Review: Halo 3 ODST (360).

Bungie’s latest offering from the Halo universe is finally with us; dropping in it seems to a tidal wave of both hype and criticism. Any new Halo game is bound to cause a commotion amongst the fans but this time the critics are also making their voices heard, pointing primarily towards the high price and relatively short campaign on offer. So what’s the truth behind Halo 3: ODST and is it worth the full price Microsoft is asking?

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last couple of years, I’m sure you’re well aware of the basic premise of ODST. Originally planned as an expansion pack for Halo 3 (called Recon), ODST follows the story of a squad of Orbital Shock Drop Troopers who are deployed on a mission to assault a Covenant Assault Carrier which is attacking New Mombasa.


The troopers unfortunately make their combat drop just as the Covenant carrier jumps into slipspace (during events which also occurred in Halo 2 where the Master Chief and Keyes follow the Covenant carrier into slipspace aboard the In Amber Clad) and the resulting shockwave scatters the ODST’s pods all over New Mombasa.

You initially control The Rookie approximately six hours after the failed drop. Having obviously been unconscious and trapped in your pod for some time, you set about trying to track down your ODST squad mates.

The city in which the Rookie finds himself searching essentially acts as a kind of hub world to the main levels which are are based around actions already undertaken by the other ODST’s in the previous 6 hours (whom you play in the retelling of these events).

Having been used to the extremely linear worlds of the previous Halo games; I initially found the city hub somewhat off putting, but once I got used to the concept and to using the map (another Halo first) downloaded to your visor, it actually proved to be a great way to deliver this story and shows just how willing Bungie are to try new things even though they already had a winning formula.

It’s interesting how you grow increasing empathy towards the Rookie too, as you realise that so much has occurred during the 6 hours he’s been out of it.

His story is deliberately pitched in such a way that you’ll feel more and more isolated playing the Rookie the more you progress; its as though the battles have already been fought and now your left here alone, wandering the streets at night trying to avoid the Covenant and stay alive. This is an extremely powerful story telling mechanic and is one of the things I liked best about the game.

Of course the biggest revelation originally about this game was the lack of any appearence by Master Chief himself. You are no longer cast as the all powerful super Spartan but are instead very much human, albeit a highly trained one. From the players perspective this changes several game play traits; you can’t jump as high, you no longer have a rechargeable shield and you can no longer dual wield.

These changes essentially mean you are much frailer than the Master Chief and a more restrained approach has to be taken when in combat. Charge in to a pack of Covenant on your own and the chances are you won’t be returning victorious. Instead you need to think about your approach; evaluate each situation independently and decide either the best way to take out your foes or perhaps even sneak around them.

Again this style of play is quite a departure from the previous Halo games, and yet whilst it is slightly different it still retains the essence of the Halo experience. In some ways this is Bungies greatest triumph; because this transfer of responsibility not only shows us as players just how much more there is to this world than the Chief himself, but also how flexible this universe they have created can be.

The graphics have not improved a great deal since Halo 3 and the facial details in particular stand out as dated; particularly ‘Dare’ who I’m sure must have been modelled on Rene Russo having a bad make up day. The skyscapes have improved however and certainly the night time vistas add some weighty ambience.

Clocking in at around 6 hours ODST’s campaign is a lot of fun from start to finish, and fans of the Halo universe will only be disappointed when it ends.

ODST also ships with two other key game modes; the traditional Halo multiplayer (which comes on a separate disc and as well as few new maps also includes all of the previous Halo 3 DLC) and Firefight.



The majority of you will already know what to expect from the traditional multiplayer and in truth there is little new here worth evaluating. What is new however is Firefight, a new co-operative game mode similar to the Horde mode in Gears of War 2 and Left 4 Dead's Survival mode.

Firefight places you and 3 other players against ever increasing numbers of Covenant. Players share a stock of lives and each round introduces new challenges as the enemy waves become bigger and gain advantages through the activation of various skulls. The Firefight levels are large and offer a pure Halo combat experience; with four friends this mode is an absolute blast!

Firefight's biggest downfall is its lack of online matchmaking; and if you lack a large online friends list or often game at different times to all your mates then grabbing a game may be difficult which is shame as the mode is such good fun.

Its very hard to rate Halo: ODST; the score in many ways depends greatly on several factors, but specifically how big a Halo fan you are, how many of your friends are available when you play Firefight (or even if you intend to play multiplayer at all) and of course the price you paid for the game (there are however stores online where you can secure up to a 25% discount on the RRP).

With a retail of £39.99 here in the UK ($60 USA), ODST commands the price of a full price game when in reality it doesn’t offer the hours you’d expect from a title priced in this bracket, especially if you are only buying for the single player experience. There’s no doubting the quality of the overall package; what’s here is highly playable and genuinely adds to the Halo universe rather than damaging it.

But I just can’t justify the price; ODST needs to retail for about £10 less to make it anywhere near good value. Bungie have not helped themselves by originally announcing this title as an expansion pack because in essence they’ve told us exactly what ODST is before trying to pull the wool over our eyes.

And that’s a great shame because Halo 3: OSDT deserves to shine for its great game play and the brave new direction Bungie have taken the Halo franchise too, but I can’t help but feeling too many people will feel bitter about the pricing and this is reflected in the score.

7/10.

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Superb Halo 3: ODST live action trailer.

Microsoft has just released a live action trailer to help promote the upcoming launch of Halo 3: ODST.

Directed by Rupert Sanders (who also did the Believe advert), the advert is absolutely stunning; so much so that it's hard to believe the movie studios are still passing over Halo for the big screen treatment.

Anyway hope you enjoy the ad; a longer version will be released a bit closer the games launch. Can't wait!

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Serious Sam HD: The best game trailer ever?

Regardless of whether you have any interest in the game itself, you really must watch this new trailer for the game. This is probably the best game trailer I've ever seen, it's like totally Digital Awesome!

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Digital distribution to kill future classics?

Digitally downloading your games is a convenient and often cheaper method of building your games collection. The games are usually automatically patched, the ’stores’ never close and they can deliver your chosen game (more or less) there and then.

The lack of packaging probably helps the environment and certainly saves on shelf space; if my house is anything close to normal for a gamer then for many of us there is a constant battle on the shelves between games, movies and music who do not wish their physical selves to be re-located to the darkness that is the bottom drawer.
The major bonus of digital downloads for me though, is that it has allowed a whole series of smaller titles to rise; games that would have struggled within the normal channels are thriving as digital only releases. These titles are spanning everything from traditional bedroom coded projects, publisher back catalogue revamps, right up to the bigger budget exclusives such as the recently released Shadow Complex. Arguably we’ve never had it so good!

But the digital distribution model does concern me a great deal. Because as much as I’m enjoying the benefits, I can’t help but worry about the future pitfalls.


Some of my favourite games recently (Shadow Complex and Rez HD immediately spring to mind) have been exclusively available via the download model. These are games which, if they had of existed on physical media would have taken up the ‘premium space’ on my shelves and relegated a couple of lesser titles to the tomb which is the drawer.

They are both games that I will return to regularly and both are titles I could see myself revisiting in years to come (perhaps more so with Rez HD because of the games nature). The question that irks me though is will I always be able to return to them?

Because the media is digital I am very much reliant on the continued support (in this example) of Microsoft and it’s Xbox Live Arcade service.

If my game corrupts or if I change my console, it’s easy enough to re-download my games. If I run out of space on my HDD I can temporarily delete a few games and re-download them later. But what happens when that service is no longer there?

Console life cycles vary, but on average a system tends to remain current for around 6 years before it begins to fade into obscurity. Sure some systems last longer (PS2) and some shorter (Dreamcast/Xbox) but eventually they will naturally die in terms of availability. And when that happens the support of both the manufacturer and the various publishers dies too.

With physical media, your game is for the most part safe. It does not die when the support dies, at least not it it’s well looked after. Many gamers continue to play their classic games from the very dawn of gaming’s short history.

Dead consoles can be replaced via 2nd hand sources such as eBay or the local boot sale as can any poorly looked after games that have become damaged. Ultimately, if you loved a game from yesteryear, it’s simple enough on the whole to play it today.

The same principles however do not apply to the download era. Once Xbox 720 and PS4 launch, the services provided to PS3 and 360 owners will gradually decline and eventually cease. Suddenly the security of the re-download feature will become redundant. Will this mean that your much loved games are simply living on borrowed time?

From a personal view, this uncertainty bothers me because I can’t imagine the possibility of some of my favourite games being permanently resigned to fond memories. I want to be able to play these games for as long as I’m a gamer, I want to introduce these future classics to the next generation.

We are a completely different model to other media types; games are always based on specific hardware formats, and this is where gaming digital content differs so much from other types of entertainment such as movies and music.

So what happens? Emulation is one answer but it is far from ideal. There’s no doubt we are spoilt with the excellent emulators that already exist but as systems become more complex, can we really expect these part time non profit coders to keep up?

Even today, there isn’t a 100% perfect emulator for the Dreamcast despite the fact the system is over 10 years old and ‘died’ young. Sega themselves couldn’t emulate the Saturn and so eventually acquired the Giri Giri emulator, itself not perfect and now ironically abandoned. And besides, if you ‘own’ the game, you surely will want to play it on its original hardware where possible.

In some cases it may be possible to back up the games to DVD/CD, and certainly it is possible with the 360 to do this but it does require a fair amount of know how. On top of that your games are tied to your Live account, and of course there’s no guarantee that in future these accounts will operate in the same manner or for that matter, exist at all.

So are we doomed to losing our favourites? It’s certainly going to be an interesting time when the new consoles hit; I just hope that it doesn’t prove to be some kind of Digital D-Day.

In the meantime all eyes are firmly on the PSP Go’s download only model. Just don’t get too attached to your games eh?

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Review: Shadow Complex (XBLA).

Unless you missed the multitude of adverts on Live, you may very well be aware that Shadow Complex (the collaboration between Epic Games and Chair Entertainment) was released on XBLA yesterday.

Shadow Complex has been billed by Microsoft as the “height of old-school side-scrolling design combined with modern, cutting-edge gameplay” and early previews have all suggested that it was set to be a stellar title. So is it?

In a word, yes. In fact Shadow Complex may very well change the expectations of what consumers on XBLA expect in future as it raises the bar some distance in terms of graphics, gameplay and production values.



Essentially Shadow Complex is a 2D side scrolling adventure shooter set in a rich 3D environment (which is powered by Unreal Engine 3) and harks back to the days of greats such as Super Metroid, Flashback and Castlevania SOTN.

Based on Orson Scott Card’s Empire series of novels (the second of which is launched this December), Shadow Complex casts you in the role of Jason Fleming, a fairly unassuming guy who stumbles across a secret base run by Progressive Restoration. Having kidnapped his lady friend Fleming (voiced by Nolan North who also voices Nathan Drake in Uncharted) takes off in hot pursuit and so begins the start of your adventure as you enter the base.

In all honesty despite the collaboration with one of sci-fi’s most interesting writers, the plot of Shadow Complex is rather thin and for the most part very much part of the background.

That said, you probably will not notice or care that much because the game itself is just so playable; you’ll be far more interested in what’s in the next room ahead or seeking out hidden entrances (more on this in a moment) which lead to a variety of collectables and upgrades.

The weapons and items of Shadow Complex are introduced gradually starting off with your Torch; the use of which is essential if you want to find all of the many hidden routes.

This is not because of an over use of darkness but because the torch beam will reveal the entrances through the use of a colour system which changes the colour of an item (such as a vent hatch) to show the player what item is needed to pass (in most cases a weapon). It may sound complicated but it is in fact a very simple system that is completely intuitive to use.

In terms of weapon control, you aim with the right stick and in some instances you can fire into both the background and foreground. This system makes the world feel much more vast and alive as although the game essentially plays in 2D, you will feel very much part of a 3D environment.

Fleming jumps and climbs around his environment with ease and this is many ways reminiscent of the recent Drakes Fortune (but thankfully no where near as frustrating!) and Shadow Complex certainly rewards thorough exploration.

Along your travels you’ll encounter numerous enemies ranging from the basic cannon fodder grunts to the large boss enemies which are often large mech type contraptions. You’ll earn XP as you go which boosts your abilities and this rather nicely carries across different games which is handy for when the difficulty ramps up and for gaining the level 50 achievement.

The game also has leader boards which up date as you are in game and this provides an extra and welcome competitive element.

Shadow Complex is in many ways a hard game to criticise. It has the production values of a full price game and yet it’s cheap to purchase, it’s immensely fun to play and exploring its vast environment is a genuine joy.

The aiming mechanic can at times feel a little loose and the story is certainly not very apparent in many ways despite the writing heritage but to be frank you won’t care, there’s simply too much enjoyment on offer here for these things to really grab your attention.

I could quite easily write a lot more about this game, but for now I will hold fire, Shadow Complex is a title which you need to experience for yourself and discover the joys it has to offer.

You certainly won’t find a better way to spend around a tenner this year and in many ways Shadow Complex puts the vast majority of its full price brethren to shame. Grab yourself some points and buy it, you won’t regret it.

9/10.

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Plants Vs Zombies coming to XBLA.

Popcap have announced that they are bringing their rather excellent tower defence style game Plants Vs Zombies to Xbox Live Arcade! An iPhone version has also been reported as in the works.

No release date has been confirmed yet but this is great news for 360 owners. Here’s hoping they also sort out a PSN release so the PS3 crowd don't miss out on some Zombie mayhem!

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PS3 isn’t the best games machine, but it is a great piece of kit.

The current generation of consoles marked something of a departure for me. At any other time in my gaming life I have always brought all the new consoles at the point of (or very close to) their release dates. This time around however I’ve only just now completed the ‘set’ with our recent acquisition of an 80GB Playstation 3.

When the machine launched it was extremely expensive and given the lack of any real decent exclusive titles I decided to wait until there were some titles on the system I wanted to actually play.

Since then the PS3 has hardly set the world on fire with its games and thus I never really got round to making the purchase. A console should live and breathe in the quality of its games library and to date the PS3 has offered very little that isn’t already being done better on Microsoft’s winter heater.



Multi-format titles have on the whole been better on the 360 (The Orange Box debacle instantly springs to mind as does the more recent Ghostbusters ‘admission’ by Terminal Reality) and to date the exclusives generally have been more appealing (Halo series, Gears of War, PGR, GTA IV exclusive DLC).

Some developers such as Haze’s Free Radical have voiced complaints over the PS3 being difficult to code for, whilst heavy hitter Valve have gone one step further and simply refused full stop to code for the system. This decision alone means that PS3 owners may never get to experience the brilliance that is Left 4 Dead and potentially the up and coming (soon I hope!) Half Life 2: Episode 3.

I must admit that Uncharted: Drakes Fortune and Little Big Planet have both nearly persuaded me to part with my cash previously but unusually the sensible family man overruled the impulsive gamer’s heart.

It’s also worth noting that although I do not consider myself a ‘fan boy’, I do at times tend to think of Sony more negatively than the other two big hitters. This is mainly due to the impact Sony has had on Sega over the years; they are after all responsible for Sega’s exit from the hardware market, they killed the Dreamcast right? Well no, Sega unfortunately managed that all by themselves.

Sega failed to recognise the importance of 3D with the Saturn, produced a machine for the ‘hardcore’ (I prefer the term old skool mind you) and missed out on a whole new generation of ‘clubbing’ gamers.

They then produced the brilliant and pioneering Dreamcast, failed to market it so anyone really knew what it was and again produced old skool games. Now that’s great for someone like me but was hardly likely to entertain the newer (and by now much larger) gaming demographic.

Now you may well assume given so much negativity on my part and the minor bias towards all things blue and spiky that I’m simply writing here to bash Sony and its black monolith. But to my own surprise I’m actually writing to say how impressed with it I really am.

Whilst many will no doubt disagree, it’s not in this writer’s opinion the best out and out system for games, something I have covered enough above. It’s expensive (although at the time of writing there are numerous price cuts around due to the imminent arrival of the PS3 Slim) and very surprisingly the word Playstation is no longer synonymous to many with the phrase games console. Owning a Playstation isn’t the cool thing it was in the past.

Bizarrely we actually never really ‘paid’ for our PS3, it came ‘free’ with my partners new mobile phone contract (I’m holding off on renewing mine for the launch of the PSP Go!).

Our sole reason at the time for picking the PS3 as our freebie was that due to various circumstances we no longer had a DVD player in the main living room. Since the PS3 is both a DVD and Blu-ray player it seemed the obvious choice for us despite its gaming shortcomings.

What we never realised at the time was just how good the PS3 is at serving as our complete family entertainment centre. And it’s here that the PS3 really excels, it is because of this the PS3 sees use in our household every day and by several occupants.

We have our DVD and Blu-ray player for our films. We have a music centre which streams music from our PC effortlessly along with our photo and video collection. Then there’s Vidzone, essentially a free music video channel where you pick what plays. And of course there’s the games, finally Uncharted and Little Big Planet are getting my well deserved attention (Uncharted being the first game in ages that I’ve actually bothered to complete). Heck we can even surf the net with it during the television ad breaks.

Of course the 360 also has some media features of its own but they simply are not as well implemented.

The DVD player is DVD only and it’s intrusively noisy for a front room. The media streaming works to a point but it’s not as easy or as smooth as on the PS3. The music videos on Live are limited and have to be paid for. It can’t surf the internet and unless you own an Elite model the HDD is woefully small. And also, somehow, the 360 just doesn’t look like an entertainment centre. It looks like a games console; it looks out of place under my main TV.

My partner has never really touched a non-handheld games console before and yet with the PS3 she presents our photos to friends and family, pops music on in the morning to keep the kids quiet (our 1 year old daughter dives across her pen when the PS3 power button beeps because she loves to dance away to the videos) and even watches the odd film.

And so, it’s only now that I’ve come to realise that the old skool gamer in me has blinded me into ignoring this great machine.

No it’s not the best games console, the 360 is currently the choice here with its vast library and it’s excellent (though still annoyingly chargeable) Xbox Live. But it is a great all rounder, it serves the purpose Sony always said they wanted to serve, the central family hub of entertainment, the unseen box of tricks that quietly delivers all of your living room needs without you even realising it. And for that Sony should be applauded.

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Playfire - Facebook for Gamers.

I have to say it, Playfire has certainly impressed me!

It was quite odd how I found the site in many ways; we had a thread active on my clan forum over at 22g discussing things we would like to see in the future of gaming.One of the things that came up was the idea of a website that collected all of your player data across all of your formats (XBL, PSN, Steam etc) and then lo and behold we discover Playfire!



Hopefully the Steam integration will get better (achievements, direct link to profile etc) and to this end I have already used the feedback option to suggest this and been informed that they have added this to their 'to do' list. I have to say as well it was nice that one of the co-founders of the site got back to me regarding my suggestion so quickly.

For those who have yet to check it out, Playfire is a Facebook type social space designed especially for gamers. Within your Playfire profile you can display both the games you have played and owned (with ratings/mini-reviews), microblog and link up to your PSN and XBL accounts. Instant chat, user made groups, game forums and much more are also present so be sure to check it out.

For those wondering about the Steam Community Network I recently founded on Playfire, it is simply an effort to bring those Steam users on Playfire together. I noted that there was no Steam related group on there so rather than sit back and wait I got a bit pro-active and made one! Hopefully it will take off and people will enjoy taking part. Thanks to all those who have joined so far.

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