I choose Normal difficulty.
Cut scene shows the squad, There is a new Naval intelligence female on the team, which stirs up the testosterone. Buck the leader seems to know the woman.
We see the gang tooling up to drop into New Mombassa to attack the covenant ship which is hovering over the city.
Our character is the rookie, another faceless armored cipher.
We start the drop, which is graphically nice, flying down through the atmosphere watching the wreckage of orbiting ships wheel past.
I see the covenant cruiser below, the squad seem surprised that they aren't going to land on the cruiser. The cruiser starts glowing at one end and vanishes into a slipstream rupture or something, basically engages ftl drive in the atmosphere, which isn't really a good idea.
The drop pods are sent flying on a crash course in the wake and we crash down heavily.
I wake to find myself in the pod, we get the usual camera direction test then have to use Right bumper to release four emergency bolts which takes the door off the pod. We now jump to the city street.
Stamina is explained, basically shield strength, stop taking damage and it goes back up.
We are told to find a health station which is a nearby atm type hole in the wall.
usual analogue sticks for movement/camera. A is jump. B is melee. Right trigger is fire, left trigger throws grenades. Y changes weapon.
I am left on my own in the damaged city with no clear objectives.
I find some covenant and engage them.
I am then told to contact the superintendant a.i. of the city. There is a phone booth like kiosk in the area I am in. Connecting to this gives us a map.
I now have a beacon location for another ODST, time to go and investigate.
I go to the beacon, having to pass through a building as there is no direct route on foot.
The beacon is inside another building. I am told to look for a clue.
Inside the building it's spooky, however there is only two covenant to deal with the rest seem dead. I find an ODST's helmet embedded in a tv screen. It belongs to Dare.
Touching the helmet triggers a cut scene. We now are flashing back to the viewpoint of Buck the Captain as he drops into the city. Veronica the Naval intelligence officer it is revealed is an old flame of Buck's. Buck is approached by a covenant dropship. The objective is to find Dare.
Mission 1
We are under heavy attack from the start, progressing down a street. We encounter some normal soldiers who direct us to a route through a building where we can flank the covenant forces.
We come to a covenant sniper post which is heavily guarded.
Then through a large door.
Here is the aforementioned area where we can use the buildings to pop out behind the covenant. There is a horde of them in the plaza and we have to take them all out.
We come to the area where Dare's pod is and find a few covenant harassing it.
When we shoot them and try and open the pod we get a cut scene.
As Buck tries to open the pod a new floating type of covenant appears. It has the helmet of Dare in it's tentacles.
Buck is attacked and nearly overpowered, however he is saved by Romeo using a sniper blast. The new covenant explodes after it is shot.
We see that the helmet flew into the window and got embedded in the screen where the rookie found it during this explosion.
We are back to the rookie in the hub city.
It looks like we have to go back the way we came, however a wall panel flashes up with a detour sign, which seems to be from the superintendant which is helping us.
I fight my way through the streets to the next marker which is a piece of equipment.
Mission 2
Dutch
Uplift Nature reserve
We are now in the shoes of Dutch 30 minutes after the initial drop. We are told to link up with friendly forces and lead a warthog charge to clear covenant from the park.
We get into a warthog with a bunch of other soldiers and have a damn good time charging around shooting all the covenant forces in the large area of beaches and what seems to be a zoo type area.
We then cross a bridge and watch the space elevator collapse.
We have to climb a hill to the top to get to a gap in the wall.
We then have to drive through the wall into a huge gap.
We see a cut scene of Dutch landing, a plane crashes near him and we see the piece of equipment that the rookie find fall out of it's wreckage.
That is that mission over and we are back to the rookie.
Four new waypoints appear on the map, looks like we can do them in any order we see fit.
I take the rookie to the nearest, collecting enough audio logs gives me a supply cache unlock. This is a room filled with armaments. I come to a blown bridge and pick up a piece of equipment triggering the next flashback.
Mission 3
Dutch
Oni Alpha Site
We are with Butch and Dutch and Romeo again, Trying to blow a bridge to stop the covenant advance.
We have to arm three bombs then go to a laptop which triggers the explosion.
Then we go to help some police who are under attack, This is a huge wide open plaza with four raised areas. We fight the covenant in the plaza and once they are downed reinforcements are dropped in by Phantoms in waves. Things go from bad to worse as more and more wave are dropped in, including wraiths. The order to fall back is given after a while and we fall back into the building where we have to defend from more incoming waves of covenant. If it looks like we are going to lose the police are going to blow the building as it's full of secrets they don't want the covenant to get their hands on.
I manage to fend off all the waves of attackers and we are told to get into a lift.
The lift is attacked by the flying insect covenant.
On the roof we have to clear the rooftop before a police pelican comes in and extracts us.
Buck comes over the radio and asks for a pick up on top of the police building.
Mission 4
Mickey and Dutch
Kizingo Boulevard
We come across a scorpion tank which is under heavy fire. We have to assist them, then we get to drive the tank through the streets to a rally point. Here we meet Dutch and have to get out of the tank. We are at a rally point and are told to defend it.
Again waves and waves of covenant to hold off.
The two ODST are asked by police to help blow something up at the end in cut scene.
Quick trip through the city, to find a sniper rifle hanging from a cable above the street.
Mission 5
Romeo
NMPD headquarters
We see Buck and Romeo on the roof of the NMPD building as Mickey and Dutch come in for a rescue. Two Banshees attack and the rescue has to be aborted.
We get control of Romeo.
We are off to rescue the downed pelican crew.
We fight our way back down through our own building, which is full of covenant that were pursuing Buck and Romeo. Sniper rifle is focused upon here with lots of covenant in the distance sniping back at you.
We come to a landing pad where Mickey and Dutch have have bridge the gap to the next building using a crane with a large girder. We have to run along the girder, as we do Banshees fly in to attack.
Another defend the crash site last stand type objective, though I can't say that it's bad as it is such fun to play. Banshees being shot down all around crashing into the ground around you. Phantoms dropping in hordes of enemies. Eventually you last long enough.
A cut scene shows a huge brute chieftan with Gravity hammer dropping into the middle of the gang from a phantom and smacking Romeo one in the chest. This is where his sniper rifle flies over the edge of the building and lands on the wire where the rookie finds it.
The ODST's take on the Chieftan in almost hand to hand combat and win. I actually laughed out loud when Buck is left underneath it's corpse and needs the rest of them to move it for him. Romeo is alive but mortally wounded.
Mission 6
Kikowani station
Buck
We watch Buck fix up Romeo's pneumothorax with a canister of expanding foam which fills the hole into his lungs from his chest wall and allows him to breathe again. A stopgap measure which shows how critical he is. Buck sees a Phantom land nearby and decides the only way they are going to get out of the city is to steal it.
We basically assault the grounded crew of the banshee and steal it. Buck takes a banshee and we have to escort the phantom
We have to go through heavy covenant fire from ground troops, phantoms and wraiths until we come to a locked door which You have to get out of the banshee to open.
We then encounter a scarab and once it's down you escape.
On the cut scene just as it looks like it's the end of the ordeal Buck realizes from a comment that Romeo makes just what the naval intelligence girl veronica was after and orders them to land.
back on the streets the rookie hears a distress call from veronica.
This gives a new mission marker
Mission 7
At this we enter an underground portion of the city.
We are now looking for Dare in Sublevel9
The sublevels are a huge labyrinth of similar looking cut and paste corridors, good job the liberal sprinkling of covenant keeps it fun.
There is a flamethrower down here which is fun to use.
When we find Dare she is trying to get to the superintendant to take a copy of it's data core, seems it knows something that both sides want to find out about.
We fight our way through to the data core which has been infected with covenant insect bugs and they hatch from the walls and attack.
When we do get to the data core covenant are banging on the door wanting in.
Inside we find one of the covenant engineers, seems they are a slave race to the covenant and aren't exactly on their side through choice, most of them have bombs implanted to ensure they do the covenant's bidding.
The engineer has taken all the superintendants data. It appears to have an organic supercomputer type structure that can absorb massive amounts of data, this one has learned about humanity from the superintendant and is defecting. This will bring the humans a massive amount of data on the covenant which it has absorbed in it's time with them.
The problem is we now have to escape.
Buck comes to our aid as we are now catching up with his timeline as he comes back for Dare.
The engineer floats around and gives us shield strength when we are close to it.
We make our way through the areas doing a little back tracking then into an elevator and it's the end of the mission.
Mission 8
Highway
We have to attack a heavily guarded sniper point.
Now we are onto the highway where the engineer takes over a large armored vehicle.
Buck and the rookie escort in a warthog the covenant run interference as we drive down the highway.
We come to a warthog with a rocket launcher and change vehicles then to a scorpion tank as the covenant forces get heavier.
We go as far as we can on the highway until a scarab blocks the way.
Always with the driving at the end of Halo games.
Buck tells the other ODST's to bring the phantom to them. We get out of our vehicles and head into the Uplift nature reserve from an earlier mission, though this is a different section of it.
We hold up here in a defendable position in the foyer. Waves and waves of covenant again, but damn it's good fun.
The phantom with the ODST's comes in and takes out the last wraiths that are approaching.
A cut scene shows the gang all reunited at last, Romeo is still alive, the engineer can keep the covenant off their back by providing proper flight authorization and we watch as the phantom makes a run for it while the covenant fly in en masse and attack the city looking for the forerunner structure found in Halo 3.
The credits roll.
Didn't time this one all that well though would guess at 7 hours
485 Achievement points.
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