The Great Journey, Ends Here…..
Game: Halo Reach
Age rating: 16
Consoles: Xbox 360.
Realese date: September, 14, 2010
Halo. The moment the name is uttered, you instantly jump to the game instead of that golden ring over the angels head. But why? It changed the way we looked at the fps genre. It gave us two guns instead of a hundred. It made us choose a different strategy each time we played the same level on a higher difficulty. In short it has grown from a simple video game, into a cultual phenomon. And now Bungie has passed the torch to 343 Studios. But not before giving out one last hurrah in the form of Halo Reach. But is it any good?. I’m here to find out.
Plot:
The battle of reach was a major event in the halo universe. The planet was the last stand between earth and the covernant and also was were the spartan soldiers (The program that turned six year olds into battle hardened soldiers and spat out the Master Chief along with Noble Six) the entire planet was glassed and the Master Chief was forced to flee to the stars starting of the events of the first Halo game: Combat Evolved.
You are Noble Six. A spartan assasin/commando, who is sent to replace a dead spartan in Noble Team. The team is informed that a communication beacon has gone down and that terriorists are responsible. But when the team investigates, they discover something much worse…
The plot isn’t as good as the first halo, but it sure does beat the other game plots in the series. It is full of emotion and can more or less cause tears in even the most steel hearted gamer.This plot is also fantastic because it is able to draw you in, even though you know right at the start you are going to fail. Of course there is one problem. There was humor in the last games, but in this prequel you are not going to laugh much. Even the little high piched squeks of the grunts, which caused many a gamer to chuckle, has been changed into a Darth Vader like rasp. This possibly isn’t too bad though. The plot is meant to be dark, so that point might be a bit pathetic. Still, combat evolved managed to cause fear near the end, which is something Reach can sadly, not achieve.
10
Gameplay:
Now obvously there is a problem with the halo gameplay problem I must adress. Bungie has given so many new stuff it just can’t give anything else out. So what does it do?
Simple. It upgrades all the old stuff around into something spectacular.
First off, weapons. Some have been changed to be more similar to the first games weapons. The Assualt Rifle is more similar to the Halo Combat Evolved rifle. It is easier to control the gunfire, allowing you to make short controlled burts. The Pistol is once again a powerful weapon, that can take down most enemies. Of course it isn’t to powerful. It has been made slightly weaker, but not too weak.
Some new weapons have been added to the armoury. These include the DMR, a fantastic new weapon that is reinvetion of the battle Rifle form halo 3. It fires a single powerful bullet that can instantly kill an unshielded enemy if you hit them in the head. And the plasma launcher locks on to a target and then fires severall plasma grenades at them.
Unfourtantly there are some weapons and vehicles that where never needed in the first place. The plasma reapeter is just a larger version of the plasma rifle. The Revenant is the same as the ghost, only it has a weaker wraith mortar on the top. In the end, I feel the game could have done without these additons. They just make the game feel bloated.
Of course Loadouts are awesome. They keep Gameplay interesting by letting you fly or turning you invisble. They allow a gamer to play by there streanghs, so if you are one of those people who like to get an assasination, simply select the invisiblty loadout and stab your enemies face in (oh yeah, now you are able to do more humilating moves on the enemy!). Of course I don’t like the fact that you can’t customize the weapons. It does seem strange that the stealthy guy gets a grenade launcher, while the sprinter gets a DMR.
Multiplayer is something special. There are the classic modes:
Slayer
King of the Hill
Infection
Etc
And a new mode, Invasion, that pits spartan against elite in a battle to the death. Of course it is just brutal fun. One side has to get the core of an enemies base and one side protects the core. Of course explosions, stabbing, gunfire and lots of blood spilling follow soon after.
Finally campaign. The AI is fantastic, but unfourtantly your team members can be a bit dim. Multiple times, the sniper killed me while taking down an elite. This is something I havent seen in a halo game before. But the problem only occurs rarely.
I would give it a 10.
Now obvously there is a problem with the halo gameplay problem I must adress. Bungie has given so many new stuff it just can’t give anything else out. So what does it do?
Simple. It upgrades all the old stuff around into something spectacular.
First off, weapons. Some have been changed to be more similar to the first games weapons. The Assualt Rifle is more similar to the Halo Combat Evolved rifle. It is easier to control the gunfire, allowing you to make short controlled burts. The Pistol is once again a powerful weapon, that can take down most enemies. Of course it isn’t to powerful. It has been made slightly weaker, but not too weak.
Some new weapons have been added to the armoury. These include the DMR, a fantastic new weapon that is reinvetion of the battle Rifle form halo 3. It fires a single powerful bullet that can instantly kill an unshielded enemy if you hit them in the head. And the plasma launcher locks on to a target and then fires severall plasma grenades at them.
Unfourtantly there are some weapons and vehicles that where never needed in the first place. The plasma reapeter is just a larger version of the plasma rifle. The Revenant is the same as the ghost, only it has a weaker wraith mortar on the top. In the end, I feel the game could have done without these additons. They just make the game feel bloated.
Of course Loadouts are awesome. They keep Gameplay interesting by letting you fly or turning you invisble. They allow a gamer to play by there streanghs, so if you are one of those people who like to get an assasination, simply select the invisiblty loadout and stab your enemies face in (oh yeah, now you are able to do more humilating moves on the enemy!). Of course I don’t like the fact that you can’t customize the weapons. It does seem strange that the stealthy guy gets a grenade launcher, while the sprinter gets a DMR.
Multiplayer is something special. There are the classic modes:
Slayer
King of the Hill
Infection
Etc
And a new mode, Invasion, that pits spartan against elite in a battle to the death. Of course it is just brutal fun. One side has to get the core of an enemies base and one side protects the core. Of course explosions, stabbing, gunfire and lots of blood spilling follow soon after.
Finally campaign. The AI is fantastic, but unfourtantly your team members can be a bit dim. Multiple times, the sniper killed me while taking down an elite. This is something I havent seen in a halo game before. But the problem only occurs rarely.
I would give it a 10.
Music, sound effects and acting.
The music in the Halo games has always been beatiful. It is fast, slow, loud, quiet, happy, sad, creepy, funny. In short it portrays the mood you are supposed to be feeling. If you are fighting a last stand Marty gives off a slow tune before making it action packed and loud!
The acting is just as realistic as it was in the last few halo games. The actors add a sense of belivebilty to the characters, and they really provoke an emotion from the player.
The sound effects are even better than the last few halo games. Plasma weapons are alien and strange, while human weapons are realistic and pack a punch.
In the end halo is just a beatifully composed game. And it is all because of Marty O Donnel. If he wasn’t on the game, the music and sound would be horrible. It deserves a 10
Graphics:
Lets face it, Halo has never had good graphics.
1: Looked like a ps1 game
2: had a leather like texture to it.
3: very pointy faces and clothes.
But reach?
It’s never going to be as good looking as gears of war or Call of duty, but it is….
Quite beatiful.
Things look a lot more realistic. And things look a lot more awesome.
Spartans are strong super soldiers, elites are frighting Aliens and enviorments are well..
One point I was looking at the snowy mountains on the planet. It was cool, and almost looked like something out of a nature show. Then I got run over by a grunt. And the realistc blood splatters didn’t ruin the mood.
In the end all the other halo games look terrible. In fact I couldn’t believe what I was looking at when I fired Reach up.
10
Conclusion: when I was seven years old, when you where a teenager who was getting ready for college, or when you where getting your first job, we where all informed that we where just getting started. And by god was that right.
But it’s been 9 long years. Now I’m going to college and you are probably are working a fantastic job, or you now have a wife/husband and kids. Our lives have changed. We have grown up. And now we have to wave goodbye to halo. We have had a great 9 years but it had to come to an end.
Of course you want to know if reach is any good. My opinion?
Yes you will have a blast regardless of the fact you have never played a halo game or have played every single halo game.
In the end Halo Reach has proven that the series will never die. It is just missing in action.
Farewell Halo. Thanks for a truly spectacular video game.
Diamond.
