The UNSC and the Elites stage a joint operation to bring down the defenses around Truth’s stronghold.
The Master Chief leads the assault on the Citadel to stop Truth from activating the rings.
We’ve put this off for too long. It’s time to rescue Cortana from the Gravemind’s clutches.
Halo 3: ODST, released in September 2009, is the first real “departure” from the main Halo formula. While still developed by Bungie and published by Microsoft Game Studios, this is the first Halo game that does not have the Master Chief as its protagonist, and also [spoiler alert] doesn’t involve any Halos. We play as an Orbital Drop Shock Trooper (ODST) known only as The Rookie, separated from his squad during the Covenant invasion of Earth. We must wander the eerily quiet, occupied city of New Mombasa and try to figure out what happened to the rest of the squad, and the top-secret mission they were supposed to be carrying out. A much more grounded and atmospheric experience than previous Halo games, Halo 3: ODST actually channels a film noir detective story vibe which works really, really well.
The other major difference from previous Halo games is the lack of a PvP multiplayer. Halo 3: ODST actually shipped with a separate disk that contained Halo 3’s multiplayer instead, as well as all of the DLC maps up to that date. That being said, it introduced a new co-operative PvE multiplayer called Firefight. Firefight is a wave defense mode where players must fight against increasingly difficult waves of enemies with a limited number of lives shared between the entire team. The goal of this mode is to survive for as long as possible while racking up high scores using kill streaks, special kills, and difficulty modifiers.
As the titling would suggest, Halo 3: ODST (previously titled Halo 3: Recon) was originally planned as sort of an expansion pack. It was intended to be a smaller project to fill the time before the next major Halo release, but they ended up with enough content that Microsoft insisted on selling it as a stand-alone, full-price game.
01 - Prepare to Drop
02 - Tayari Plaza
03 - Uplift Reserve
04 - Kizingo Boulevard
XX - Norvinsk Region (April Fools)
05 - ONI Alpha Site
06 - NMPD HQ
07 - Kikowani Station
08 - Data Hive
XX - Sadie’s Story (Audio Logs)
09 - Coastal Highway
XX - Bonus Content
The Covenant have attacked Earth and occupied the city of New Mombasa. It’s time to drop feet first into hell to stop them!
XX - Norvinsk Region (April Fools)
The Rookie takes a detour through a mostly abandoned military base.
The Covenant really wants this building (and its secrets), but we aren’t going to let them have it.
The city is lost, but Vergil has been found. The only thing left to do is make a dramatic exit.
Halo Wars was first announced at the X06 Xbox show in 2006 and was released in early 2009. It’s the first Halo game not made by Bungie and the first to completely break the FPS mold. Halo Wars is a Real-Time Strategy (RTS) game developed by Ensemble Studios, who previously made the Age of Empires games. This game takes many recognizable elements from the main games and presents them in an entirely new way, and it works pretty damn well!
Halo Wars was developed specifically and exclusively for the Xbox 360 and was actually designed to be played with a controller. As such, the controls and gameplay features are simpler and more streamlined compared to other RTS games. It still contains all the base building, resource management, and army commanding that you’d expect, but at a smaller scale and with some restrictions.
Halo Wars is a prequel story in the Halo universe. It takes place a full 20 years before the events of Halo and deals with some of the earliest battles in the Human-Covenant war. We play as the crew of the Spirit of Fire, a fleet support ship tasked with trying to maintain control over the planet Harvest. Harvest is where first contact was made with the Covenant and where the war started. The UNSC concentrated a lot of resources to push back the Covenant and retake the colony, but it remains hotly contested.
If we’re going to keep Harvest out of the Covenant’s hands, we’ll need a base…and an army.