After reading dozens of reviews slamming Halo 3: ODST for its relatively brief 6 to 7 hour campaign, John Yates has begun asking his friends why he’s almost 13 hours into the game without any sign of it stopping. Mr. Yates, an occasional gamer and great fan of the Halo series, spent most of the weekend playing ODST, and told us “[he's] not sure why he hasn’t beaten it yet.”

Mr. Yates gave us a brief tour of Halo 3: ODST, in which we witnessed the game’s new, non-regenerating health, the game’s new enemy types, and the non-linear story mode. While we admired the game’s small changes, we were slightly disappointed to see that the game’s death screen was almost entirely unchanged, as the screen was displayed almost 50 times over the course of our hour and a half with John.

“Fuck,” said Mr. Yates at one point. “How am I supposed to know those guys with the glowy arms are going to throw grenades at me?”

At another point, he ran around in a circle, firing an empty gun directly into the ground, yelping with glee, “I don’t think that big gold guy can see me as long as I do — Fuck!”

Whenever he saw a AI-controlled teammate, John immediately ran directly into them and took them out with two rifle-butts to the head – a mistake he soon regretted, as he piloted empty tanks and Warthogs directly into enemy bombardment, over and over again. “How was I supposed to know? They all look alike!” he told us, then threw his controller into the wall.

“Sure, I haven’t played one of these FTSes since Halo 3, but I was really good at that,” he told us. “Plus, I loved that game – it was amazing that they managed to fit a full 40-hour campaign onto one DVD. Beat that, PS3!”

When contacted for comment, Bungie community manager Glenn Meyer told us, “Halo 3: ODST is a side-story, with a full-featured, all-new campaign, as well as a brand new multipla — wait a second. He’s been playing for how long? And he’s where? Jesus. Is he playing on Legendary or something? — Easy? Christ. There’s nothing we can do for him.”

When asked whether he had considered playing through the game co-op with a friend, John shook his head – “My old clan all fell apart. They kept telling me that I needed to practice more if I was going to play with them. Now they won’t even talk to me. What, I’m supposed to practice playing video games? What kind of a loser do they think I am?”

In his frustration, he manages to attach a sticky grenade to himself, launching him 100 feet to his 306th death of the afternoon.