Dust Storm.org

Well, I’m at my local GameStop waiting for Halo: Reach, and I’m seeing a good number of un-accompanied minors.  I thought GameStop was liable in enforcing age restrictions for games (since Reach is an M-rated game).  This is a little worrysome.

They also have us lined up here at 11:10p so they might release it early again like they did for ODST.  Too bad I really won’t be able to play it for a few days because of homework, so I’ll express my frustration in a spoiler: everyone on Noble Team except you dies during the campaign.

In association with Podtacular, I have made a couple of ODST Achievement guides to cover most of the basic campaign achievements. I cover specific level achievements like Both Tubes and Wraith Killer and general achievements like Boom, Headshot and Dark Times. Most of them are up on my Youtube page available in HD, but there are more coming soon.

So while at MLG Dallas, I got the chance to play the new multiplayer mode introduced in ODST: Firefight.  Each level in Firefight is supposed to represent some playable area in the ODST Campaign, and there are a few with daytime and nighttime variations: perfectly excuse to use the Visor mode.  Also, who can resist killing onslaughts of Covenant, especially grunts.

As far as gameplay, many have compared Firefight to Horde mode from Gears.  Since I have not played any Gears multiplayer, I don’t know what that’s like, but I do know that everyone will have fun with it.  Covenant come in waves: 5 waves in a round, 3 rounds in a set.  After each round, different skulls come on or off, and as you get through the sets, the difficulty increases.  That covers most of the basics for Firefight.

A couple of things that are not clearly evident: Engineers are in a few of the multiplayer maps.  Engineers are covenant characters that go around and heal other covenant units giving them things like overshields.  As Shishka said, “If two Engineers are around you, you’re screwed.”  Another thing that came to somewhat as a surprise when I played is the different areas Covenant waves can come from.  Just when you think you know where they can come from, they come from somewhere else.  It takes a while to get used to it, but once you have the hand of it, good teamwork will keep you alive.  I found turrets to be a big help with another friend nearby helping fend off closing Covenant while you mow down waves that are off in the distance.  Be careful when the drop ships come though.  They will tear you up.  Hunters take a while to take down as well since you aren’t super soldiers with power weapons, so have one of your teammates go around and shoot it in the back while the others distract it.

I definitely hope everyone pre-ordered it or plan to get it, because this game is definitely worth the $60.