lost
09-22-2010, 10:47 AM
Title: Halo: Reach
Platform: 360
Platform Reviewed: 360
Developer: Bungie (http://www.bungie.com)
Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios (http://www.microsoft.com/games/)
MSRP: $59.99
Writer: Martin 'lost' Perry
Halo: Reach Review
Reach for the stars.
The time has finally come for Bungie's last hoorah for the franchise that has firmly cemented their place amongst the top tier of developers. The second Halo first-person shooter to be released after Master Chief made his final stand, and finished the fight, Halo: Reach acts as a prequel to all three of his big adventures. With an overhauled graphics engine, a brand new team of Spartans to play with and a loyal fan-base desperate to experience new multiplayer modes and maps, the game has everything going for it, but has Bungie managed to go out with a bang?
The game sees you take on the role of Noble Six, a member of Noble Team, a group of Spartans (there's more than one in this game) who are visiting Planet Reach to investigate 'rebel' behaviour. Unfortunately for our six armoured super-men the Covenant launch a surprise attack on the human colony, and have to battle long-and-hard to try and save the planet from total annihilation. Mixing the massive scale battles of Halo 3, and the more subtle story-telling of ODST, the plot is pretty satisfying, if a little thin. This is definitely 'us versus them' territory, and the few plot twists serve as minor motivation for the player given how loosely developed the members of Noble Team are. Still, a guest appearance from a familiar character and well-timed cutscenes give the single-player a brisk pace and add to the oft discussed lore of the Halo universe.
http://evavhost.com/i/reviews/HaloReach_1.jpg
The gameplay setup is much the same – a mix of first-person shooting and vehicular combat combined within the same levels. Whether zooming around on a Mongoose, or using the traditional assault rifle to pop caps, little has changed from the Halo you know and love. For the majority of the time, however, you have a team of UNSC soldiers, or the rest of Noble Team, providing support to your trigger finger. Within the game's opening cutscene, you are told that 'lone wolf' behaviour has no place within Noble, but more often than not your strength and speed as a Spartan will lead you to dive muzzle-first into the fray, regardless of the support offered you. The freedom of your massive leaps, and regenerative armour remains exciting.
On the flip side, there's very little in the way of new enemies, and it's here where the familiarity is perhaps a little much. The ten or so new levels are designed in much the same way as they always have been – a mix of open, cover-filled fields, and claustrophobic interior sections. With none of the back-tracking that made ODST a bit of a chore (at times) these levels are well-designed and support different styles of play well. The difficulty follows a comfortable curve, as you move from woodland areas, to snow-topped mountains and towering human cities. In this respect, Reach feels like the best bits of the franchise pulled together, with famous locations like New Mombasa and Tsavo Highway being recalled from memory. However, you may well have experienced something similar before, but Reach is undeniably good fun; just like a Greatest Hits album it plays out a whole bunch of well-known high points in a new package.
http://evavhost.com/i/reviews/HaloReach_2.jpg
It's worth touching on the few big set pieces that Reach features. It's more about impressive vistas than scaling giant Scarabs, although you'll certainly meet a few on your journey, with one big exception. You've seen it in the trailer – Halo: Reach takes the vehicular combat into space. After storming a military facility, Noble Team commandeer an orbit capable fighter jet and blast off into space. A lengthy space battle, Star Wars style, breaks out before you land on an enemy carrier for more first-person action. I thoroughly enjoyed this particular stand-out section, the controls were easy to pick up and the dog fights with Banshees were surprisingly exciting given Bungie's lack of experience in this area. If Halo: Reach is a Greatest Hits album, this is most definitely the bonus track and features one of the story's most poignant dramatic moments.
The single-player runs in at around the same length as the Halo 3 campaign, and you've got the usually co-operative play option to make those higher difficulties a little more achievable. Most Halo fans complete these additional difficulty modes as a right of passage, so they add credible value to the overall package. The real meat of Halo: Reach is, as we all know, within the depths of the multiplayer offering. Eight new maps have been pulled together, something that many people have already found complaint with. I find those complaints difficult to stomach, given the massive amount of game modes spread across the playlists. Old favourites return alongside Headhunter, Invasion, Stockpile and Generator Defense. The first on that list is probably my favourite; Headhunter requires you to pull off headshots, grabbing the fallen, flaming skulls of your opponents and trying to run them to a base zone. The tricky thing is, get your ass shot and the opposing team can pick up all of your collected skulls and score big.
http://evavhost.com/i/reviews/HaloReach_3.jpg
I'll leave it up to you guys to explore the other options, although I'd say that despite the scepticism many fans have shown it, Invasion can lead to some truly epic matches. The new doesn't stop quite there, with armour augmentations featuring heavily across this hugely diverse multiplayer. You'll know already that jetpacks make an appearance, and they feature in single-player levels too, and I was initially hesitant about the impact they would have. I need not have been concerned; Bungie have limited where and when these are available, along with a few of the other abilities to ensure they are a positive influence on multiplayer tactics. The likes of Sprint, Evade and Active Camouflage replace the old equipment options, and you can carry one at a time; successfully diversifying strategy options.
Firefight returns, and like its brothers it brings along new stuff to play with. First off, a new competitive Firefight mode, where two sides play as Spartans and Elites, trying to out-perform each other's horde slaying ability, is a really neat option and something I expect groups of friends will quickly adopt into their mode rotations. The biggest changes to Firefight come in the form of the myriad of new customisations options that allow you to govern everything from what enemy waves consist of, to the nature of their behaviour, to Skull augmentations that adjust their abilities. Of course, other players can use your settings with many variants, ones promoting easy achievement gathering being particularly popular unfortunately, already finding their way onto the file space made available to you.
There's plenty to fill up that file space with as well. Matches are recorded, with the option to upload battles to Bungie's servers. Alongside the Firefight variants, standard multiplayer mode variants and the returning Forge options you also have the grander sounding Forge World to play with. Forge World gives you a truly massive, and varied, space in which to create maps for friends and competitors to be amazed by. The Forge tool set has been drastically improved, now allowing items to be phased through each other, making it possible to anchor items into the terrain of the world. The item set has increased, and it's much easier to place items in general thanks to new movement options. The size of the Halo community means that there will genuinely be exciting new maps to play on for as long as you want, especially since it's fun to make them.
http://evavhost.com/i/reviews/HaloReach_4.jpg
Halo 3, and its expansion, were somewhat derided for what many, including myself, saw as visuals which were behind the times. Bungie has made significant steps to improve how Halo: Reach looks, with new blur effects and some dramatic lighting, along with textures that look more detailed, all contributing to a game that no longer looks like an ugly duckling among its competitors. It's still not the best looking game you've ever seen – but at worst it can hold its own in a genre where astounding visuals can be enough to sell a product. Familiar sound effects return, and the voice acting is of the quality that you've become accustomed too – not terrible, but not exactly bursting with passion nor conviction. The overall presentation, however, is far from shabby with the artistic design of all previous games featuring in some fashion to create a diverse visual experience.
If you play the Halo: Reach single-player, and play it alone, you are doing yourself a disservice and denying yourself the content that I believe Bungie really wants you to play. The campaign is enjoyable, it features classic gameplay that has already been refined several times over, but its story and set pieces pale in comparison when you consider the weight of customisation and mode options available on the multiplayer side. This is the best Xbox Live experience available, with more official maps already guaranteed alongside the steady stream of quality Forge variants that will make themselves known to the community in the coming months. If you only had the cash to buy one game (and one Gold subscription) I'd recommend Halo: Reach – it's a game that will keep on giving, even beyond the more than decent single-player. Well done Bungie, well done.
Score: 5 out of 5
http://evavhost.com/public/5.gif
The Good
The most extensive set of hugely entertaining multiplayer options of any 360 title.
Forge World is an open playground for the creativity that the original Forge mode tentatively unleashed.
An action packed single-player experience that plays like a 'best of' album.
The strongest visuals of any Halo game, with lots of new bells and whistles inside the engine.
The Bad
The story is really quite weak, with Noble Team being two-dimensional characters at best.
The real weight of the content lies on the multiplayer side, perhaps too much so for some gamers.
Familiarity can breed contempt, this impacts your enjoyment of the campaign on occasion.
The Ugly
Teenage headshot robots.
Platform: 360
Platform Reviewed: 360
Developer: Bungie (http://www.bungie.com)
Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios (http://www.microsoft.com/games/)
MSRP: $59.99
Writer: Martin 'lost' Perry
Halo: Reach Review
Reach for the stars.
The time has finally come for Bungie's last hoorah for the franchise that has firmly cemented their place amongst the top tier of developers. The second Halo first-person shooter to be released after Master Chief made his final stand, and finished the fight, Halo: Reach acts as a prequel to all three of his big adventures. With an overhauled graphics engine, a brand new team of Spartans to play with and a loyal fan-base desperate to experience new multiplayer modes and maps, the game has everything going for it, but has Bungie managed to go out with a bang?
The game sees you take on the role of Noble Six, a member of Noble Team, a group of Spartans (there's more than one in this game) who are visiting Planet Reach to investigate 'rebel' behaviour. Unfortunately for our six armoured super-men the Covenant launch a surprise attack on the human colony, and have to battle long-and-hard to try and save the planet from total annihilation. Mixing the massive scale battles of Halo 3, and the more subtle story-telling of ODST, the plot is pretty satisfying, if a little thin. This is definitely 'us versus them' territory, and the few plot twists serve as minor motivation for the player given how loosely developed the members of Noble Team are. Still, a guest appearance from a familiar character and well-timed cutscenes give the single-player a brisk pace and add to the oft discussed lore of the Halo universe.
http://evavhost.com/i/reviews/HaloReach_1.jpg
The gameplay setup is much the same – a mix of first-person shooting and vehicular combat combined within the same levels. Whether zooming around on a Mongoose, or using the traditional assault rifle to pop caps, little has changed from the Halo you know and love. For the majority of the time, however, you have a team of UNSC soldiers, or the rest of Noble Team, providing support to your trigger finger. Within the game's opening cutscene, you are told that 'lone wolf' behaviour has no place within Noble, but more often than not your strength and speed as a Spartan will lead you to dive muzzle-first into the fray, regardless of the support offered you. The freedom of your massive leaps, and regenerative armour remains exciting.
On the flip side, there's very little in the way of new enemies, and it's here where the familiarity is perhaps a little much. The ten or so new levels are designed in much the same way as they always have been – a mix of open, cover-filled fields, and claustrophobic interior sections. With none of the back-tracking that made ODST a bit of a chore (at times) these levels are well-designed and support different styles of play well. The difficulty follows a comfortable curve, as you move from woodland areas, to snow-topped mountains and towering human cities. In this respect, Reach feels like the best bits of the franchise pulled together, with famous locations like New Mombasa and Tsavo Highway being recalled from memory. However, you may well have experienced something similar before, but Reach is undeniably good fun; just like a Greatest Hits album it plays out a whole bunch of well-known high points in a new package.
http://evavhost.com/i/reviews/HaloReach_2.jpg
It's worth touching on the few big set pieces that Reach features. It's more about impressive vistas than scaling giant Scarabs, although you'll certainly meet a few on your journey, with one big exception. You've seen it in the trailer – Halo: Reach takes the vehicular combat into space. After storming a military facility, Noble Team commandeer an orbit capable fighter jet and blast off into space. A lengthy space battle, Star Wars style, breaks out before you land on an enemy carrier for more first-person action. I thoroughly enjoyed this particular stand-out section, the controls were easy to pick up and the dog fights with Banshees were surprisingly exciting given Bungie's lack of experience in this area. If Halo: Reach is a Greatest Hits album, this is most definitely the bonus track and features one of the story's most poignant dramatic moments.
The single-player runs in at around the same length as the Halo 3 campaign, and you've got the usually co-operative play option to make those higher difficulties a little more achievable. Most Halo fans complete these additional difficulty modes as a right of passage, so they add credible value to the overall package. The real meat of Halo: Reach is, as we all know, within the depths of the multiplayer offering. Eight new maps have been pulled together, something that many people have already found complaint with. I find those complaints difficult to stomach, given the massive amount of game modes spread across the playlists. Old favourites return alongside Headhunter, Invasion, Stockpile and Generator Defense. The first on that list is probably my favourite; Headhunter requires you to pull off headshots, grabbing the fallen, flaming skulls of your opponents and trying to run them to a base zone. The tricky thing is, get your ass shot and the opposing team can pick up all of your collected skulls and score big.
http://evavhost.com/i/reviews/HaloReach_3.jpg
I'll leave it up to you guys to explore the other options, although I'd say that despite the scepticism many fans have shown it, Invasion can lead to some truly epic matches. The new doesn't stop quite there, with armour augmentations featuring heavily across this hugely diverse multiplayer. You'll know already that jetpacks make an appearance, and they feature in single-player levels too, and I was initially hesitant about the impact they would have. I need not have been concerned; Bungie have limited where and when these are available, along with a few of the other abilities to ensure they are a positive influence on multiplayer tactics. The likes of Sprint, Evade and Active Camouflage replace the old equipment options, and you can carry one at a time; successfully diversifying strategy options.
Firefight returns, and like its brothers it brings along new stuff to play with. First off, a new competitive Firefight mode, where two sides play as Spartans and Elites, trying to out-perform each other's horde slaying ability, is a really neat option and something I expect groups of friends will quickly adopt into their mode rotations. The biggest changes to Firefight come in the form of the myriad of new customisations options that allow you to govern everything from what enemy waves consist of, to the nature of their behaviour, to Skull augmentations that adjust their abilities. Of course, other players can use your settings with many variants, ones promoting easy achievement gathering being particularly popular unfortunately, already finding their way onto the file space made available to you.
There's plenty to fill up that file space with as well. Matches are recorded, with the option to upload battles to Bungie's servers. Alongside the Firefight variants, standard multiplayer mode variants and the returning Forge options you also have the grander sounding Forge World to play with. Forge World gives you a truly massive, and varied, space in which to create maps for friends and competitors to be amazed by. The Forge tool set has been drastically improved, now allowing items to be phased through each other, making it possible to anchor items into the terrain of the world. The item set has increased, and it's much easier to place items in general thanks to new movement options. The size of the Halo community means that there will genuinely be exciting new maps to play on for as long as you want, especially since it's fun to make them.
http://evavhost.com/i/reviews/HaloReach_4.jpg
Halo 3, and its expansion, were somewhat derided for what many, including myself, saw as visuals which were behind the times. Bungie has made significant steps to improve how Halo: Reach looks, with new blur effects and some dramatic lighting, along with textures that look more detailed, all contributing to a game that no longer looks like an ugly duckling among its competitors. It's still not the best looking game you've ever seen – but at worst it can hold its own in a genre where astounding visuals can be enough to sell a product. Familiar sound effects return, and the voice acting is of the quality that you've become accustomed too – not terrible, but not exactly bursting with passion nor conviction. The overall presentation, however, is far from shabby with the artistic design of all previous games featuring in some fashion to create a diverse visual experience.
If you play the Halo: Reach single-player, and play it alone, you are doing yourself a disservice and denying yourself the content that I believe Bungie really wants you to play. The campaign is enjoyable, it features classic gameplay that has already been refined several times over, but its story and set pieces pale in comparison when you consider the weight of customisation and mode options available on the multiplayer side. This is the best Xbox Live experience available, with more official maps already guaranteed alongside the steady stream of quality Forge variants that will make themselves known to the community in the coming months. If you only had the cash to buy one game (and one Gold subscription) I'd recommend Halo: Reach – it's a game that will keep on giving, even beyond the more than decent single-player. Well done Bungie, well done.
Score: 5 out of 5
http://evavhost.com/public/5.gif
The Good
The most extensive set of hugely entertaining multiplayer options of any 360 title.
Forge World is an open playground for the creativity that the original Forge mode tentatively unleashed.
An action packed single-player experience that plays like a 'best of' album.
The strongest visuals of any Halo game, with lots of new bells and whistles inside the engine.
The Bad
The story is really quite weak, with Noble Team being two-dimensional characters at best.
The real weight of the content lies on the multiplayer side, perhaps too much so for some gamers.
Familiarity can breed contempt, this impacts your enjoyment of the campaign on occasion.
The Ugly
Teenage headshot robots.