Halo ODST

This is the newest game in the seemingly never ending series of Halo games, and I mean that in the best of ways. Bungie takes players back to Halo 2 when the Covenant cruisers have found the Earth and all hell is quite literally breaking loose upon New Mombasa. You begin your game as an Orbital Drop Shock Trooper jumping in to attack the hovering Covanent ship when it suddenly enters slipspace, sending a shockwave and EMP that blasts around and scatters the ODST drop pods. The next scene isn't until late at after dark. You finally gain consciousness and escape your crashed pod to find yourself alone in a city filled with Covanent forces. (Your average foe consists of Brutes, Grunts, Jackals and occasionally Hunters.) The rest of the game is spent finding clues to his squads battles during the day. I won't spoil what the squad does go through, but as you find each clue, you jump back in time to one of the characters and fight through Covanent hordes with anything from your new silenced submachine gun to a M808B (Scorpion) Tank.

The game is fairly fun to play with the solid targeting controls and great aiming mechanics we all know and love. One of the perks of not being Master Chief is a whole new stealth aspect. It's possible to go through the whole night level without firing a single bullet (*hint* achievement *hint*), although it's quite frankly a lot of fun to pick apart a squad of brutes and then sneak up and assassinate the only survivor (epic video moment!). The hard parts to adjust too are how weak some of the weapons feel versus how strong others have grown. The submachine gun can work well once you learn how to use it, but expect to be running out of ammo really fast seeing as how it can take nearly a full clip to down one brute. The pistol from the first Halo game has been resurrected with the same high power and zoom capabilities we've been missing (except don't expect the one shot hunter kill from before). The carbine was turned into an absolutely wicked gun. Aim for the head and no normal troop can stop you, plus lots of jackals like to carry them around so there's ammo aplenty.
As far as enemies go, the grunts are ridiculusly easy to kill (almost to a fault), and they are highly unintelligent in this game (except on firefight when it becomes grenades galore, they get decently tough). They mostly tend to meander gleefully into your spray of bullets, or they'll just give up and go suicidal. The brutes are stronger than expected but easy enough to defeat. They have much better intelligence in this game and will often set up quick ambushes and flanks. The jackals with shields are more a nuisance than anything else, it's the snipers you should be worried about, especially on the higher difficulties (can you say 'one shot pawnage'?). Jackals also seem to be annoyingly hard to kill, taking way more bullets than I thought they would. The hunters are the surprise for me. Normally it's easy enough to simply play a little torro with the bulls and gun them in the back, but not so much in this case. Remembering you are not Master Chief, the hunters can outrun you and in many cases I have been ambushed by the behemoths. They are annoyingly tough and very smart. They can anticipate your moves and in many cases they can outperform you. High difficulties get it especially fun considering they can score a one hit kill. Your biggest threat is definitely the brute chieftains. They do massive amounts of damage, they can easily outrun, or jump, you and there invincibility plus their natural strength makes them something to panic about.

There are few vehicles during the night levels unless you find a weapons cache which comes with a little something to ride through town on. During the flashbacks, though, you get your share of warthogs, tanks and even banshees. Your HUD has been completely revised with new abilities and information. You don't get the normal radar, but you do get an awesome mini-map feature you can pull up from your Visor. It shows general enemy locations allowing you to assess whether or night you want to run in Rambo style and pump their bodies full of lead, or avoid using the last of your ammo and just sneak around.

The firefight mode is one of the best defensive games out their. The idea is very similar to horde, simply survive the waves by holding a strong location. The spice comes from increasing enemy difficulty, of course, and the systematic inclusion of skulls!

ODST is a very well polished game with a fun single player and an even more fun Firefight addition, plus the game has a second CD containing all the Halo 3 multiplayer maps, including the downloads. Definately worth your time to check out, even if it's just a rental. Replay value is good for those with xbox live (but only decent for those without, the campaign is nice, but the best a replay can get is Legendary with a bunch of skulls turned on.)