Instead, it proved a quietly revolutionary benchmark for a series that had way more in the chamber beyond the original trilogy. ODST could’ve been easily been a half-thought spin-off. In fact, ODST - with its hub area, and choose-your-own-way approach - almost feels like a first draft for Infinite. You can see the overlap in DNA between both games. Great stuff.Īri: It makes sense that Joseph Staten, who was brought in last year to spearhead creative development on Halo Infinite, headed story development on ODST back in the day. Playing as a more fragile and smaller ODST soldier and not a spartan made combat more intense and failure more likely. ODST also introduced firefight, the horde mode that I sunk way too many hours into as a younger man, and helped give us a new angle on the world of Halo. And seeing as only Halo 3: ODSTlets you do that, I adore this strange spin-off of Halo 3. Zack: Any Halo game that lets me kill Brutes at night using a cool new weapon while jazz plays in the background is a winner in my book. And Halo 2’s battle rifle is to this day the finest battle rifle in the series. Still, realising you get to play as the Arbiter was a hall-of-fame moment. In that light, huh, yeah, some plot moments in Halo 2 could’ve squared a bit better. (It’s because a lot got cut while finishing Halo 2.)Īri: Zack and are split on the ending (it’s so badass!) but, despite being a longtime Halo fan, I had no clue about the production woes surrounding Halo 2. It also explains why some chunks of the campaign feel like they are missing levels. I still hate, hate, hate the ending, but when you remember that Bungie basically made the whole game in less than a year, it’s wild that it turned out so great. It also introduced the Arbiter and expanded on so many parts of Halo lore, like the Flood. Still, it’s impressive that this game even works on an original Xbox and it helped pioneer much of what would become Xbox Live. Zack: Halo 2 is a great game, even if almost everything in it is better or more polished in Halo 3. But I fully recognise the fringe nature of loving Halo 4, and shall choose a different hill to perish on. New enemy classes and weapons were a delight after years of using the same tools against the same enemies. Pretty good mix, in my opinion.Īri: I’ve long maintained that Halo 4 is the best Halo game, certainly my personal favourite, what with its unexpectedly intimate story and rip-roaring multiplayer (Haven being a top-tier Halo map to this day). Sure, the villain isn’t great and Spartan Ops sucks (holy shit those missions were way too long) but the multiplayer and main campaign felt like more Halo Reach or Halo 3, just now you could sprint. Yet, it also works better than Halo 5 precisely because it sticks mostly to what Halo does best and brings the narrative focus back to Cortana and Chief. Zack: Halo 4 in a lot of ways is a small evolution upon the Halo formula that original devs Bungie had created and perfected.
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