Cen Aleid

I wanted to like this game. I really did. The concept of not being the all powerful Master Chief or other Spartan was appealing. Especially seeing how the more human soldiers survive during the raid of the Covenant of the city. But the terrible, boring writing really ruined what could’ve been a great experience. The members of your Squad are horribly one dimensional- each has an assigned personality that falls flat right from the start, and they are never given the chance to grow or shine at any part of the story. The two that get the most screen time - Buck and Dare are so obnoxiously oblivious to the gravity of the situation that it was so off putting anytime they interacted. This petty drama of ‘are we dating or not’ in the midst of their home world being invaded was so so poorly done that it was embarrassing. At one point I believe she slaps him and says he abandoned the mission. But never told him what it was and this being after they failed to even land on the planet properly- the one thing the ODST are supposedly known for being good at. It was just a mess. The gameplay was below average. But like others have said - it is a lot of searching around in the copy and pasted levels while in the dark. The best part of the game is the last level. And the most interesting cutscene was the very last. If you are looking to play through the whole series, this one just may warrant a quick read on Wikipedia to save you the slough that is the bad writing and slow gameplay.