Okay, I admit it. After the announcement of Halo: Reach, set to come out in 2010, only twelve months or so after this year’s Halo 3: ODST, I was set to bash Bungie for being unoriginal and Microsoft for upping the production quota on the goose that laid the golden egg(s).

I had a piece all written, with a pleasantly unpleasant pun in the title, about how this was only to be expected; that Microsoft almost certainly extorted… I mean, exacted from Bungie a promise to continue on with at least X more Halo titles after receiving their independence. This would appear to be true for all situations where X is two or larger. Originally I had thought perhaps ODST would be it; that was probably naive of me.

Of course there’s always every chance that there are people in Bungie who want to continue with Halo. Just like Id software nearly split in half over the decision of whether or not to revisit Doom with Doom 3, one might imagine that some old-time Bungie devs want to go back to doing a game and a sequel and let the spinoff studios handle the third game, a la Marathon and Myth. It also seems possible, though, that there are Bungie devs who have not worked on anything but Halo, and perhaps some of those want to keep doing it because they like it, and others want to do something else because they’re tired of it.

ODST, I figured, would be an expansion pack: some new campaign and multiplayer levels to tide us over while Bungie works on the Next Big Thing. In some ways, perhaps that’s true. However it also looks like we’re getting a lot more out of ODST than just that, and the design team have made some intriguing choices, many of which were on display at E3.

The first we already knew: no Spartans. ODSTs are not as strong or as fast. How that will be handled was fleshed out in the gameplay demo. ODSTs don’t have shields. They rely instead on “health terminals” that work like Halo 1’s health packs. That’s the first of many gameplay throwbacks to Halo 1. The next is fall damage. Unlike the heavily armored Spartans of… well, of Halo 2 and 3, the ODSTs take damage if they fall too far– which we see right off the bat as the Rookie exits his crashed drop pod. No word yet though on whether ODST will kill players for falling too far or moving too fast.

In part to compensate for less strength and speed, Bungie gave ODST the VISR mode, which is like an extended version of Halo 1’s night vision sniper scope. It increases contrast and outlines interesting items (including allies and enemies). Spartans must be jealous; why don’t they have this?

Then there’s the Superintendent himself, who provides Bungiefen with another flashback: this time not to Halo but to Marathon. Superintendent terminals provide the player with an overhead map of the play area, showing areas of special interest and allowing the placement of waypoints to aid in navigation. The ODST HUD has a compass that shows those waypoints, just like similar play mechanics in Fallout 3, Oblivion and Mass Effect. (Marathon had an overhead map but no waypoints or compass; just an indicator of the player’s position and direction.)

All of those things are interesting, but they had me at Firefight: kind of a campaign co-op light. I’ve never been a huge fan of traditional versus multiplayer, and campaign co-op mode tends to be a lot more demanding of bandwidth. If Firefight can be a compromise between those two, this mode, which pits 1-4 players against increasingly difficult waves of Covenant infantry and vehicles, could end up being my favorite new way to play a game I’ve been playing for the last ten years– and might be playing for the next ten if Microsoft has anything to say about it.

Yes, this is unusually positive. I find myself suprisingly eager to get a copy (or two) of ODST and get exploring the ruins of New Mombassa. To make up for it, I’ll be sure to make a post of all the game’s foibles post-release.