Wednesday, October 6, 2010

"Halo: Reach" Review

Its Currently 12:30 in the morrning, I have to work early-ish tomorrow and becuase I also need to clean my place up for when my friends come over tomorrow for some Gaming. "But screw that" I said to myself "I May as well Finish writing my Halo: Reach Review"

If you need an overview of the Halo series its simple, generic space first person shooter. There really isn't anymore I can add to that.

Gameplay wise, its just like Halo 3 but with a few gameplay changes, anyone familiar with Halo 3s gear items (such as bubble shields) will know that they return in the form of armour abilities, which unlike the one time use in Halo 3, can be used over and over again. All the guns have receved graphical improvements and a few new additions have been added as well as including several of the classics, however the age old stratagy of 'Overcharged plasma pistol, followed by headshot' Still remains and is a tactic that can get you though the game without much trouble. With the exception of the flood all the enemies from previous games make an apperance, includding the Elites which hav'nt been fightable opponets since Halo 2. 

One of the Core elements of Reach is the ability to fully customize your armour, while this is just a cosmetic effect and has no affect on gameplay, it still is quite cool to see you charter walk around in the armour you've assembled. This effect applies to all three gameplay modes, Campaign, Firefight and Multiplayer. However some of the cooler armour pieces will take days of play to unlock and purchase.

Firefight makes a return being vastly improved since its debut in ODST,now allowing players to customize ever aspect of the game type, from the enemies that spawn to the player load outs to the skulls that are active in each round, however this does lead to some problems in which it is easy to abuse this to make some difficult achievements extremely easy. Firefight now has a matchmaking option, although the matchmaking games usually only last one round of enemies, they are still quite fun to join into instead of having to play the game type by yourself.

The Halo Multiplayer, has always been one of the most strong parts of the gameplay, ranging back to 16 player Lan parties with Halo:CE and with Halo 2 being the first game many people played online. Putting a high standard for Reach, regardless Reach does manage to live up to expectations for its multiplayer experience .
Invasion is one of the new gametypes, pitting Elites vs Spartans in a capture and hold gameplay, many people who have played a conquest match from a different game will know how this generally plays out. Capture 2 sets of control point before capturing a central core and winning the round, or vice versra while defing the points. The maps are very balanced and allow for no players to be at an distinct advantage from where they spawn from the start. The weapons are also very situational, a shotgun will always beat a battlerifle at close range, but from a distance the other is true, the key is to finding a balance between your weapons.

Forge and thereter both make a return, while there're is completely unchanged, forge has had a massive overhaul allowing players to make far more high quality maps far quicker. With it comes the Forge World map, roughly around 5 times the size of blood gulch (even including blood gulch in the map) Forge World stands above every other Halo map in terms of sheer size. However it does have the problem of people doing stupid things with it, like making giant cocks out of explosive barrels and other such things like this, thankfully Bungie's severs pickup most of these maps and screenshots before they make it into people's file shares. However with the customisable gametype mean that this allows for some truelly unquie gameplay experiences, so far I've only played one custom game, and It involved a sniper in a tower shooting zombies (who were other players) before they could reach him and rip him appart. A fun game even if a bit easy.

Many people who have played Modern Warfare or Bad Company may be turned away from the sci-fi  aspect and the unrealisticness of Halo: Reach, neither the less Halo reach plays well and is fun and honestly what more could you honestly want in a game....apart from sexual favours, but I think were quite a way off that happening for the moment.

Single Player Campaign   7/10
Co-op Campaign         7.5/10
Forge                             9/10
Firefight                       8.5/10
Multiplayer                  8.5/10

Overall 8/10
A nice finish for the last Halo game

(Note 4 players can play on one Xbox in multiplayer, but only 2 players can play on the same Xbox in campaign or firefight, also to system link both Xboxs must have a hard drive)

20 comments:

  1. Nice review now i know what to expect when i play it for real.

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  2. This review made me thinking of buying this game. Sounds pretty interesting.

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  3. you've got some good insight in this post :)

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  4. nice, this reminds me of something I read on MSN last week

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  5. I wonder if it's always like that. Anyway, I some new ideas at GTL Everyday... check it out.

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  6. this is inspiring me to post more bubbles on Enhanced by MS Paint... check it out!

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  7. Taylor would totally agree with this :)

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  8. haven't played since 2... customizable armor would definitely be a plus... don't know if it would make me cough up another 50-60 bucks

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  9. Firefight is actually really fun. I didn't play it in ODST, and now I play it quite a bit.

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  10. I've only played 2, I'm way behind the loop.

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  11. ive heard nothing but good things about this game, but man, the halo kiddies keep me skeptical... hopefully ill get over it eventually..

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  12. you've got an interesting point here, good job with the post

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  13. nice, I can't wait until your follow up post... until then, GTL Everyday!

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  14. Nice review, gonna get this on the 360 soon!

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  15. should be called halo: rehash...

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  16. they ought to call this game halo: reacharound

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