Everything about Halo: Reach will seem familiar to the video game franchise’s 30 million fans. That’s both a blessing and a curse for the Xbox 360 game which debuts on Sept. 14.
I recently played part of the game’s single-player campaign and its multiplayer version, and I’m not disappointed in my preview. I found a lot of new tweaks in the game that surprised me and plenty of features that were familiar. Others may find it boring to shoot aliens and drive Warthogs, but I think the game play of Halo is pretty darn good. Above all, it’s got good old-fashioned movie-like storytelling mixed with a lot of sweaty-palm action, and that keeps fans like me coming back.
The sixth game in the series (after Halo, Halo 2, Halo 3, Halo 3: ODST, and Halo Wars) is a prequel to the events in the original Halo: Combat Evolved, which debuted in 2001 on the Xbox. It is set during 2552 in the midst of humanity’s long war against the collective of alien races known as the Covenant. At this pint, most of humanity’s interstellar colonies have fallen, and Reach is one of the last, besides Earth.
The game is a first-person shooter where you play Noble No. 6, a member of the team of Spartan warriors. It’s full of good old-fashioned shooting action, which is what developer Bungie has consistently delivered to Microsoft. This is Bungie’s last Halo game for Microsoft. After it, the companies will part ways, with Microsoft’s own 343 Industries studio will continue to develop Halo games while Bungie moves on to a new universe to be published by Activision Blizzard.
Though Bungie and Microsoft have divorced after a decade, they both stand to make a ton of money if they do this game right. Halo 3, launched in 2007, was the most successful game in the series and it was the finale in the story of Master Chief, the last Spartan super-soldier. It sold more than 10 million copies. At $60 a piece, that’s about $600 million in sales. If Halo: Reach can deliver the same kind of magic, it could help Microsoft gain share in the console war. And it would likely be enough to determine whether Microsoft makes or loses money during the key fall selling season.
Microsoft, of course, is going to ratchet up its marketing machine little by little. Full reviews and most details are embargoed until Sept. 11, leading up to the midnight launches that will take place in stores across the country in mid September. By the end of it, Microsoft will have spent tens of millions of dollars. Unfortunately for Microsoft, hackers have gotten their hands on the full game on the Xbox Live online gaming service and have been releasing spoilers. Piracy of the game could cost Microsoft a big chunk of change. Microsoft has responded by threatening the “banhammer,” or to permanently ban any pirates who sign on to Xbox Live with pirated copies.
In the game, you are part of an elite team of six Spartan super-soldiers, each of them akin to a Master Chief but with different specialties such as sniping, big guns, or the trusty assault rifle. You can play as a male or female. I chose the male, as I like to be a badass sci-fi dude. There are plenty of cinematics in the opening section, much like any Halo game, where you can get a feel for the situation and the capabilities of Noble team.
In a mission called Nightfall, you have to play a stealth mission in the dark. You are armed with a sniper rifle and you have one other Noble team member for a companion. The landscape looks pretty, with lots of far-reaching views. The enemies in the game are still fairly unpredictable, dodging one way or another, sometimes rushing you, sometimes ducking for cover. But in Reach, you have the chance of fighting in groups of super-soldiers. You can also fight alongside lesser UNSC soldiers, who are more like cannon fodder. That changes the play in a good way.
In addition to Nightfall, Microsoft is allowing descriptions of Tip of the Spear, where dozens of Warthogs filled with USNC troops race toward battle with dozens of Covenant vehicles. The battle is a huge firefight with Covenant troops such as the new Elite Zealots. You can take them on with M319 grenade launchers that shoot bouncing grenades. You can also get into a Warthog that shoots rockets, rather than just the standard machine gun. That’s all part of Bungie’s promise to deliver you a war, not just another Halo battle.
The single-player game introduces some random elements, such as ostrich-like animals that don’t run away from the shooting. At E3 this year, Bungie showed off a level where you can hop into a rocket, blast off into space, and then get into space combat that is reminiscent of the aerial dogfighting in Wing Commander. But I like the game’s overwhelming sense that the forces of humanity are outnumbered and are about to be overwhelmed by massive Covenant forces. Against such odds, you have to fight on and you meet your share of noble characters.
The multiplayer combat was a delight. I played the multiplayer beta test earlier this year and found the armor abilities to add an interesting twist to the typical frenzied combat. There are some maps where it pays to have a jet pack that lets you fly above the fray and pick off rivals from above. But if you do so, you are vulnerable to sniping. The game play is balanced that way, like rock, paper, scissors. You can never dominate the play with a single weapon. And if you use a skill, it runs out and you have to recharge it.
At the beginning of multiplayer matches, you choose a loadout that mixes and matches armor and weapon abilities. If you hit the left bumper on the game controller, you can activate the special ability, such as running or flying with the jetpack. I played just a few matches but really enjoyed multiplayer. It ran very smooth in the controlled setting that Microsoft arranged for reviewers. I never once found it slowing down due to lag, or delays in network connections. In a mode called Firefight, you could play a free-for-all battle where you collected skulls. If you shot someone, you could pick up a flaming skull and then carry it back to a base. If you reach the base, you scored a point. But if someone shoots you before you get to it, then they can take your skulls and score the points. I was quite embarrassed when one player used a finishing move on me, where you sneak up on someone and “assassinate” them in dramatic fashion.
I cackled with delight when I shot a guy with six skulls just as he was about to score. I picked up the skulls and briefly moved into the lead. Normally, I’m at the end of the pack when it comes to multiplayer matches. I found that in the confined space, you had to use a combination of shooting and melee attacks. If you shoot at someone at close range, you can take down their shields, then charge them and take them out with a well-timed melee attack. If there’s any lag at all, this strategy doesn’t work so well. But it worked for me.
I enjoyed some of the other multiplayer modes. It was fun to separate a group of 16 players into four teams that took each other on all at once. And I enjoyed a mode dubbed Juggernaut, where one soldier is loaded up with overshields and weapons such as the “gravity hammer,” which delivers a killer one-shot blow. Everybody else has to gang up on the Juggernaut. Whoever takes out the Juggernaut then becomes one.
Overall, I have to say I’m more excited about this game than I was after E3, when it made my list for the top ten best of E3. I hope I’ll still feel the same when I finish the complete single-player campaign and dive into multiplayer. This season will bring a lot of competition, such as Call of Duty Black Ops, the Nintendo 3DS, Sony Move and Microsoft’s Kinect motion sensing system. But I know that Halo: Reach is going to get a good chunk of my time. I always love Halo games, down to the humorous or serious names of the chapters. This one is no different. Check out the latest trailer for Halo: Reach below. It’s one more example of movie-like storytelling. So far, it looks to me like Bungie has delivered what players want: familiar Halo action with surprises along the way.
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