YMMV / Halo 3: ODST

• Accidental Innuendo: One exchange featured in one of the ViDocs got replaced thanks to jokes about this.
  Dare: My hatch... (grunts) is... (grunts) jammed...^note This was replaced in the final game with "My hatch won't open. How about yours?"
  Buck: (chuckles)
  Dare: How's yours?
  Buck: (sighs) Works great!
• Awesome Music: Arguably the best in the series. Martin O'Donnell's score is varied, from a sad jazz atmosphere to military bombast to thrilling and adventurous.
  • The song used in the We Are ODST trailer, a darker rendition of Light of Aidan's ''Lament'', is incredibly popular among fans for damn good reason, and if that's not enough, the Welsh lyrics translate to this:
  "We cheat Death from his rightful victory. No one can defeat us we are glad to plunge feet first into hell in the knowledge that we will rise."
• Complete Monster: Police Commissioner Kinsler is a brutal thug and Dirty Cop who took advantage of the chaos caused by the Covenant's invasion of New Mombasa to carry out his crimes without repercussion. The first time Sadie encounters him, Kinsler reveals his intention to rape and kill her. When Sadie escaped from him with the help of Kinsler's driver, Mike Branley, Kinsler swore revenge on both of them. After Vergil, a subroutine of the AI that maintained New Mombasa's infrastructure, prevents Kinsler from killing Branley and recapturing Sadie, Kinsler responds by shutting the AI down. This has the effect of grinding New Mombasa's evacuation to a halt and causing many unnecessary deaths. Kinsler's final attempt to capture Sadie has him threatening to murder her father if Sadie doesn't willingly turn herself in. When Sadie arrives at Kinsler's private train car, Kinsler's having his corrupt officers fire into the crowd of panicked refugees to prevent them from escaping on his train. Once Sadie's in his clutches, Kinsler reveals that he already murdered her father by flooding his lab with argon and then tries to have his way with her again.
• Demonic Spiders:
  • Drones in Firefight, especially if the Tilt skull is on because that means their armor will deflect bullets (the best weapon to use against them otherwise is the SMG). If you're unlucky enough you'll even draw a Drone Major who has an energy shield. It's telling that Drones were cut from Firefight's next incarnation.
  • The Floodfights added in the Master Chief Collection mean you're now facing the entire Halo 3 roster of Flood enemies as an ODST in cramped combat arenas that they thrive in. Any problems you have with the Flood there are exacerbated here, especially versus those wielding Hitscan weapons that can kill you faster than they can a Spartan. ODST's combat sandbox was not balanced for being shot at by UNSC gear and Ranged Forms, and it shows.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Jonas, a huge butcher handing out free kebabs to refugees escaping New Mombasa during the attack, not giving a care for his own safety, became a big fan favorite thanks to his jovial and selfless attitude.
• Fridge Brilliance: "What am I supposed to do with this (sniper rifle) inside a Covenant ship?" Guess where the ODSTs aren't going?
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • The Orbital Drop Shock Troopers draw a lot of inspiration from the Mobile Infantry, and the most hated enemies, gameplay-wise, are the Drones.
  • In his debut, Buck's game profile describes him as such: "Truly, if he were any better, he would be a Spartan". Fast forward to Halo 5: Guardians...
  • It would take a few years, but the granddaddy of modern action-sci-fi would introduce elite orbital drop troopers to their lore. Perhaps it's only fair, considering how often Mandolorians and clones are compared to Spartans.
• It's Short, So It Sucks!: Although not a bad game, a common criticism of it is its short length (justified since it's an expansion) combined with a full-sized price tag (not so much).
  • Part of this is because the Framing Device of The Rookie finding his squad’s stuff is free roam, but Halo had never been free roam, so most people just bounced from one objective to another instead of exploring and admiring the beauty of a post-apocalyptic future city and the audio drama hidden around it. Since there’s no waypoints for those audio logs, it can take ages to find them all.
• Narm: The gestures and movements by the characters borders on Supermarionation.
• Spiritual Licensee: This is the best adaptation of Starship Troopers this side of Aliens.
  • Also has its' own Spiritual Licensee in the form of Helldivers, a Playstation-and-PC-only title that many describe as an ODST game in all but name.
• That One Achievement: “This Oliphant Has No Brakes”, in which the player must beat the par score for the level Coastal Highway. The average par score for most Halo levels is around 20,000, with a few in Halo: Reach going to 45,000 and 65,000. Coastal Highway demands a whopping 90,000 score. This basically requires playing on Legendary, with at least one scoring skull on, beating the level in under 30 minutes for the time bonus, and then trying one’s hardest to not die at all or let the Engineer die, while the game flings such encounters at you like waves of Ghosts, Banshees, Wraith tanks, and dozens of Brute packs, all of whom are going to be extremely aggressive on the highest difficulty. Oh, and Buck’s firing rate in the Warthog is frustratingly slow, even with a Gauss Hog or rockets. Screw up once, and your chances of unlocking the achievement nosedive.
• Unintentional Uncanny Valley: The game inherits the crude key framing animation method that the cutscenes in Halo 3 was somewhat infamous for, and its limitations are even more apparent here as the cutscene direction pushes the characters into exaggerated gestures and movements to match their more lighthearted personalities, making them look more like puppets than actual humans at times.
• Vindicated by History: ODST was never disliked but it was hard to talk about without mentioning that it was essentially a fully-priced expansion to a two year-old game. By the time it came out, the public eye was on Halo: Reach. Time, and the Master Chief Collection, have only been kind to the game, with many praising its atmosphere, unique structure, and focus on a small cast of non-Spartans.

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