REVIEW: Halo Reach

At first, I was a skeptic.

In 2002, I was working at a retail store in Lawrence, KS, riding my high of having the latest and greatest in next generation gaming. I went home from class and work every day to the delights of...Medal of Honor Allied Assault, and SSX Tricky. I was a complete PS2 fanboy at the time, rebuffing all attempts from my co-workers to invest in Microsoft's HUEG monstrosity and its silly little game called 'Halo'.

When I finally pulled the trigger (let's face it, it really didn't take a LOT of convincing for me to purchase a new console), I ate my words in a bad way. Halo was one of the most impressive games I had played to date. The single player campaign, which was a great combination of immersive environments and storytelling gave way to 3 AM rocket-fights with 15 of my friends (ok, 2 friends and 13 people I didn't know). When Halo 2 came out a few years later, the addition of Xbox Live expanded the scope of multiplayer, leading to many legendary online matches, clans, and game variants (Troy, Jihad). There are still many people on my XBL friends list from the old Halo 2 days.

In 2007,  Halo 3 launched, anticipation had built back up, we all played the Beta (and managed to discover a decent game in Crackdown in the process), we were ready to go back in for another few years of multiplayer madness. However something happened: Call of Duty 4 came out, and offered multiplayer game play that not only rivaled Halo, but exceeded it in many ways. We didn't have to deal with 'Halo Jumping', tea baggers, and  the l337 Combo, to the extent that Halo dragged us down. Halo 3 stayed at the top of the Xbox Live leaderboards for quite some time, but eventually it was eclipsed by Call of Duty, and even all but forgotten when Modern Warfare 2 launched. Microsoft and Bungie tried to counter with Halo 3: ODST. It didn't work. The campaign was lackluster, and although the introduction of the Firefight multiplayer mode was refreshing, it just didn't have the punch.

I had become a skeptic again. When Halo Reach was announced, I kind of rolled my eyes and fed myself a big spoonful of apathy. And while I was always outwardly quick to defend the franchise from straight up hatred, I was not necessarily ready to sprint to my local game store and reserve the game.

What helped me in preparation for Reach was a combination of the intrigue of a few changes in multiplayer, and, quite frankly, the letdown of other first person shooters on the market. Modern Warfare 2 started out strong, but I honestly haven't picked that game up in months, right along with Bad Company 2. I guess I was ready for something fresh, ironic considering the franchise is nine years old and the last game released wasn't interesting.

In case you haven't been keeping score, Halo: Reach is a prequel. The player is the newest member of Noble Team, a team of rag-tag and gruff Spartans. Not quite as bad ass as Master Chief, each one has a certain uniqueness about them. Are you bearing witness to the destruction of the planet Reach by the Covenant.

When I played through the campaign (yes, we are finally getting to the 'review' portion of the review), I was hit by a bit of nostalgia. No, Bungie didn't re-invent the wheel, but the environments are expansive, gorgeous, and had good level design. As with the problems in most prequels, you have to deal with technology that is supposed to be inferior to Master Chief's arsenal, so you get the old school assault rifle, pistol, and the new single-shot designated marksman rifle (which I found a salvation in the Campaign, and a pain in the ass in Multiplayer).

As you progress through the story, you will find something that is both interesting and something you can follow. Its pretty simple: fight the covenant, realize the covenant is kicking your ass, find something that can potentially best them in the end, and escape with it so that humanity has a chance to survive later. No flood, no Arbiter, no problem.

Colony Wars, anyone?

Bungie included a few new things in the experience that mixes things up. One is a space mission that seems kind of out of place, but isn't poorly done and has some challenges. The other, and more lasting is a variety of "classes" in which you can spruce up your Spartan. You will find these augmentations during the campaign and can choose them straight up in some multiplayer games, but you can be able to rocket around, sprint (I'd forgotten after playing CoD for 3 years that you couldn't 'run' in Halo--until now), create an armor barrier, go invisible (only if you walk r-e-a-l-l-y slow and don't fire a machine gun) or replicate yourself in an interactive hologram, Total Recall style.

There is a good variety of gamplay in the single player campaign. You can mix it up with sneaking around and sniping, running and gunning, and just plain running. I beat the campaign on Heroic and had to use an interesting blend of tactics in order to advance through some of the trouble stages where you find yourself with little to no ammo. Four player co-op does well, at some points you actually have to strategize how you are going to defeat hordes of bad-guys, elites and hunters (by the way, if you are going to play co-op, be a real gamer and play on Legendary).

Chuck Norris Spartan doesn't sleep; he waits. 

Multiplayer has a bit of customability to it. Firefight is horde mode co-op game type where you can take on legions of covenant in a contained area. Invasion is rather enjoyable, as you are either attacking and defending certain checkpoints, ultimately ending is an attempted smash and grab job. There are also a slew of variants in game type that you can vote on (as opposed to veto) that can incorporate classic slayer, to using to various abilities I mentioned earlier.  Right now, my favorite is using the Hologram. Its great to get a read on where people are as they fire onto your fake image, or when someone does have the drop on you, hit the holo to evade their fire. I've also found renewed success with the sprint class, although I've also found renewed failure against many of the transplanted Halo savants. Its always been a game I've been 'OK' at, but when running up against the MLG wannabe's who are dome-rackers with the DMR or Needler Rifle, it just becomes frustrating. Not the game's fault; just some people need to get a life.

You will notice that I have left out the Forge and Theater parts of this review, as I am about to discredit myself completely and say I haven't paid much attention to either. There are many players who pretty much immerse themselves in those, and come up with some very good presentations in both their own level design and videos.

Going back to my previous post about the beta, I want to readdress a few things:

• Most of my 'meh's from the beta are pretty much not 'meh's anymore. Character classes spruce things up, The visuals are great, and I haven't run into the new '1337 combo'. I still wish the sniper rifles didn't have a reticule so pros can no-scope, and I wish the world took note of how awesome a sticky grenadier I am, but those are minor gripes.

• I do wish weapons were a little more unique, not necessarily more powerful. I love the needler rifle and yet the DMR drives me crazy in MP because slower single-shot weapons that take multiple shots to bring someone down are tedious. 

• I previously said that Halo is still relevant and can still evolve, and I'm beginning to wonder if that is true. Yes, Halo: Reach is one of the best of the franchise, and with Activision's struggles with their flagship, this could have some staying power into the next year, but what after that? Bungie is now done with Halo, and Microsoft is taking it to another one of its internal studios. Unless they can redefine the franchise by finish story and bring back freaking Master Chief, bringing through some more customization in multiplayer, add a lot of unique (a mix of vast and smaller, NOT retreads of old) maps, then do we really need it? 

I think the answer to the last question is going to be "you may not need it, but we sure hope you'll buy it." Perhaps since this Reach is a step in the right direction, the next one will just continue that path. Then again, with all that is coming out at the end of the year, I doubt I will still be there to put in the time, energy, or patience. 

TL;DR- Tonight, we dine on Reach, Tomorrow we dine at Arby's.