Halo: Reach Review

Bungie has outdone themselves once again with Halo: Reach. Halo: Reach is a prequel to Halo: Combat Evolved. It takes places in the final days of the planet Reach when it is attacked by the treacherous Covenant aliens. It was an important military base for the UNSC. You play as Noble 6, a new member of the Spartan super soldier group know as Noble Team and are tasked with defending Reach from the Covenant invasion. Members of Noble Team are Carter, Kat, Jun, Emile, Jorge, and yourself. You face all sorts of enemies in the game. From the return of Elites, to gigantic Moas, to little Grunts.

CAMPAIGN.

The campaign starts out with Noble 6 meeting up with the rest of Noble team on the planet Reach. You are ordered to reactivate a critical communications relay that is believed to have been shutdown by rebels. But you later learn however that it was not rebels that shutdown the relay but none other than the alien Covenant. The rest of the campaign has you following Noble team to combat The Covenant invasion as well as surviving it. But planet Reach will inevitably fall.

THE ARMORY:

The Armory is a big change to Halo gameplay. It’s where you can customize what your Noble 6 looks like to the extreme. You can customize your helmet, shoulder pads, chest plate, knee gaurds, wrist equipment, visor color, utility option, firefight voice (firefight only and will get to that in a sec), character’s color and emblem. There is a separate menu to change your character’s gender, choose if you want to be a Spartan or Covenant Elite, and Elite armor. The best part about this is that whatever your Spartan looks like will look like that in campaign, multiplayer, and firefight as well. Armor doesn’t effect gameplay in campaign. To earn additional armor, you gain ranks. To gain ranks you have to earn credits from playing the game to buy armor. It may sound easy but it’s not. Ranks include Corporal, Sergeant, Captain, and so on. Warrant Officer is probably the hardest one of the bunch.

FIREFIGHT AND MULTIPLAYER:

MULTIPLAYER:

Multiplayer for Halo: Reach has a few changes since that of the old Halo 3 days. Some of the new things you can do is perform assassinations on enemies by holding the melee button down and bingo. Also there are new armor abilities that replace the good old equipment in Halo 3. They varies between the jet pack, drop shield (like bubble shield from H3 except takes damage and regenerates health), sprint, and more. Also a big change are the loadouts. Loadouts let you choose between various options that have number of grenades, armor ability, primary and secondary weapons. It adds a more customizable feel to the game. Returning game modes include regular slayer, capture the flag, king of the hill and etc. Some new ones include Headhunter, Stockpile, SWAT, and more.

FIREFIGHT:

Firefgiht was a game mode first introduced in Halo 3: ODST. To refresh everyone’s mind you play with up to 4 players against endless waves of enemies without matchmaking support. No you don’t have to fight against endless waves. You can customize it however you want and can choose loadouts, what skulls come on (and customize your own), choose what enemies appear in each wave and sooo much more. I don’t want to get into the details and I want to surprise you when whoever plays it for the first time.

FORGE MAP EDITOR:

The beloved forge map editor from Halo 3 has returned with improvements as well. In past months people made glitches to make objects float and made incredible stuff on maps like Foundry and Sandbox. But now with the new forge controls you don’t have to do those glitches anymore. The new controls let’s you snap rotations as well has change the degrees of them, make objects float easier and use physics to make other objects go into objects. Also there is a brand new huge map that is just for players to forge on anything they want. It is called Forge World and it is the largest Halo map EVER! Several maps that are on the disc were made in Forge World that include The Cage, Pardiso and Hemorrhage (the Blood Gulch remake). Forge World has endless opportunities for you to forge on, share with your friends, and play endless hours on it.

OVERVIEW:

Bungie again has outdone themselves with Halo: Reach. Sadly this is their last Halo game. But do not fear, 343 Industries is here to make future Halo games and support Reach. Reach is one of those few games that come out that is nearly flawless. One little problem that occurs to me however is a little case of lagging. Good work Bungie and remember people, Remember Reach and all it’s glory.

SCORE:

Graphics 4.8 out of five: Graphics are the best the 360 can offer but they make the game lag some like it did with Halo 3.

Gameplay 5 out of 5: Gameplay is best out of the Halo series.

Story 5 out of 5: Really like the story of Noble team and the Fall of Reach. It is darker and more personal than that of Halo 3′s and ties in directly to the main trilogy.

Final Score: 5 out of 5

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