So ayer, I played Halo: ODST.

Epic. Win.

It's like a Halo 1, ironed out of many bugs. The zooming pistol is back, there's a zoomed auto-rifle, health packs are back, and all this in an awesome helluva suit.

First off, my friend and I did a two-person firefight on Crater on Easy, just to get the feel of the game. It was nice; grunts flying in all directions, jackals sniping in odd places, brutes WITH SHIELDS (WTF?), no engineers on that level though, golden FRG hunters (as opposed to the blue FRC hunters), and drones in all colors (some with shields, annoying). When catch comes on, it's a grenade fight fest; as black eye and tilt also appear, things just get tougher and tougher, even on easy, especially the drones, who constantly pester you anywhere. Brute stalkers and jump packs also continually harass you, and the chieftains? When there are 3 of them, it's game on. And the grunty thirst of bonus round? Insane.

We stopped at about three sets, when we got the achievement for Crater.

Later, we hooked up with another pair of friends for a four-person campaign co-op on Legendary.

Let all hell break loose.

At first it wasn't a problem; most of Rookie's missions are quiet, and oppositions were light, with exceptions to the occasional pair of hunters. When we got to the other squad's missions, mayhem. Enemies flocked from every directions, banshees and phantoms assailed us, wraiths constantly blasted our positions, and ghosts and choppers threatened to tear us to pieces. And what's worse, one of ours kept betraying us (yea, we betrayed each other occasionally too, but they were mostly accidental. I mistakenly blasted one teammate from a wraith. The wraith lived; he didn't. Now that's an FML moment). We got as far as the final level, and the journey there was paved with excitement and danger. We flew banshees, we rode tanks, we hijacked ghosts and choppers and a phantom, as well as a garbage disposal unit (called the Olephant, cousin of the Sandtrap's Elephant). We had grunt party skull on, so everything went HOORAY!

Sadly, my friends had to go before we could finish the game (and the game was my friends', not mine; I didn't ask to borrow it neither, didn't think I need it). Still, a pandemonium-laced trail we left behind.