Halo stopgap

by ERIK LEIJON

Halo ODST (X360/Microsoft, Bungie) could be loosely called a sequel if not for an aggressive marketing department. It’s an overly familiar spin-off that casually attempts to bring some new tricks to the Halo bag. It’s not a cash grab per se, but this first-person shooter—spread out over two discs—plays like your standard Halo game, and all but three of the multiplayer maps present are retreads.

Halo ODST (an acronym for Orbital Drop Shock Troopers) is only slightly more robust than your average add-on. ODST contains an all-new single player campaign starring the considerably less powerful, more human ODST team as opposed to the omnipotent, faceless Master Chief, as well as a new multiplayer mode, entitled Firefight. Both modes are solid yet unfinished, almost is if they’re conceptual ideas for a potential sequel, dribbled out here in tiny increments designed to gauge interest among the series’ most hardcore fans (after all, who else would be willing to pay full price for this doubledisc package?).

Firefight is an idea borrowed largely from Gears of War 2’s excellent, excruciatingly tough Horde mode. In Firefight, an endless stream of covenant baddies will descend on your location, and you and your team of three human partners have to accumulate as large a body count as possible until the team runs out of lives. Devoid of a story, or even a varied set of enemies, the only thing to break the monotony of killing foes for what could, in theory, be over an hour, is the necessity of teamwork with your friends and the randomly generated battle patterns of the covenant. In truth, Left 4 Dead has the market cornered on adaptive, unscripted first-person shooting mayhem, and while Halo’s gameplay is simple and intuitive enough for extended play sessions, Firefight needs more than a convoluted multiplier bonus system to entice non-Halo fanatics.

Oddly enough, the solo campaign feels like a more concerted effort at re-imagining the Halo brand. Replacing the charismatically infallible Master Chief with the cast of the defunct sci-fi show Firefly as the ODST crew was one way to make the ODST universe less about the gaudy explosions and purple hues, and more about characters and plot. The only time the traditional Halo campaign feels like a standalone piece of work is when the silent rookie is alone, combing the empty, battle-ravaged streets of New Mombasa, scanning discarded wreckage for clues and sneaking around in the dark. The unnecessary inclusion of real-time maps is a feature you’ll likely disregard early on, and the new Halo-vision is really just a colourful alternative to the previous title’s flashlight feature.

The best part of the rookie missions is the moody soundtrack. Instead of your typical grandiose, apocalyptic orchestras, players will blast aliens to sombre jazz à la Twin Peaks. ODST is no Halo 4, but it does suggest the inevitable fourth Halo could be worth the wait.

HOCKEY’S BACK

Last year, EA Sports’ NHL series leapfrogged rival 2K with one of the best sports games ever released. Naturally, NHL 10 (Multi/ EA Sports, EA Canada) doesn’t stray too far from the previous year’s formula (there’s a slightly amusing first-person fighting mode), so this season was an opportune time for NHL 2k10 (Multi/ 2K Sports, Visual Concepts) to recapture the throne. While it’s commendable that 2K has gone a different route by adopting a pick-up-and-play arcade style, the flimsy, one-timer heavy gameplay is far too reminiscent of hockey games from a decade ago. Strangely enough—although perhaps not, given the series’ newfound admiration for simplicity—the Wii version is far more enjoyable and deep than the other versions. The game also utilizes the Wii MotionPlus and features online play.