First look at Halo 3: ODST

The first thing that jumps out at you during the intro sequence of Halo 3: ODST is the Troopers' faces. ODST is a snappy acronym for Orbital Drop Shock Troopers – basically they're paramilitary soldiers, except they're the kind that jump out of spaceships rather than Chinooks, that plummet into planets rather than fall into fields. We join a squad of them high above Earth in a spaceship preparing to descend upon New Mombasa, Kenya. You play the Rookie, an unfortunate ODST who's about to be launched to Earth, split from his comrades and left to fend for himself against hordes of Covenant who've just taken over the city.

Back to their faces though. At home on their ship, none of the ODSTs are wearing their helmets. Having grown so used to seeing Master Chief's iconic golden visor in previous Halo titles, these characters almost feel naked. And that's key to the story Bungie wants to tell in ODST – these aren't just grunts, they're human beings. When the Rookie falls however-many thousand miles to Earth, his screen fills red with pain. Put it this way: he feels things that Master Chief wouldn't.

Our host from Bungie, who's taking us through the opening sections, finds his feet after landing on Earth with an almighty bump. It's dark, void of human activity, ruined skyscrapers jut through smoke, the sky's on fire and the ground is crawling with bands of Covenant. You're all alone.

The HUD, the controls, the enemies – all are very Halo, but there are apocalyptic shades of Fallout here too. Halo: ODST's biggest party trick is that New Mombasa is an open world. Bringing up the new map – an enhanced, almost 3D version the one in Fallout 3 – shows the entire city, a nightmarish playground for you to trek across in whatever order you see fit. Packs of Covenant will show up on the map too, adding to your sense of vulnerability: go in guns blazing if you want, or use the map to avoid danger entirely. Likewise, Tapping X brings up Rookie's night-vision VISR – crucial for spotting Covenant in the dark before they clock you.

All this amounts to a dramatic change of atmosphere and pace. Halo 1, 2 and 3 were mixtures of intense corridor shooting and burning Warthogs through sunny, grassy tundras, all in a very linear fashion. The single player in ODST promises something quite different: a free-roaming, tenser game, sporadically mixed with bursts of classic Halo gunplay all wrapped up in a mysterious story as the Rookie tries to locate his fellow human beings. After the grandiose, space-trekking plots of the previous titles, ODST is far more personal, focused on the lives of a few individuals rather than the struggles of entire races.

That's the single player then, but what of multiplayer? The man from Bungie invites the rabble of journalists who've been staring at him for the past 20 minutes to a game of Firefight – the new co-op multiplayer mode. Up everyone jumps eager to get a go on ODST, not just the new mode. At first it doesn't feel much different. Sure, the Rookie's slower and can't jump as high, but they're subtle changes that you quickly forget about. Firefight is simple: it's about four of you repelling waves of them, much like Gears of War's Horde mode. Soon you take a beating and you realise how reliant on Master Chief's regenerative shield you've become. Despite your instincts telling you otherwise, ducking behind a wall to recuperate won't work anymore. This is easily the most significant tweak, and should make for a refreshing change, but otherwise multiplayer feels like business as usual. Whether the Rookie's more old-school health system will supersede Master Chief's regenerative shield as the health mechanic of choice will take many bouts of deathmatch to determine.

Halo 3: ODST is a tantilising prospect. Whereas, Halo 2 and 3 were safe, incremental sequels adhering to a winning formula, the sense of déjà vu this time round is far less noticeable. Sure, it's Halo at heart, and conversely "it's not a Splinter Cell game", as Bungie developer Lars Bakken put it, but the open, atmospheric world and mysterious story are quite sufficient for me to be very excited by ODST. Although the ODSTs' faces are disarmingly striking, I'm not convinced they're going to have an intellect or be anymore human than Marcus Fenix and his brothers-from-other-mothers.

At the end of Halo 3, Master Chief put himself into cryogenic freezing. If Halo: ODST's fresh approach delivers on its potential, as far as I'm concerned, he can stay there.