Halo Reach

[shadowmadnezz]

Campaign was just bland...It was very repetitive, but hey it is a Halo game. Not that that's bad, its just being a invulnerable spartan makes it kinda hard to add feeling to the characters.

 

Wtf lol Every single mission brought something different to the plate repetitive it was not. Other than being bad ass and killing a bunch of aliens. but c'mon its a fps. What you expected to solve some puzzles? lol And the spartans weren't invulnerable.

And If you hadn't noticed, noble team died throughout the campaign. Other than Jun. Cuz i didnt catch him dying?

 

 

this game is awesome, i just wish we could have seen more spartans on the field other than noble team. the only reason this game sux is cuz I suck at multiplayer :P

[AliasTheory]

Lucky you Hams :P

Yep. Done told my wife that the kids are going to be early tonight and not to count on me doing anything tonight other than site in front of that TV...almost in a vegetative and non-responsive state. I will respond if she says something like "can I get you something to eat or drink?" but I will only respond with something like "affirmative" or "roger that" to keep from breaking my virtual reality.

Haha. That's funny. :) "Vegetative."

 

I still have to finish the campaign...once I get Xbox LIVE working in my dorm room I'm going to recover my gamertag and play some legendary.

[LHammonds]

I finished the campaign in a single setting. I must say it was VERY fun. I found the combination of using the doppelganger (hologram) to distract the enemy for a split second (by collecting aggro) and put a bullet in their temple was very effective...much more so than any other armor ability. I can easily see using the doppelganger to great effect in multi-player games to confuse and trick others into firing their weapons and giving away their positions or simply get somebody to possibly stop firing at me at a crucial moment.

 

After I finished playing, it really made me want to pop in the original Halo game and go through the intro sequence. The storyline and cut sequences were tied in very well and obvious improvements from the team that created the PS3 hit title called "Uncharted" (I think Bungie reciprocated with multi-player in the next version of Uncharted").

 

It took some getting used to in regards to how much punishment your character could take in an extended firefight (died a lot in the 1st 1/2 of the game). In the original Halo as Master Chief, you are darn near invincible. In Halo ODST, you simply cannot soak up anywhere near the amount of damage that you could in Halo (and rightly so because you do not play as a Spartan). However, in Reach, you do play as a Spartan but you certainly do not have an invulnerable setup. It seems closer to ODST than Master Chief but somewhere almost in the middle but leaning toward ODST in terms of damage you can soak. The problem is that your health can be damaged and without finding a health pack (which you have to activate...cannot just get close to it). You have to adjust your awareness so that you duck for cover if your shields are nearly depleted or completed nullified from a specific kind of blast. As long as you keep your health from being whittled down, you can last much longer without having to rely on health packs. Even with full shields and health, there are some enemies that can shoot you two times in rapid succession and kill you almost instantly and I think the large hammer is a one-shot-kill to you no matter your condition. So you still feel very vulnerable in this game.

 

If there was one thing I could "mod" on this game, its the ability to carry more than 2 weapons at a time. THAT would be fun for repeat plays of the campaign. I did find it a bit irritating that each time you travel from one location to another (loading a new level), your weapon and armor load-out is completely reset...which means you loose whatever awesome weapons you picked up along the way.

 

Oh...almost forgot to mention this....

 

BE SURE TO SIT THROUGH THE CREDITS AND BE READY TO PLAY AS SOON AS THEY ARE OVER...YOU WON'T REGRET THE WAIT.

 

LHammonds

[WrathOfDeadguy]

Oh my yes... I was very pleased with what happened after the credits. It certainly beat the little cutscenes on the ends of all the other games.

 

Jetpacks. I cut my shooter teeth on Starsiege: Tribes back in the day... without question, my favorite armor ability. I just wish it showed up more often in campaign mode. Armor abilities in general are a nice addition... they feel like they should have been there all along; the powerups in CE and 2 felt a bit silly, and the use-once equipment in Halo 3 didn't stick around long enough to be really useful; I hardly even noticed its absence in ODST. Armor abilities stay with you long enough for you to actually work them into your tactics and plan around their use rather than feeling the urgent need to save a particularly good item until you really, really need it (then end up not using it at all).

 

The health system works well, IMO- a little touch of recovery, a little touch of permanent damage. Not much else to say there; it's well implemented and an improvement over the other games, combining a visual indication of how close you are to dying with a system that doesn't make every little dent require a health pack to fix.

 

They did a good job of mixing up the missions... just when running and gunning starts to get a bit tired, there's a fun bit of flying- not anything approaching simulator quality flight controls, but the fighter handled smoothly and wasn't frustrating in the slightest. The only thing more it could have used was a radar display. I really had fun with that bit because it gave me a chance to fly around and examine the Frigate model up close- the UNSC frigates in Halo are some of my favorite sci-fi starship designs; it was cool to see one for more than a few seconds at a time in a cutscene. The big ships come across as much more impressive this time, bristling with smaller gun turrets and launchers- it was especially nice to see the Pillar of Autumn again with that greater level of detail. She didn't really look like a warship so much as a big box with engines the first time around; the new model is much more impressive to look at.

 

Hunters... whoo boy did they ever get an upgrade. Their fuel rod guns from Halo:CE are back, and they're much more lethal than the plasma stream weapons they had in 2, 3, and ODST. They also got an armor upgrade; their vulnerable spots are much smaller and harder to hit. Explosives are no longer a shortcut around Hunters, either... unless you get lucky and plant a rocket in one of the soft spots, you'll waste more ammo trying than you would if you used regular weapons. Killing them actually makes you feel like you've accomplished something.

 

Elites... yup, they got an upgrade too. The animations are better; they'll alternate between smacking you with their weapon and kicking you when you're in melee range. They actively evade when their shields are down and seem to be more aware of their surroundings- if there are other Covenant forces nearby, they'll try to regroup with their buddies and lure you into an ambush.

 

Brutes... they could have been tougher. IMO they were about right in Halo 3 and ODST (except for the terrible idea of allowing the OHKO hammer chieftains temporary invulnerability). Halo 2's Brutes were just plain frustrating for how much damage they could soak up and not die; Reach's Brutes feel like pushovers.

 

Jackals... is it just me or are there a lot more of these guys? I felt like I was killing more Jackals than Grunts... not a complaint; just different.

 

Grunts... got more fun. They still die easy, but now if you plug them in the right spot on their breathing apparatus, it will ignite and send the body flying, then eventually explode- making Grunts useful as improvised grenades. They still do that grenade suicide bit, and it seems like they do it more frequently.

 

The Flood... I still don't miss 'em. Nothing killed the mood quicker than a Flood level, especially back in Halo 2 when a slap on the back was a guaranteed one-hit death (I still don't get why melee is a one-hit kill on a power-armored super-soldier who can survive falls from space.). Good riddance to the little buggers, and those bloody multiforms from Halo 3, too.

 

Vehicles... there are a few civilian vehicles that can be driven around in certain missions, like a pickup truck and a forklift. Not sure what the point of the forklift is, but the pickup works sort of like a slower, more stable Warthog minus the turret. The Falcon gunship is fun, although it is only flyable once- a few other times you ride in it and use the side guns to attack enemies on the way to your destination. The Sabre is fun as well, though I'm not quite sure why Noble Six didn't fly it back after the mission was accomplished (avoiding major spoilers there). As expected, the Scorpion only makes a brief appearance... it only shows up once, in fact, whereas every other game had at least two tank sections. Not complaining, though; Wraiths are still hijackable and the Sabre and Falcon sections provide plenty of vehicular action. Honestly, the Scorpion bit wasn't that great... the controls seem a bit more squirrely and the silly thing got hung up driving over a piece of Ghost fender. The new rocket Warthog... love it.

 

Weapons... can I get a hell yeah for the Target Locator? It's the single most satisfying thing in the game. I think it only appears once or twice in singleplayer, but it is definitely not to be missed. The new grenade launcher is pretty handy, though the grenades don't always seem to explode when they hit an enemy. The Focus Rifle and Needle Rifle are pretty cool. The DMR and Magnum are pretty similar in function and role... DMR has tighter zoom and more ammo; Magnum is quicker (and back to its headshotarrific glory, though it isn't quite the monster it was in Halo:CE). The rocket launcher has homing ability again, so it's more or less the second coming of the Halo 2 tube.

 

The armor parts purchasing system is... interesting. I have one gripe with it. You get the same amount of credits for completing the entire singleplayer campaign as you do from a single round in multiplayer. Seems like a bit of bias in favor of the multi crowd- wouldn't it make sense to award credits at the end of each level, or at least a larger sum at the end of the game? Seems like it would be pretty easy to farm credits with short multi rounds, too. Not a big issue, since the armor bits are purely cosmetic. While we're on armor, it is nice to be able to customize your campaign appearance. I understand not allowing that with the Master Chief, being that he's also the central character of the story, but since Noble Six is a pure player character it makes all the difference for immersion. It was also nice to hear N6 talk, unlike ODST's Rookie (the silent hero bit works when it is maintained throughout a series, but it felt odd in ODST since by then we'd already had three games with a main whose vocal chords were functional). Nice to see Bungie take a page from Bioware's book and provide voiceovers for both male and female player characters.

 

Overall, I think Reach might well become my favorite of the series. I can't wait to try co-op.

[AliasTheory]

Oh. If anyone is super hardcore with multiplayer out there...you might have realized that there is a credit cap for the week! Bungie doesn't want people leveling too fast.

 

Still haven't got back to this game yet...agh! Too busy doing other things.

 

Is it just me, or all the enemy AI more aggressive in this game? I was hiding in a corner and I got mobbed by like 3 Elites on Legendary. :( They come and hunt you down now!

 

And I have to agree about the missions and gameplay. The levels are unique and there is always something to spice it up when the standard gameplay becomes a bit trite. Like zero gravity and spaceships!

[Lord Slyther]

I just purchased my copy yesterday, and judging from the campaign, I never really thought things took place before Master Chief, Halo CE up to Halo 3, and yet I find the Spartan creation quite interesting. Similar to Rainbox Six : Vegas 2, I see there is features that require credits to unlock every set. But after seeing Bungie's Forge World preview, it made me wanna throw my comp out the window I'm like HOLY SHII..!! :woot:

 

Anyways, seeing these new features is quite impressive, even thought ODST wasn't much entertaining after I beat it 2 times on Easy and Legendary, but I have to say Halo : Reach is the definition of all in the Halo franchise, and especially what we should all have. But the intensity of the new forge Bungie released, I can't wait to get my hands on the controller as soon as I get this disc fixed, which was scratched for obvious reasons.

[AliasTheory]

Your disk got scratched the Xbox? Ouch. Happened to my Halo 3; at least the Gamestop I was at replaced it free.

 

I recommend keeping your Xbox 360 horizontal on a flat surface, preferably one with some gaps here and there like some tables have so the heat doesn't build up. The disks get scratched when the box tries to run games diagonally...from my experience, anyway. If your system is vertically oriented and you decide to pull a smooth move...you can kiss your disk goodbye.

[katashy]

On the whole, I'm VERY happy with this game. The campaign was fun, entertaining and challenging (especially on Legendary, I had to recruit 3 other friends to help).

 

The multiplayer is excellent, although I feel like you don't get enough credits to make it worthwhile. One match of playing, and having a KD spread of 21, and only getting 500 cR is way too low. I had to resort to a bit of cR farming to get past the second half of Warrant Officer Grade 3.

 

The only problems I had was with the canon and story of the campaign. I won't ruin it, but for people like me who have read all the books and played all the games and know pretty much everything about Halo, the last few missions were a bit of a disappointment. It seemed to forget all about the lore of the series and do it's own thing.

 

Anyway, if anyone wants a game with me, my GT is JackalQueenston. I play Team Slayer most of the time, but after the October update I'll probably be playing SWAT all the time. Me and my friends also do fun custom games like races and Warthog battles, and we're also into going into Forge and playing Base Defence. So, message me some time and we'll get a game going! :thumbsup:

[katashy]

Your disk got scratched the Xbox? Ouch. Happened to my Halo 3; at least the Gamestop I was at replaced it free.

 

I recommend keeping your Xbox 360 horizontal on a flat surface, preferably one with some gaps here and there like some tables have so the heat doesn't build up. The disks get scratched when the box tries to run games diagonally...from my experience, anyway. If your system is vertically oriented and you decide to pull a smooth move...you can kiss your disk goodbye.

 

You should also install the game to your HDD. I got the "Halo disc scratch", the one that's a perfect circle, on my RDR disc, and got a new one. I then installed the second disc and actually managed to scratch it again, but it worked because I installed it.

[AliasTheory]

Hmm, maybe I should. My hard drive is small though. Not even 10 gigs. My Halo 3 disk was REALLY bad; it was so scratched up in all directions that there was basically no reflection.