At the start of the week we posted a hefty
preview of
Halo 3: ODST, which included some hands-on impressions and a chat with Lars Bakken from
Bungie and Ryan Crosby from Microsoft Game Studios. In fact,
Level Up had so many details and quotes we couldn't possibly fit them in one preview. Here's what hit the cutting room floor.
CampaignAll the skulls are unlocked from the beginning.
There will be first-person combat dialogue. The Rookie won’t say much, but the other squad members will throw out cheese-ball dialogue during playable flashbacks based on their character.
The story will be biggest legacy ODST will leave for the series. "I think its narrative structure is going to make the biggest impact," said Bakken. "Just the way the story is told, and the way it’s from a different perspective, a much more human, character-driven story."
Bakken said that you’ll "absolutely see references to other games and other formats" in the Halo series. They will most likely be subtle and directed toward fans of the lore.
The silenced SMG will have recoil, according to Bakken: "The SMG itself is a little more powerful than it was in Halo 3, so to compensate for that, we couldn’t have a weapon that’s 20% more powerful and have nothing to offset that. It’s a balancing issue."
FireFight
Firefight is structured in sets, rounds and waves: three rounds per set, five waves per round.
A round in Firefight takes around seven to eight minutes to complete.
You can’t matchmake with strangers, so you’ll need to party up with friends before a game. Alternatively, you can invite them over and go split-screen.
Maps will be unlocked through progress in the main campaign.
A playable Sergeant Johnson will be a pre-order exclusive.
Bakken said there will be friends-only leaderboards, in a bid to stop cheaters: "There’ll actually be friends list leaderboards, because we didn’t want to have the situation where one guy’s cheating and he’s always number one, because that’s not cool for anybody. Except for that guy. Then we have to ban him."
You won't be able to adjust lives or other settings - just the difficulty.
Like Rainbow Six Vegas, there will be night and day versions of maps. "There are night variants of a few maps," said Bakken. "That was just something we were able to do, but there aren’t night variants of every map."
Interested in the Bungie record in Firefight on Legendary? "I think we made it to the fifth set, or sixth set. Which is pretty far, but I think that people will blow that away," said Bakken. "We anticipate that. In 48 hours people would have beaten any score we had." Crosby added that it took them around "an hour and a half" to reach that stage.
Multiplayer Disc
The disc will be titled Halo 3: Mythic.
With file-sharing, screenshots can be shared across Halo 3 and ODST, but films are game dependant as they stream specific game data from the disc.
Crosby said there are no plans for the disc to be released separately, via games-on-demand or retail.
The Future
While Halo Reach will be the last in the series for Bungie, Bakken said it is already working on something new. "After Reach that’s it for us. We are already working on a new IP that we can’t talk about yet. I don’t know when are talking about it."
The Halo Reach beta, which comes packed with ODST, will arrive next year.
Downloadable content for Halo 3 has sold well over time, something which surprised Bungie, said Bakken: "The weird thing about the DLC is that we would anticipate the sales to dwindle and go down, and for whatever reason, for the Halo titles it’s actually stayed the same or increased, it’s remarkable. I almost don’t understand it. People still seem to enjoy playing it still!"
If you haven't already, check out our preview here. Are you picking up Halo 3: ODST come September 22?
Great it will be me, my boyfriend and the xbox again!!!