Halo: Reach official campaign review.

[MinisterofDOOM]

Let's get this out of the way first: I'm effing TIRED. Tired tired tired. My brain is not. At all. Apologies in advance for any lack of coherency.

My roommate and I picked up Reach today and played through campaign on easy (his choice, not mine). Having played through it, I have some thoughts. These are those.

I've played through every Halo game save ODST. Reach is without question the one I enjoyed the most. Quality all around is better than ever before for the series.

It probably took us 4 hours to complete easy coop. Neither of us was taking things too seriously, and as such I'm sure we missed out on the impact of some of the cutscenes. But there was much hilarity to be enjoyed:

Immediately after starting the game, you encounter a civilian. As is my way, I decided I needed to see what happens if I melee the poor girl. What happened was not what I expected. I walked up, smacked the girl with the butt of my gun...and...
DIED. I fuggin' died. SmackWHAT? What the corpse? Hilariously awesome.

Later in the game I was getting annoyed with comments from a fellow jetpack-wearing soldier (npc). I gave him a good melee (I like hitting stuff) with no murderous intentions. Unfortunately for him intention doesn't really matter, but his timing does. He fired his jetpack as I swung and promptly found himself hurtling over a ledge. He died. We laughed. Good stuff.

At another segment, we each got into separate Osprey helicoptery dealiemathings with gun mounts. I started shooting at my coop compatriot's osprey (I like shooting stuff). Then I noticed it start to smoke so I stopped. During the mission both ospreys took damage as we defended from our mounted guns. Then, during what was supposed to be a dramatic scene, I decided I'd shoot the other osprey some more. It promptly exploded. Mostly. The wing above my coop player's gun, and the side around the opening, survived. The rest exploded, then continued hanging in the air. "Uh...I made your helicopter explode." "You a**." More good stuff.

But onto the game itself...as it's intended to be enjoyed.
Overall, I liked the experience a lot. I still have some bones to pick with the control scheme (why must "enter vehicle" and "pick up gun" use the same button? And why can't we have a proper 1:1 vehicle control scheme rather than this idiot "point and pray" garbage) but it certainly gets the job done. While I prefer a keyboard and mouse, I never felt hampered by Reach's control scheme.
Combat was generally fun, with a good variety of weapons on hand to choose from. I love the fact that melee attacks are genuinely viable almost anytime. Trading blows with Elites and Brutes amidst a crazy firefight is just a lot of fun. Everyone else is carefully picking targets, while I'm in the thick of things bashing skulls (I really do like hitting things). Give me a Brute cannon and I'm a happy guy. Give me a Brute hammer also and I'll mow your lawn for free.
It also seemed like the "expendable" Covenant forces (the agile velociraptory-looking fellas and the Grunts) acted a lot more intelligently and dynamically this time around. They weren't just there to scream ridiculously and die. Combos of Grunts and Elites aren't dispatched by ignoring the Grunts.
The opening of the game was much less linear-feeling than I expected. There are many areas and battles you can approach from various angles. It's no Crysis, but it certainly adds a little more depth to the feel of combat.

My complaints aren't all that many.
I had hoped for a better-realized coop mode. Even though we've got a squad of distinct Spartans, all coop players still fill the shoes of Noble 6. Your coop compatriots are ignored by cutscenes, which portray only your own (or their own, for them) version of Noble 6. And there were some objectives that had the potential to add new strategic depth during coop, but which were lazily treated the same as if you were playing solo. For all the talk about the great new 4-player coop I've been hearing, I certainly didn't see a real improvement over coop as it stood in Halo 2 or 3. Add another player and safe-zone respawns on top of the singleplayer campaign and that's it. No added difficulty of objectives, no new options for approaches other than those you engineer yourselves (such as with loadout combos...which can certainly be fun to experiment with).
And outside of gameplay, I still don't understand Bungie's obsession with the out-of-body "directed" cutscene. There were NUMEROUS cutscenes in Reach that took the camera out of Noble 6's helmet that would have worked just fine (if not better, in my view) left to be experienced from full-player-control first-person view. Shots of the squad walking somewhere, chatting, etc. There were even a few very irritating not-in-control first-person segments that left me wondering why the developers thought I couldn't be trusted to go through the right door on this occasion when I had been doing so successfully up to this point. Just too much taking control away from the player, which kills immersion. Doesn't matter how dramatic your cutscene direction is; it's almost never as impactful as simply letting the player experience it "firsthand" as their character.
But the other issue with cutscenes was that many were simply unnecessary or overly self-indulgent. Lots of drawn-out dramatic bits attempting to portray the tragedy of the story with underscoring music etc. But it all failed to elicit any kind of emotional response from me aside from mild annoyance. Some of these scenes are almost hilariously drawn-out. Reminds me of Evangelion. Look, a tragic vista. Still looking? Good. Because it'll be there for a while.

The ending, though, the whole wrapup (and don't worry, no spoilers here) was actually pretty satisfying. It genuinely made me want to reinstall Halo: CE and experience the opening over again. It really ties in extremely well and produced a great feeling of nostalgia, even from a confessed Halo-not-liker-very-much...er.

I haven't played with the new Forge yet, but fully intend to do some Garry's-Mod-jaded experimentation when I get time.

Anyway, overall a very positive experience. I can't find any major technical or creative gaffs or mistakes to pick on as with previous Halo titles. I did notice some framerate drops in odd places during cutscenes, but that MIGHT have been XBL trying to synchronize the action for both coop players. Certainly I wouldn't have expected the 360 to have trouble with those spots.

Oh, and the fact that both (all) coop participants have to have hard drives is a bit irritating. My roommate bought a 4gb 360 slim yesterday to replace his aged 60gb. We tried to start a coop match only to discover that wasn't possible without a hard drive in both machines. Despite having 4GB to spare. Even with a USB stick, the game refused. But, this kind of turned out to be a good thing. Because of this, I discovered that the 4GB 360 Slim has a nice matte black finish, where the 250GB has a shiny finish. I actually like the matte better, so if I ever upgrade from my elite, I'll grab a 4GB and toss in a $130 hard drive upgrade rather than just going for the 250GB package outright.

[LocAL_anarchy]

Nice write-up, MoD. With ODST disappointing me, I refused to buy this. But seeing how Reach has impressed a Halo-skeptic such as yourself, I'm intrigued. Definitely share your thoughts on the new Forge when you can.

[BusyBadger]

As a Halo fan I was disappointed by the friendly AI (I watched a gunner sit idle in the Warthog while Covenant troops were shooting at them from less than three 'Hog lengths away) and the rather two sided behaviour of some items (cannon fire from a Ghost piloted by the Convenant is far more damaging than when I laid into some poor gaggle of grunts using the same vehicle). Enemy AI is fairly well done and the storytelling was top notch...as good as the narrative in ODST.

I really enjoyed ODST (I prefer more a tactical approach than run & gun) despite how brief the single-player was. The story & narration were the best of the Halo titles up until Reach (and they still are as good as Reach for the most part) but the music of Reach is far and away the best Bungie has done. I read one review that said pretty much the same thing that MoD said...as soon as he finished Reach he wanted to go back and play Halo: CE all over again.

[s0m3th1ngAZ]

Halo:CE was the only Halo I really enjoyed. The story was epic, the combat frenetic, and it varied enough to keep it fresh chapter to chapter.

[MinisterofDOOM]

Halo:CE was the only Halo I really enjoyed. The story was epic, the combat frenetic, and it varied enough to keep it fresh chapter to chapter.

I liked the original one well enough. Until the Flood. Then I just got sick of it in a hurry.

[frapjap]

I've been playing through on Normal difficulty and I'm after the level where you make your way through the city and rescue hostages.

This is my first Halo game, and overall, I don't think its all to bad. Graphics are pretty kick a**, weapons are fun, Firefights are pretty cool too. I'll have to add some of you guys to my friends list.

My handle is quandofloon

[S13_love]

This campaign is the one I like the most without a doubt.

Im trying to play through on legendary...elites area a pain in the a**.

[snwbrdr435]

stupid space level f*** teammates have flown into me a dozen times.

[BusyBadger]

This campaign is the one I like the most without a doubt.

Im trying to play through on legendary...elites area a pain in the a**.

Charged plasma pistol in combination with the DMR or Magnum is the combo you're looking for.

It's also worth reconsidering the typical tactic of saving the sniper rifle for elites and other big game...the recoil makes it harder to keep on target with repeated shots. I use the rifle to take out jackals (especially skirmishers), Shade turret gunners and Ghost pilots at range, use the DMR for elites as it's far easier to keep on target.

But Legendary is still a beast.

[S13_love]

Charged plasma pistol in combination with the DMR or Magnum is the combo you're looking for.

Managed to complete it this morning.

Also that's what I used for majority of the campaign lol...I usually had the needle rifle instead of the pistol. Oh, and holograms work awesome when dealing w/ hunters...seriously.

And yeah, as for the sniper rifle...it's really pointless to try to use that against high-ranking elites.