritic, respectively.
Critics were split on whether ODST merited its full price as a full-sized game. Official Xbox Magazine critic Ryan McCaffrey confidently wrote that given the campaign, multiplayer mode, and second Halo 3 multiplayer disc, "no one should have any qualms about ODST’s value as a $60 offering!" Other critics who judged the title a full game included the staff of Edge Magazine, 1UP.com's Jeremy Parish, and Computer and Video Games' Mike Jackson. Erik Brudvig of IGN did not consider ODST a "true sequel", but more than an expansion, and recommended that those hesitant about buying the game do so. Those who disagreed included Ars Technica's Ben Kuchera, GamesRadar's Charlie Barratt, Eurogamer's Tom Bramwell, and IGN Australia's Narayan Pattison; The New York Times' Seth Schiesel wrote that "Microsoft Game Studios has overreached in trying to charge the typical retail price for a full game, around $60, for a product that either should cost $40 or have a lot more content for the single-player aspect of the product."
Another significant disagreement was whether the game was a large step forward for the series.
ODST's visuals and atmosphere were praised. McShea wrote that while the Halo 3 engine was showing its age, the game could still "wow" because of the art design.
The game's audio and sound were almost universally lauded. A significant departure from the consensus was offered by Kuchera, who wrote that the saxophone touches "[sound] like the softcore porn they show on Cinemax after midnight".