ODST: The real sequel to "Halo: Combat Evolved"

There was palpable disappointment following the release of "Halo 2," and not just due to the 'well, I guess we'll stop here' ending. From the first teaser, the tone of the marketing campaign was that you (well, Master Chief) are the only guy who can defend Earth.Â Combine that with the "I Love Bees" alternate reality game, which concluded with the characters' lives being interrupted by air raid sirens, andÂ you were ready to save humanity from the CovenantÂ when you walked out of that store on November 9.

The fact that you end up playing as one of them for half of the game was quite a betrayal of expectations. But "Halo 3: ODST..." Well, if you squint and look at it hard enough you might see a version of "Halo 2."

After all, it takes place entirely on Earth, and the player is always fighting the Covenant invaders. You spend a lot more time defending New Mombasa than Master Chief does in the second game's opening levels.

Additionally, the radio play you assemble through picking up collectibles really drives home the fact that this is a city on Earth that people used to live in. It also calls back to the excellent pre-"Halo 2" "I Love Bees" alternate reality game's radio drama, and for good reason - some of the same people are responsible.

The game's mechanics are also a callback to the original "Halo." The absurdly fun yet incredibly overpowered scoped pistol makes a silent return, and its balance is no longer a problem thanks to the lack of competitive multiplayer.

You also have a health bar again, and pick up refills for it, just like "Combat Evolved." ODSTs also take fall damage after a large enough drop, just like Master Chief did in his freshman outing.

Of course, there are many things about "ODST" that are the same as "Halo 3," or wholly new to the series. You don't fight elites, for instance, just brutes, and nearly all of "Halo 3's" weapons make an appearance alongside the reborn pistol and silenced "Halo 2" SMG. However, it is curious how many of "ODST's" changes are callbacks to Bungie's original breakout hit.

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Lance Darnell

September 22, 2009

Very good way of looking at ODST as a "spiritual successor" to Combat Evolved! This will be the first Halo game since 2004 that I will not be lining up to get, but that is only due to cash and not due to how awesome it will likely be.

Oh, and some people would say that Marathon was Bungie's break-out hit - some people.

Is the pistol going to be in multiplayer?

Cory Birdsong

You can certainly have more than one breakout hit, and there's no question that Halo was an order of magnitude bigger than anything Bungie had previously made.

Luke Flora

September 27, 2009

The one throwback that I could do without is the dated save system. I know this isn't unique to CE and ODST, but it's gotten old. Modern games autosave so much that I exited to the dashboard the other night and lost about an hour's worth of playing. I just forgot that you have to save and exit, which was kind of a stupid system in the first place.

Jon Cole

The more I think about it, the more I agree with you. It wouldn't be outrageous to even say that you could almost think of the Halo FPS games as two different series. Halo 2 introduced the Arbiter and dug much deeper into the Covenant command structure and religion, and Halo 3 effectively wrapped up that thread.

Halo: Combat Evolved had a lot of aspects that carry directly into ODST. A lot of the environments in the original Halo were far more expansive than those of Halo 2 and Halo 3, regardless of the fact that it was ultimately linear. ODST's overworld is similar in this aspect, because while there are multiple paths to one location, the openness contributes more to the atmosphere than the gameplay.