Player’s Club: Halo 3 ODST review

Halo 3: ODST

Rated M for Mature

Released Sept. 22

Xbox 360

Published by Microsoft

WHAT IT IS: Master Chief returns yet again with… oh wait, that’s right, he doesn’t. Like this spring’s Halo Wars, the newest Halo first-person shooter is entirely without the series’ iconic lead character. It’s like those Queen reunion shows without Freddie Mercury, although ODST’s Nathan Filion isn’t nearly as acceptable a stand-in as Paul Rodgers. Originally announced as a value-priced expansion of Halo 3, Halo 3: ODST arrives with two discs of content and the standard price tag for a new release. The second disc is entirely recycled, consisting of Halo 3’s multi-player mode and all the various map packs that have been subsequently released through Xbox Live. So ODST rests on the first disc, which offers up an original Master Chief-less solo campaign that should take you less than eight hours to play through and the new Firefight multi-player survival mode. There’s a lot happening with Halo 3: ODST, then, but is it enough to justify the price?