ODST is a story that is set in the Halo universe that takes place during the events of Halo 2 and 3 in the city of new Mombasa. You play as various different characters with interjecting storylines that are accompanied by some of the best voice acting in the industry has produced. There is also another storyline that is told through audio clips that actually makes the game even more interesting coming from a civilian’s point of view.

Now that the basic story is out-of-the-way, let us move on to the more important parts of the game, accessibility!

Throughout the game, you make use of your visor, which has a night vision effect as well as highlighting certain objects and giving you clues about how to continue through the storyline. Whenever you activate your visor, certain things will change color. Green signifies allies, red signifies enemies, yellow signifies buildings and objects of interest whenever activated. Visor mode is mainly used for dark areas of the game and not required to complete the game. This visor mode is going to cause some issues with colorblind gamers, but the colors are significant, but you can overcome the issue because the objects are obvious as to what they are.

Something that is both amazing and disappointing is the subtitles in ODST. Let us start with saying that the cut-scenes have amazingly detailed subtitles that not only show what is being said, it also shows how things are being said. An example would be when one of the characters is talking it says coming from a radio etc. As amazing as these subtitles are, they are not included outside of the cut scene cinematic. A lot of the soldier’s jokes and remarks are not subtitled and the civilian storyline is only subtitled if you press the back button and play it through the night vision menus. Although the main story is perfectly subtitled, the nonessential parts of the game are not. To me this is a big oversight on the game maker’s part. Game is partially accessible to those with mild to severe hearing impairment.
ODST has your basic FPS control schemes that have become standard for the genre and has nothing innovative or tricky.

Time for a detailed description of the controls!
- D-pad is used to view waypoints

- Left thumb stick is used for moving back and forth as well as strafing left or right.(Clicking joystick results in a crouch which can be set to holding it down for toggling standing.)

- Right thumb stick is used for aiming and looking around. (Clicking results in zooming for applicable weapons.)

- A button is used for jumping.

- B button is used for melee attacks and to dismount gun turrets from stands.

- X toggles on and off VISR mode.

- Y is used for swapping weapons and switching to flying camera mode when you are dead.

- The left bumper button changes your type of grenade.

- The left trigger button is used for throwing grenades.

- The right bumper is used for reloading, opening doors and various other miscellaneous tasks.

- The right trigger is used for using your weapon.

- The start button pauses the game and brings up the menu.

- The back button brings up the VISR database.

Halo:ODST is a wonderfully done game and extremely enjoyable, it has one major oversight for people with hearing impairments. Overall, this game is fair in the accessibility. It lacks any real customization of the buttons and has some subtitling oversights.