“Halo 3: ODST”
Genre: First-person shooter
Developer: Bungie Studios
Publisher: Microsoft
Platform: Xbox 360
ESRB rating: “M” for Mature
Release date: Tuesday, Sept. 22
Price: $59.99
Grade: A

Game Guy went along with the pundits who marveled at “Halo 3″ two years ago. He resisted, not wanting to parrot the crowd, but agreed that Bungee’s conclusion to the Covenant trilogy was inspired and engaging — a good end to a classic story.

But when “Halo” sales set records and Xbox Live teemed with players in its first weeks, Game Guy wondered whether Bungee and Microsoft Game Studios would let Master Chief or his ilk really and truly clank away into the sunset.

No worry, they probably said, we can concoct a pre-story, and so now there’s “Halo 3: ODST,” a standalone expansion that dropped this week and recounts the battle experiences of “orbital drop shock troopers” across portions of the “Halo 2″ and “Halo 3″ time frames.

In “ODST,” players plunge into action as the “Rookie,” one of four nimble troopers intending to back up the United Nations Space Command’s interdiction at the African city of New Mombassa. Upon launch, a gaffe disperses the team, forcing Rookie to pick through the ruined city for beacons pointing to his team members’ whereabouts. These aren’t conventional beacons, though; they trigger flashbacks from the others’ points of view, thus putting players in the intriguing position of commanding four different characters at once.

ODST’s lack the strength and fleet-footedness of super troopers such as Master Chief, but they’re a challenge to the Covenant nonetheless, relying on endurance and stamina to wear down opponents. Players must take breaks after absorbing hits or scrounge up medical packs strewn across the environment, else their abilities and effectiveness diminish. A special visor that color-codes friends, foes and collectibles comes in handy during night fights and in shadow. Otherwise, “ODST” is not much of a technical step forward in the “Halo” franchise.

It is, however, a better overall experience than its predecessor, and Game Guy says this knowing there are legions of “Halo 3″ fans out there unwilling to accept this. Besides the flashbacks stoking drama the first three Halos never had, there’s also a Firefight mode where waves of targets fly at troops for the sheer points-racking, trigger-pulling fun of it. All the weapons factor in here — the better to see how well-matched friendlies are against foes. This balance makes Firefight the franchise element of “ODST,” and the one element shooter fans will want to revisit over and over.

The creative aspect of “ODST” is heightened by a game-within-a-game “alternate reality” — an audio sub-story woven into “ODST” recounting a New Mombassa resident’s struggle as the Covenant arrived. This tale continues Bungie’s tradition of plugging alternate content into “Halo” but this time with a deftness and purpose demonstrating Bungie’s improving ability to manipulate this storytelling form.

One wishes Bungie paid similar mind to the presentation as well. Visually, “ODST” stands astride “Halo 3,” a two-year old production. Sub-characters can be clunky and unresponsive at times, and chunks of background dropped out near action demanding rapid refreshing, but on this Game Guy couldn’t say whether the game was at fault or his latest Xbox was starting to suck wind the way four others have.

At first, “ODST” was intended as another layer to the Master Chief experience; then the cooks in Bungie’s kitchen added dashes of this and that until the game graduated from side dish to main course, though it requires far fewer hours to play than “Halo 3.” The result of all this tweaking is a title intrinsically better than its predecessors and well worth the time to revisit over and over.