Halo: Reach Review
Nov 12Platform: Xbox 360
Developer: Bungie
Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios
Genre: First-Person Shooter
# of Players: 1, Co-op, Multiplayer
U.S. Release Date: September 14th, 2010
MSRP: $59.99
My relationship with Halo has been rocky at best. Don’t get me wrong – I enjoy the franchise. I remember fondly playing Halo for the first time. It’s a rare game that actually makes me want to keep playing it until I can beat it at the absolute hardest level. And the co-op feature added a can’t-miss element to the game.
Halo 2 was one of the few games I have ever stood in line for at a midnight release. I couldn’t wait to get my hands on that game. Unfortunately, the bad taste that game left in my mouth. Sure – there were plenty of positives to that game, but after getting so hyped up, the inconsistent game play (switching back and forth between the Master Chief and the Elite was a bad idea) and the unforgivable move of ending the game with a cliffhanger turned me away from the franchise for years. Hey – what can I say – having to drop $50 for a game, and then finding out that I only bought half a story (the second part taking another 3 years to come out) was more than enough to push me away. So annoyed by Halo 2, it took me almost six years to decide to pick up the franchise again, and only then when I found a copy of Halo 3 on sale for next to nothing. The game seemed completely disconnected from the previous installment (maybe it was the lapse of time), but it was an individual enough of an experience that I was able to rediscover my love of the franchise.
I picked up Halo: Reach pretty soon after it was released. The story was pretty much as advertised – you take up the role of Noble 6, the newest member of Noble squad stationed on the Reach colony. Quickly, Covenant are discovered on the planet, leading to the fabled battle that has been occasionally referenced in the previous games and written about in great detail in other expanded universe media.
Like Halo 3: ODST, you are unable to dual-wield weapons. In fact, Reach in many respect turns back the clock, and seems a lot closer to the original Halo: Combat Evolved in terms of game play. I really liked this. Dual-wielding in Halo always seemed more like a gimmick to me, and distracted from the tactical experience of the game. Plus, there is just something about scrounging around for a health-pack when your health is low and you walk into a wall of Covenant that you just can’t sneak around. The power-ups are still there – but they instead take the form of interchangeable armor add-ons that can be swapped a lot like weapons. It felt like they finally got it right – you weren’t overpowered, and unlike those worthless one-shot shields and other power-ups from previous games, the armor upgrade components were actually useful.
Reach doesn’t break the mold, and in this instance, it is a good thing. I have noticed an alarming tendency among gamers these days to bash franchises that don’t attempt to make totally new games with each sequel. I am sorry – a successful sequel to a hit game isn’t going to give you something different. It is going to give you more of the same. Sure – you need a new story, but people loved Halo. The game’s format worked – the enemies worked, and the combat worked. Players don’t want a new game, they just want more missions. I think that is one of the things that turned me off about Halo 2 – adding dual wielding and changing the way health was managed fundamentally changed the game, and while I am definitely in the minority, I think it made the game less exciting. Halo 3: ODST kind of returned to the health mechanics we saw in the original Halo, which is probably why I enjoyed that game so much as well. This isn’t to say all changes are bad – Halo 2 also added the ability to hijack vehicles, which was a positive addition to the system. Thankfully, that change remained in Reach, which allowed the obvious and fun challenge of hijacking a Banshee using a jet-pack.
The story in Reach is strong. I haven’t really read many of the novels or the graphic novels, but it fit very well with the events in previous games. It included the few basic things known about the Fall of Reach from the previous games, but it didn’t go the Lucas route of overloading the game with forced references to other characters (I think I would have broke the game if they tried to cram the Flood in there somehow). You knew from the start that Noble Team was doomed, and that the battle would be lost. Despite this, Reach managed to give you the impression that you had a chance. You watch your team come up with a wild plan to deal with the latest impossible threat, fight through and against all odds succeed – only to watch another surprise pop up that made the last problem you dealt with seem completely irrelevant.
Graphically, the game is beautiful. I am not one that really looks to graphic quality first in games, but it was impossible to overlook how they were handled here. Not only were the landscapes gorgeous, but the targets fit perfectly in the environment. They stood out, but it was still possible to hide, making the player jerk at the slightest hint of motion. This was a perfect balance. Graphics didn’t work as well with the audio this time around as it did with previous Halo installments – I found I really didn’t notice the music at all. This is a bad thing. Music really sets the mood of a game and a well-done score really enhances your game play experience. I didn’t notice anything bad about the score, but I didn’t find that the music really contributed at all to the mood of the game.
For the most point, the game is exciting, and the levels require the right mix of skill and stamina to beat them. I have heard a great deal of chatter about the space-battle sequence in the level Long Night of Solace. Overall, this mission was exciting, but I was totally unimpressed with the space battle. The Sabres were easy to control, but the lack of a real HUD made it impossible to really know where you were, what direction you were heading, and where the Covenant opposition were. Despite this handicap, the battle is ridiculously easy. Thankfully, it is short and doesn’t last long enough to drag the game down. Sure, it was fun to fly around in a graphically beautiful level – but that was really the only redeeming part of that sequence.
Halo is a game meant to be played at a high level – one where players are encouraged to amp up the difficulty. This worked in previous installments because despite the high level, challenges could be overcome with skill. Getting past a difficult portion of the game gave the player a real sense of accomplishment, and were exciting to overcome. This formula was lost on two later levels – New Alexandra and The Package. At this point in the game, it felt like the developers completely ran out of ideas and slapped a couple levels together.
In New Alexandria, you fly a falcon around the city, get in random dogfights with the Covenant, and getting sent on little mini missions. Almost every one of these mini missions involves landing your falcon, and then having to fight through a random pile of covenant. The feel of progressing through defined missions with clear objectives and an intelligent opposition is lost at this point. Random groups of Banshees are constantly spawning around you with no sense of purpose or direction, and always seem to appear right next to you. You can’t hide from them or evade them, you just have to hope that you can get to each mission point fast enough that you don’t lose your ride to accumulated damage. Not much “skill” involved in that. The firefights themselves are mundane – just a big bunch of opponents that don’t really provide a tactical challenge. Sure, they are difficult – but by simply piling more and more difficult opponents in perfectly defensible positions, and not giving you the tools or support to move against them in an intelligent way.
The following mission, The Package, isn’t much better. It is dominated by an overly long defense sequence that could be good – if it didn’t include a completely illogical “you need to keep these 4 turrets turned on” condition. The turrets aren’t strategically placed at all, and prove almost totally ineffective against the oncoming Covenant. Beyond that, despite being hammered with the fact that I needed to keep those turrets up and running, I finally just abandoned them and completed this mission without them. Despite the oddly illogical conditions, it seems it is almost impossible not to complete this mission. The Covenant don’t really make a real effort to push you out of your position without being routed by your allies, and seem content to mass in front of you and engage you a few at a time.
These two missions don’t appear to have a point, and don’t challenge you in a meaningful and fun way at all. Yes – the game would have been too short without these missions, but that doesn’t excuse slapping together a couple of missions just to add length, and cranking up the difficulty level in a way that luck is a more prized asset than skill, and the best tactical alternative is to allow the AI to fight while you hide.
It’s clear before ever playing the game that you are supposed to be overwhelmed at the end – but these two alarmingly bad levels really suck the fun out of the game by the time you get to the final real mission, The Pillar of Autumn. This mission is incredibly difficult, but you can beat it with the right mix of patience and skill. This is the way the entire game should have been. This doesn’t last – once you arrive at the endgame, you are asked to use a mass driver to destroy a battle-cruiser before it can prevent the Pillar of Autumn’s escape. Unfortunately, it is out of range, and you need to defend yourself against attacking Banshees and Phantoms until it is close enough to fire on. This sequence is incredibly frustrating. You are totally defenseless sitting in a slow firing weapon with ships coming at you in all directions. And simply having perfect marksmanship isn’t enough to get you through this part of the level – you have to replay it several times and memorize what ships actually attack you and at what point. If you destroy the ships in the wrong order, you will fail. This was a lousy way to end the game – the final sequence being one that relied on route memorization and having nothing at all to do with skill. A real let down.
There is one more mission in the game – but it’s just a little playable sequence after the credits. You are stuck on Reach at this point, alone, and under attack by an endless wave of Covenant. You will die – of course, but you are given the chance to survive as long as possible. I guess some people might enjoy this impossible challenge – but those who want a quick out can just fall on a grenade and end it almost instantly.
Multiplayer exists – naturally – but it is pretty much what you’ve come to expect from Halo games. If you bought this for the multiplayer, you will enjoy it, and there is little I can say here that will challenge that. I continue to believe that games like this have to have a strong campaign mode to be worth the cost – and on that front I think Reach got the job done. The rest is just extra icing – you don’t need to mess around with the multiplayer to really get your money’s worth on this game.
Overall, I enjoyed Reach. I think there were areas that could be improved, but overall it was a solid installment in the franchise. The story was great, the levels were generally entertaining and challenging, and the graphics were outstanding. I think the folks at Bungie can be proud of their final contribution to the franchise.
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