On 9/14 I bought Halo:Reach, just two days after my birthday. It’s been a good four weeks now. I think that has been enough time form an opinion hype-free. That “THIS IS THE BEST GAME EVER!!!!1!” feeling you get when the game is still at the menu screen. Yes I am a Halo fanatic. I’ve bought all the games, missing I think only two books, comics, and of course Legendary Editions when available. Notice I didn’t include the “-boy” there at the end. I know it’s not perfect and far from original. But none the less I still find it interesting and epic. I was there from the start and enjoyed it ever since. Thought I should get that out of the way, if it wasn’t already known. Hopefully my love for the series won’t disqualify my design, not game, review I’ve been waiting to write.
I’ll start by saying that Fall of Reach is my favorite book of the series. So right away I was ready to go when this game was announced. I should give it another go now that I’ve finished the game. Since the first Halo, I always pictured fighting along other Spartans. To see how another Spartan would react and fight compared to Master Chief. Nobel Team is a great smack in the face that not all Spartans are created equal. It was refreshing to see each characters perspective and attitude. At some points though, I kept getting the feeling that they were just Marines in armor and not really Spartans. At least not what I considered a Spartan. Maybe this was intentional? To give a more human side than the one man army killing machine? Overall I did like the approach to the squad, especially Nobel 6. You can say he was probably the most Spartan-like of them all.
Thinking about it a little more, what makes a Spartan a Spartan? That’s when I realized that I kept comparing them to Master Chief (SPARTN-II). With the exception of Nobel 5, the entire squad is made up of SPARTAN-III (Ghost of Onyx will explain that). This is definitely Bungie’s best story game yet. The overall pace and setting is captured just right. You know this planet is going to fall and soon. The comparison to Titanic is spot on. You know the ending, but there still are amazing and interesting events going on you don’t want to miss.
How the game plays is pretty straight Halo. One change, and a major good one, are the armor abilities. We’ve used them before in the previous games(camouflage for instance), but not like this. Able to choose which and switch them out if needed. Having rechargeable abilities is really great. And do I really have to say anything about the jet-pack? It’s also because of these abilities and armor customization why I think Reach has the best multiplayer of the series.
Reach has definitely become tied for second favorite game, Halo 3 being the other, in the series (first Halo being one, and Halo 2 is third). Maybe after a few more times around, I’ll give more specific examples and details. I feel like I’m missing that. Was this really a design review? I know it wasn’t… Let me know!
And yes, the Noble Team statue is badass!
