Review of: Halo Reach

Reviewer: David Lam

Title: Halo Reach

System: Xbox 360

Genre: First-person Shooter

            That common feeling has come once again this fall. Remember the past years of Halo games

coming out in the fall with Call of Duty right on its tail. Well prepare yourself to experience that feeling once again. On September 14,2010 Halo Reach was released in stores and within weeks the game sold millions of copies. That statistic can tell us one thing about Reach and it is that Reach did it’s job. We have been anticipating this game and it came with new features on the campaign, multiplayer, and forge.

            As you stare at the bodies of dead marines you begin to think that the silence is unbearable. You check your motion tracker and see that something is nearby. You are told to check that building that has heat signatures. As you approach the moving red dot on your radar you take out the shotgun. Now your trigger finger is ready and just as you reach that red dot you find that there is nothing. As you turn around to complain about the AI’s false instructions you receive a roundhouse kick to the face from an elite. The feeling of defeat has not set in and you begin to fight off the elite regardless of not having your shields up. Halo Reach gives the player adrenaline for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Instead of playing as the Chief with support from the UNSC you are now Noble Six a spartan who has the support of five other  spartans. The team of Spartans known as Noble team consist of six including yourself and each of them have a special skillset that is different from the others. As we play as Noble Six the story captures our attention. Noble Six has a record nearly as astonishing as that of the Chief who we love so much. Throughout the story we fight the covenant on Reach and wonder why they are there on Reach. While investigating the covenant you save marines and destroy strategic covenant positions. Besides the interesting plot line the player is given new weapons and vehicles. Some new weapons like the DMR or needlrifle have sniping fanatics shouting with glee. The plasma grenade launcher shoots tracking plasma grenades that stick onto a target. The grenade launcher disables vehicles and helps to prevent Banshee noobs from killing you. Another way to stop a Banshee noob is to use the Falcon, a new human air vehicle similar to the Hornet. Throughout the game Noble team comes to rely on you giving you some intense shooting action in the campaign.

            The multiplayer features classes that is similar to the style of classes in Call of Duty. The classes however cannot be customized. Nonetheless this feature is new to halo. The classes spawn with set primary and secondary weapons. Armor abilities are also new to halo and they bring a whole new set of tactics and gameplay. Each ability is unique and they are set to the classes. The most basic one is the sprint but my favorite is the bubble shield that heals you while you are in it. Another thing is the wingman system which is new. This system allows you to spawn next to your designated wingman and if you don’t want to you can always choose one of the different spawn areas using the D pad. This helps to prevent spawn killing in halo since we can have some choice in where we spawn. The game seems more balanced and the new assasssination feature has player aching to come up behind elites and snap their necks. There are a variety of assassination kills and they make people crouch and avoid tha tradar more often in Reach than in Halo 3.

            Forge world features new mechanics to forging which allow for easier map making. The budget for forge world was increased drastically to allow a whole new map and area to be created. Now Bungie has given us structures and buildings, meaning that we no longer have to put up with simple crates. We can now construct those colossus castles we love so much. Another new feature is the phase objects option which allows for an object to pass through another. Similar to that is the fix option which keeps your object in the position you left it in. For example if the box is in the air and you fix the box it will stay in the air. Also we can turn objects in degrees and we can change the degrees we turn it in. Like using 15 degrees or 5 to turn your box slowly to be more precise. The amount of creativity and space given is large, so forgers from Halo 3 are sure to love Reach. The variety of objects and option to choose the color of your mongoose has people in ectsay. Reach is a well rounded game with many features that can please you and it is definetley recommended that you buy this game because you will never get bored of it.

This game gets an A-.