While the fancy new New Xbox Experience’s ability to let you install 360 games to your HDD is mostly a good thing, it seems there’s a few hiccups. As you’d expect, copying a game to your 360’s hard drive should speed things up – faster load times, and all. But in fact, in some cases it actually slows things down. Especially when it comes to Halo 3. Tests have already shown the game runs faster on disc than it does on HDD, and today Bungie have come out and confirmed this. Confirmed it, and explained it. read more »

Those masters of titillation and baiting over at Bungie are at it again. This time letting their legions of fans know that Halo 3: Recon is getting a new name, unfortunately, spilling little else.

As of November 25th, Halo 3: Recon will now be known as Halo 3: ODST. Phonetically – Does “Ohhh Dee Estie” rolls off the tongue any easier than “Reee-KHAN”? So where does this ODST title come from? ODST, is an acronym for Oribtal Drop Shock Trooper, and of course, the central character of the upcoming title.

If you recall, this is our recently announced stand-alone extension to Halo 3 that features an all new campaign played from the perspective of an ODST in the heart of a Covenant occupied New Mombasa. In addition to sleuthing around the city and piecing together the details surrounding your squad’s whereabouts, the game will also include some new Halo 3 multiplayer content as well as one or two unrevealed surprises when it’s released next Fall.

This new title is a more straightforward account of the experience that awaits and the role you will assume as you explore the streets of New Mombasa. But don’t worry, you can still has Recon. (the armor that is, it’s still tied to the Vidmaster achievements and will be accessible via the final retail release next Fall).

“ODST” (literally pronounced “Oh-Dee-Ess-Tee” and not “ohdst”) is the acronym for “Orbital Drop Shock Trooper.” This special forces branch of the UNSC military force is called into action for highly specialized, small scale operations. ODST units were deployed during portions of the Halo 2 and Halo 3 campaign and have also been featured in some of the Halo novels. To learn more about this elite military operation, check out this recent interview with Bungie’s Halo fiction guru, Robt McLees.

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The first details on Bungie’s exciting new Halo 3 expansion – Halo 3: Recon have finally emerged, detailing new equipment, more human characters and surprisingly, an open-world city. Revealed in the most recent issue of Game Informer, players take control of The Rookie, a faceless, Orbital Drock Shock Trooper part of a five-man team rocketed into Ground Zero of Earth city New Mombasa, during the events of Halo 2.

What we’ve learned so far is that the game has a hub-like structure and you’re playing as a rookie ODST troop, tasked with tracking down some lost squadmates. While you run around looking for them (and this is the part of the game that’s a little bit open-world) you wander the streets of New Mombasa looking for clues on their whereabouts. Once you find those clues, the game changes things up and you get a flashback of what happened to that soldier, and then you play that flashback, taking control of the troop in question for a more traditional Halo level. Eventually,  you’ll discover the fate your teammates and unravel the mystery of what went on in New Mombasa.

Hit the jump for more info, and good news for Firefly Fans!

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