Hello viewers of one more go, looks like my reviews are being ported over my usual hang out to this wonderful place, and so to kick off the proceedings we have a little look at the new kid on the block…….
Well well well, this week has been fun so far, lots to do and say with lots of new faces and a smorgasbord of information to digest. But alas no time for tittle tattle today, it is high time my work was done, and here it comes….
The 14th of last week had been noted in many peoples calender for some time and finally with bated breath it arrived, what were these people waiting for, myself included… the worldwide release of the latest incarnation of Halo. Halo:Reach is the full title and its been a long time coming with a seemingly endless supply of hype and marketing surrounding its release, lets see if it lives up to that hype or if its just another drop in the myriad ocean that is the video game world.
Let me start by first off saying, I am not a Halo fan boy, I enjoyed the first game but the follow ups always felt a little lacking in some areas, as if Bungie had been happy with one killer title and got a little complacent afterwards. Reach is a prequel to the Halo universe of games, well the first person shooter variants anyway, it has been referenced throughout all of the previous titles and never more so than with Halo:ODST (Orbital Drop Shock Troopers) as once again in a carefully planned and executed marketing plan, this title came with access to a Beta test version of Reach and as such you could find little references and tips of the cap to the, at the time, forthcoming title. You are once again thrown into the super soldier esc boots of a Spartan, although not the infamous Master Chief (Petty Officer John-117) instead this time you are cast as a new recruit to an already existing team of six Spartan soldiers known as Noble Team, I won’t go into too much detail as to names and plot about these characters as that would spoil the story for you, which this time around feels very much more human than previous incarnations, focusing on the individual characters a lot more and steering away from the nameless AI soldiers seen in earlier titles.
The game begins with a typically brief opening cinematic simply depicting a planet (Reach) and some desolate vistas with smoke and the scars of battle evident before dropping you into a Spartan customisation menu, basic choices are to be made, male or female and a few basic visual tweaks to your Spartans armour selection. On the customisation side of things there is a lot of new modifications you can purchase with in game credits as you progress through the game as well as colour schemes and a custom logo as well as voice overs for the firefight section of the game, its all very nicely put together and never feels like there are too many things to choose from and really makes you feel that your character is your own.
The game starts with a brief introduction to the characters you will be playing alongside and gradual induction into combat, which, while remaining a training section never feels like its separate from the rest of the game and on higher difficulties never feels like it is molly coddling you and on the highest (Legendary) difficulty setting is down right unforgiving (In a good way). The missions vary from large scale battles with a lot vehicular tom foolery too smaller scale engagements with a little bit more focus on tactical combat, most of the levels give you multiple routes/choices to complete the designated mission objective which really takes you back to the feel of the very first Halo installment back on the old Xbox, even the smaller tighter maps have a certain amount of freedom when it comes to movement around skirmish situations, which on higher difficulty settings means ducking from cover to cover and dealing with the seemingly very aware AI you are battling against!
Which brings me nicely to the enemies in Reach, as before you have a mix of the fodder and the elites of the Covenant invasion force with increasing skill levels and defensive capabilities as you progress through the campaign. Enemies duck and dodge, retreating to cover and reacting to you every move, be it to perform a flanking maneuver or to run away in fear as you dispatch a higher ranking member from there squad, it all feels very satisfying when you start dropping them to the floor with a few quick bursts from your assault rifle. The friendly AI is also a lot more responsive, the members of Noble team calling out targets and constantly keeping you updated on the firefights as they progress, giving you a real sense of a ‘team’ working together, throw into the mix a handful of regular soldiers, cheering you on when you make a kill or disparaging you if you mistakenly empty a few rounds into them in a crossfire. At times the AI can get a little confused, allied soldiers standing around seemingly lost in a deep thought process or running in to a situation that only has one possible outcome, though for the most its pretty solid, just never let them drive you anywhere….
The combat is consistently well thought out, with very deliberate cover options and flanking opportunities laid out as well as a healthy selection of instruments of death to unleash on your foe. Controls are simple and well laid out and are also customisable on button layouts and sensitivity and responsiveness of movement, its all very user friendly and you never find yourself struggling to find an option that suits your play style best. Vehicles handling is good throughout although the space combat section feels a little wooden but still doesn’t ditract from the overall game experience, more than anything you’re drawn into the beautiful visuals littered through that particular section, weaving in and out of friendly ships and a space station, loosing a burst of machine fire to send a covenant banshee into the abyss of space in teeny tiny pieces.
Visually from start to finish it never lets up, textures throughout the environment are consistently good and some of the motion blur and depth of field effects that run as you play add to the overall feel of a real world setting nicely. Lighting in the world is also to be noted, from dark corridors in a Covenant space ship to the huge sun lit vistas on Reach you get a real sense that each environment you encounter could be a real place. Explosions light up the world with varying degrees of flare depending on how grand the explosion, from a simple fragmentation grenade small flash with dirt kicking up into the air with believable particle effects to the huge blinding light eruptions as a covenant vehicle gets turned into a junk pile. The sky box is absolutely stunning, huge space craft drift across the sky surrounded by smaller vessels, the sense of scale is at times overwhelming but in a good way, it takes you back to how the original Halo:Combat Evolved felt as you explored the huge sections of the world, the cities and wilderness of Reach all feel suitably believable from small huts with little aesthetic touches to the billboards and fountains in the metropolis sections.
If the visuals of the game are not enough to draw you into the world, the sound engineering is, I ran the game on a home theater system and can honestly say its one of the most engaging soundtracks in a game to date, and not just the booming orchestral scores that build as combat gets more frantic or the hammered electric guitar riffs that kick in on some of the stages, nor is it the quiet and subtle violin sets during the quieter and more subdued sections of the game, but the real magic is in the sound effects. Human firearms sound believable and gritty, shredding the air with a burst of machine gun fire really sounds satisfying, or the deep crack you get as you let fly a sniper rifle round and watch the dirt kick up behind an enemy as the bullet passes through their face, the sounds carry a lot of weight with them. The dull thump of rounds landing in the dirt around you, whistling past your head and into walls and ricocheting off metal work with a pleasing twang, in the heat of a frantic firefight you really do get dragged into the world ears first! Alien weapons are always going to be a tricky one to get right as no one knows what a plasma rifle would sound like, but even they are executed in a way that makes you feel it could actually exist and burn holes in your enemy or you if you’re not careful. You’ll soon become familiar with the sound of a Covenant drop ship cannon, it becomes a rather feared sound as you progress, it really makes you want to keep your digital head down, much like the ominous crackling whir you hear when an enemy tank unleashes a burning ball of plasma towards you.
Story wise the game never lets up on intensity, lets not get carried away, its no Apocolypse Now but it does its job, jumping you from location to location with a sense of urgency building as you go, for those of you familiar with Haloverse you will already know how the game is destined to conclude, but even knowing this you still get moments of hope as you conquer seemingly unstoppable odds from mission to mission, the true outcome only becomes obvious as you draw towards the end of the campaign, which is an achievement in itself as I, like many others, knew what the outcome was but still felt elated when I’d passed a particular challenging section of the game.
As for longevity, the Campaign can be knocked out in around 6 hours depending on difficulty settings, ramp it up and the game becomes a real hard nut, barraging you with skilled and deadly enemies who will constantly overwhelm you if you don’t keep your head behind something solid. But then there is the multiplayer options, a true myriad of options to be found here, from straight up death match on a large selection of pre built maps to more customised and specific game types, add to that the Forge where you can edit objects in any of the environments from multiplayer or the HUGE Forge World map you have a lot of things to get stuck into. Theatre mode is also worthy of note, those of you familiar with Halo 3 will know how much fun this can be, taking screen shots from any game type you have played and sending them to the Bungie hosted file share to show your friends just how you killed them or how you took out that tank solo in a short video, is truly are great feature that I personally will never get bored with! On top of all this you have firefight, a mode in which you can team up with friends or randoms from around the world, or go solo against varying levels of enemies to straight up kill bad dudes or defend structures, in a selection of maps with again the same levels of customisation as in multiplayer game types, gravity, weapon damage, shield health, all changeable to suit your mood.
All in all Halo:Reach is well crafted and executed title and truly is the sequel Combat Evolved deserved, its only down sides in my humble opinion are the sketchy space combat sections and the slightly unforgiving nature of the harder difficulty settings, although that’s not a bad thing but it does seem almost unstoppable on the Legendary setting, but that’s why its a harder setting! Online gaming is solid although as a relative n00b (I believe that is the correct terminology for someone who is terrible at games) it can be frustrating playing against people who were seemingly playing the game since birth, but again, that is all down to your own level of commitment to practice. The campaign is a little short but with the wealth of options outside of that again, it is a forgivable discrepancy. Now after all that rambling I would like to and get stuck into a sandwich maybe followed by a little Reach…. who saw that coming!
