Halo 3: ODST Completed for the 4th Time

In preparation for "A Monument to All Your Sins," the Halo: Reach Achievement that requires you to complete the Campaign on Legendary solo, I decided to give Halo 3: ODST another go, my 4th time playing through the Campaign and my first on Legendary. I still needed the "Campaign Complete: Legendary" Achievement, and figured what the heck, it's worth a shot.

To date, I've never been able to complete a Halo shooter's Campaign on solo Legendary, and I'm quite pleased to say that this time, I've done so.

Like all Halo shooters, the game was quite hard on Legendary, but unlike previous titles, you're often paired up with invulnerable AI allies that can not be knocked unconscious. Couple that with their infinite ammo and once you give them something like a Rocket Launcher, stuff starts to die while you just hang back. Not exactly the bravest way to tackle a Campaign, but it got results.

Of course there are several points where you find yourself solo, and this requires you to play slow, cautious, and careful, particularly in the flashback sequences. Exploring the city at night as the Rookie was actually surprisingly simple. Once you got to Dare's helmet to trigger the first sequence as Buck, it actually counts all of your exploration done, so there was no need to navigate at night from beacon to beacon and you could just load each individual mission from the Main Menu. Saved time and frustration.

That's not to say their wasn't some frustration, as it took a whole heap of swearing and menacing Controller waving to get through this Campaign. Like Buck's first battle with those two Hunters (after about 15 attempts or so, I figured out that you could just run past them), or holding the ONI building as Dutch (note to self, Micky sucks with the Spartan Laser), and lastly, giving Buck a Fuel Rod Gun at the end while racing down the highway (turns out he won't mount a Warthog's turret if he's equipped with one of those, and he's not a big fan of always shooting it to, you know, kill things).

But what an Achievement, and I'm right now classing this as one of the toughest and most satisfying Achievements I've ever earned. Overall, I've really enjoyed Halo 3: ODST's Campaign, and while it might not have been as long as previous entries, it is of higher quality and provides sufficient variety to be more enjoyable, at least to me, than Halo 3's. In a week and a half, we'll see how Halo: Reach's Campaign holds up.