Upon attempting to play Halo 3: ODST as if it were real life, (playing on Heroic, going with the pretend mindset that a few plasma bolts would drop me) I have now concluded that the combat in that game cannot be considered realistic, or even canon within context of the universe.
Let me explain. I took it all slow, used as much cover as possible, but always found myself being shot at, and unable to pop out of cover without receiving fire that should be fatal.
When I'm explaining this in separate threads, other users are usually saying that the ODSTs in the authentic story were always behind cover.
Well, as I've explained, even using cover does not help much at all.
In other words, no matter what, you're going to get shot at time and time again.
So my question is this: How the hell can this game be considered canon if you're always taking so many shots. The whole ODST squad would have been killed off in all of their own levels before long.
You may say that gameplay =/= canon. That's partially correct, but Campaign gameplay is made for two reasons: to be enjoyable and satisfying, and to REPRESENT the context of the canon and universe you're taking part in.
That said, the Campaign of ODST is automatically rendered absurd and unrealistic because of this. Opinions?
Gameplay comes first in Halo, but the way it was asserted is pretty ridiculous. I say this in the sense that there could have been an alternative method of being able to play the game. Having a "canon" difficulty, per say. Like the Realism mode in Left 4 Dead 2! But knowing Bungie...
SECOND TOPIC
After some thought, I've quite clearly come to realize that the game universe and novel universes both have one thing that is different from each other. The combat.
In the games, one UNSC soldier can take quite a bit of abuse, and so can Covenant troops.
In the novels, a UNSC soldier will drop within a couple of plasma bolts, and a Covenant Elite in a small handful of bullets.
This leads to the natural conclusion that it's really up to the player/reader to decide what's right or wrong. With the argument I've presented in my first post, it's clear that with the novel's reasoning, Buck and his squad would have perished in no time.
So, what's your pick?
[Edited on 09.21.2011 6:50 PM PDT]