Halo 3: ODST

[nCogNeato]

I'm gonna play some firefight tonight and be just another number.

ValleeoftheDEAD is looking for some Firefight partners.  Toss him a line.

[GamerMan316]

Big Halo 3 ODST Sales And The Return Of Master Chief

With Halo 3: ODST selling 2.5 million copies within two weeks of release, Microsoft talks to USA Today about the future of the franchise, merchandising, and the possibly return of Master Chief.

The Halo franchise has sold more than 25 million copies combined so far, with Halo 3: ODST, the recently released standalone game, making up a good 10% of that in just 2 weeks on store shelves. Along with next year's prequel Halo: Reach, Bungie and Microsoft have a whole lot of Halo going on. There's a new comic book series, Blood Line, kicking off in December, the Halo Legends anime, the Halo: Evolution anthology novel, and the trilogy from acclaimed science fiction author Greg Bear, due out next year. And you know Todd McFarlane isn't going to stop milking the franchise anytime soon.

But with all of this Halo merchandising, there's still something missing. Where's Master Chief? Microsoft's Frank O'Connor says that everyone's favorite Spartan can't possibly be gone for long.

    As for Master Chief, odds are he will be seen again. "I think that (his) fate, Cortana's fate and the identity of that giant, dark planet at the ending (on the game's hardest skill level) - that's a spoiler - are probably big mysteries that would be irritating if they were just cliffhangers," O'Connor says. "We do have a plan that goes out at least six years," he says. "Eventually, it will become very apparent that there is a plan for the way the canon all ties together and the way the comic books and the novels all tie together."

See? They have a plan, and once it comes to fruition, the world will tremble at their feet...or at least be really happy to see MC and Cortana again.

[Failed]

I hope Cortana dies, she did my head in while playing Halo 3, popping up and pretending to be a damsel in distress, piss of before i get the anti-malware on you!

[reaper79666]

i have to admit i have only played halo 3 and odst and i have no idea about the story line ut im enjoying odst at the moment.

[GamerMan316]

I hope Cortana dies, she did my head in while playing Halo 3, popping up and pretending to be a damsel in distress, piss of before i get the anti-malware on you!

I keep saying the same about Dom in Gears, hopefully he'll die in Gears 3.

[Jaynestown]

I hope Cortana dies, she did my head in while playing Halo 3, popping up and pretending to be a damsel in distress, piss of before i get the anti-malware on you!

I keep saying the same about Dom in Gears, hopefully he'll die in Gears 3.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! Dom's my favourite character!

[reaper79666]

bring back that rookie

[GamerMan316]

Bungie explains 'series of stumbles' in ODST marketing

From the initial talk of a lower price to a renaming, Bungie's ever-changing plans for Halo 3: ODST left a lot of people confused as to what the final product would be. "I'm no PR expert, but it's pretty obvious the game had a series of stumbles; from the naming, to the initial E3 2008 countdown reveal failure, and finally pricing ... it would definitely be nice to have a do-over for the game introduction," senior designer Lars Bakken told G4TV in a recent interview. "The big takeaway for us is just to never comment on matters that are outside of our control," added community manager Brian Jarrard.

The subject of ODST becoming an "expansion pack," however, was never an arguable point to executive producer Curtis Creamer. "Though ODST was built from the Halo 3 engine, there were enough changes made to the engine that we could not have released it as an expansion in the way that you might equate with a PC game expansion pack ... the ODST executable is not compatible with Halo 3."

The crew of Bungie devs also reconfirmed that "there are currently no plans for any ODST DLC," with all of the studio's resources tied up with Halo: Reach. Hopefully, our thirst for more Firefight maps will be quenched by the inclusion of the mode in future Halo games -- a prospect to which the developers responded, "Only time will tell." Do it for us, Bungie! Please?

[GamerMan316]

Bungie: We regret ODST failures
Lack of matchmaking in Firefight still haunts studio - but it promises Halo: Reach will make up for them

Bungie has spoken of its regret over faliures in the Firefight mode of Halo ODST.

The studio's community boss Brian Jarrard said it simply didn't have time to fix matchmaking into the mode - and admitted its omission is probably the reason ODST isn't as popular as other Halo games.

Jarrard told
CVG sister site OXM: "I regret not being able to go back and make Firefight in ODST work and have match-making. I think we would have loved to have done that.

"We've heard it from the fans, we've heard it from the press. It's definitely something we'd have loved to be able to do but we didn't have the scope on the project. We didn't have the time.

He added: "We accomplished a tremendous amount, but that's probably the reason ODST isn't being played as much right now as we'd like. It has had a shorter lifecycle than any of the Halo titles before. But Reach is our big chance to make up for some of those things."

[CRracer_912]

I know this is gonna sound dumb, but is Halo ODST a FPS?  I'm just curious, my son says he wants it, but neither of us have played any of the other versions save for a demo I downloaded on his 360 and it isn't a FPS game (I don't remember which Halo was DL'd).

[RedMaster11]

Halo Wars maybe?

[nCogNeato]

Bungie: We regret ODST failures
Lack of matchmaking in Firefight still haunts studio - but it promises Halo: Reach will make up for them

Bungie has spoken of its regret over faliures in the Firefight mode of Halo ODST.

The studio's community boss Brian Jarrard said it simply didn't have time to fix matchmaking into the mode - and admitted its omission is probably the reason ODST isn't as popular as other Halo games.

Jarrard told
CVG sister site OXM: "I regret not being able to go back and make Firefight in ODST work and have match-making. I think we would have loved to have done that.

"We've heard it from the fans, we've heard it from the press. It's definitely something we'd have loved to be able to do but we didn't have the scope on the project. We didn't have the time.

He added: "We accomplished a tremendous amount, but that's probably the reason ODST isn't being played as much right now as we'd like. It has had a shorter lifecycle than any of the Halo titles before. But Reach is our big chance to make up for some of those things."

I've been watching the webshow Feedback lately, and they have some very interesting conversations.  Recently they discussed this very thing, along with how it is affecting the groundwork for Reach.

Long story short, Halo: Reach is looking very promising.

[nCogNeato]

I know this is gonna sound dumb, but is Halo ODST a FPS?  I'm just curious, my son says he wants it, but neither of us have played any of the other versions save for a demo I downloaded on his 360 and it isn't a FPS game (I don't remember which Halo was DL'd).

Halo ODST is a FPS.  Here's a youtube video:

Halo Wars is an RTS (Real Time Strategy) game.  Here's a youtube video.

[CRracer_912]

Yep, it musta been HW that I DL'd

[sambo]

I know this is gonna sound dumb, but is Halo ODST a FPS?  I'm just curious, my son says he wants it, but neither of us have played any of the other versions save for a demo I downloaded on his 360 and it isn't a FPS game (I don't remember which Halo was DL'd).

CRracer, I'm not the biggest fan of Halo, So maybe some of the other guy's here could tell you better, But I would have thought Halo 3 would be a better choice than Halo ODST. Now I do know you get all the Multiplayer maps with ODST which work with Halo 3 which is a good bonus, but from what I've heard the single player is not great. Now as I said I'm no Halo expert, So you might want to ask some of the other guy's.