"...until all are one..."

Ever wonder if you get that déjà vu feeling when you saw Halo 3:ODST announced for the first time last year? That’s because the game takes place between the end of Halo 2 and the beginning of Halo 3. This spin-off puts you in the shoes of an ODST soldier who happen to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.

As the Bungie producers explained to us in a closed-doors Microsoft demo, our character ends up in the city of New Mombasa thanks to a malfunction in his pod which crash-landed at the nearest safe location. The city itself is deserted save for a bunch of Covenant soldiers wandering around. At your disposal are your night vision sensors of your helmet, sound-suppressed weapons for silent kills, and possibly the coveted handgun from the first game.

As you explore the area, you are actually being watched by the city’s guardian angel of sorts: the Superintendent. As you contact he/she/it from telephone booths scattered in the city, the Superintendent helps out by giving clues and “outside interference” for the player to use to his advantage. You also come across discarded weapons on the ground which triggers a flashback regarding on the fate of the trooper who owned said weapon. Not only are these the more action-packed segments of the game, but also gives an insight to what actually happened at New Mombasa.

One of the new multiplayer maps on tap for ODST: the Covenant-based Heretic

It’s not a Halo game without some form of multi-player added into the mix, and Firefight Mode in ODST is no exception. This multi-player mode is essentially Gears’ Horde Mode with the Halo mythos. ODST soldiers have to hold their positions and try not to die as they repel the Covenant horde coming in guns and Scarab Tanks ablazing. The game ends when your team bites the dust, and the difficulty scale will increase as rounds get higher and higher. The producers at Bungie showed us a few recordings of matches lasting up to 40 minutes, where explosions were plentiful and the brutes with gravity hammers were even, er, plentiful-LER.

While retreading on the same game engine, this new spin on things should at least keep FPS and Halo buffs another reason to finish the fight yet again. Until then, enjoy the screenshots of Firefight Mode.