Preview: Halo Reach

The grittiness starts with cast. Master Chief is replaced with Noble Team, a squad of six Spartans, each with his or her own special weapons and abilities. The team includes EMILE-239 - an assault specialist, JUN-266 - the sniper of the bunch, KAT-320 - the sole girl and stealth expert, JORGE-052 - heavy weapons specialist, CARTER-259 - the leader, and Noble Six, the new guy.

This style is similar to the equipment concept introduced in Halo 3, although abilities can be reused after a cool down period. There are also a large number of abilities to choose from including: jet pack, armor lock, cammo, sprint, evade, hologram and drop shield. Hologram is the favorite of the bunch, which sends a hologram running ahead of you drawing out enemy fire. Each of these has their own uses and the gameplay possibilities seem endless.

Noble Team is comprised of Spartan 3s, instead of Master Chief’s Spartan 2 suit. Spartan 3s are meant to be reliable enough to get the job done, but they’re also expendable.

As such, long gone are the regenerating shields. Instead Reach will have ODST’s health bar system; the original health pack hunting. It’s just one Reach’s of many odes to Combat Evolved, along with the true pistol.

Noble Team is fighting in the Battle of Reach, and for the first time the UNSC is fighting the Covenant. The story of Reach is one of desperation and ultimately failure, which creates the darker, grittier storyline and gameplay.  As such, Elites now tower over you, and speak in their native tongue, creating a sense of despair and uncertainty during firefights.

In addition, Elites now come in many different flavors, similar to the different types of Brutes in Halo 3. Heretic Elites wield human weapons, Spec-Ops have invisibility cloaks, Jetpack Elites have well… jetpacks, Ultra Elites are more heavily armed, Officers have Chieftain-like helmets, and Generals are the toughest of the bunch. To put it simply, Elites are a force to be reckoned with; they will kill you if you try to simply bash them like old times.

But elites aren’t the only enemies you’ll be facing. Skirmishers are a new enemy of the same species as Jackals but they are far more aggressive. If you can get a few round into them, however, they will drop like flies. And of course, Grunts make their beloved return, hopefully, along with Marty O’Donnel’s superb voice acting.

These firefights will be bigger than ever before, thanks to the new and improved Halo engine. The new engine can theoretically support four Spartans, eight marines, and thirty Covenant, making for some spectacular battles.

All these enemies won’t be populating little halls as of the late Halo games. Think the Silent Cartographer. The massive levels of old will sometimes give the player multiple objectives and allow him to tackle them in whatever order he pleases. Bungie is also looking to have a good mix of foot and vehicle action similar to the Silent Cartographer’s. Jumping into a warthog (or the early equivalent) in the middle of a level breaks up the monotony of trudging along on foot.

And then to really bring something new into the mix, there’s space combat. Bungie hired Sage Merril, a veteran from FASA Studio of Crimson Skies fame, to lead the mission. Noble Team takes control of a fighter and flies into the final frontier via a spectacular cut-scene. As soon as the cut-scene ends, all hell breaks loose. The dogfights don’t seem too hectic though, giving the player breathing room between each engagement and it’s apparent that the blue HUD blends easily into the blue environment.

To our dismay, the space combat will only be available in the campaign but it will be playable coop. It seems like such a good multiplayer opportunity, DLC perhaps? But there is already more than enough to do in multiplayer.

This time around, Elites and Spartans are no longer interchangeable in multiplayer mode. Game modes only allow gamers to play as one or the other, except for Invasion and Firefight mode. Invasion mode is basically Spartans vs. Elites with attack and defend objectives.

The aforementioned armor abilities add to the multiplayer mayhem by creating a near limitless amount of possibilities. A game is never unbalanced though because loadouts are predetermined a la Call of Duty classes.

The game types seem to be pretty standard except with some interesting variations. Headhunter and Invasion seem to be the standouts.

Headhuner is sort of an Oddball- Juggernaut mix, in which skulls are collected from dead bodies. When someone is killed a skull appears at his dead body that can be picked up by anyone. Whenever someone dies all of their skulls are dropped for anyone to pick up. This creates a bounty on whoever is in the lead making it all the more interesting.

Of course, no Halo game is complete without new weapons to frag your friends and that is where Halo Reach shines. For starters, the Battle Rifle is long and has been replaced by the DMR, a single shot rifle with only a twelve round clip.

The Covenant received the biggest arsenal upgrade. The Concussion Rifle is the Covenant counterpart to the grenade launcher, blowing you up in beautiful blue explosions. The Needler, however, seems to have been developed after the fall of Reach. In its place lies the Needle Rifle, a marksman’s best friend. It fires the purple needles in a straight line and they burst a few seconds later after having been lodged into their target. The plasma rifle has also been tweaked with the rate of fire slowing down and the accuracy increasing as it heats up. The Focus Rifle is the new Covey sniper, which is basically a Sentinel Beam requiring you to pain to target. Lastly there is the Plasma Launcher aka Covey rocket launcher with lock on capabilities.

And if you somehow manage to get bored of the multiplayer maps; Forge mode returns, only bigger, badder, and better. In Halo 3, Forge allowed you to place objects on the map, shallow compared to PC standards, but now you can do much more. Forge World is a map dedicated towards Forge users and is, essentially, a large blank map with many more objects than ever before. The map is huge, not only is there an indoor blank room but there are numerous islands also to wage war on.

In Halo 3 there was a problem, if you wanted to only use part of an object, say the top of a room, you couldn’t. In Reach you can just move the room into the floor to use only the part you want. There are also filters that can be used, like a “colorblind” filter that changes the map to black and white. Forge World can be used to create, yes, the king of Capture the Flag; Blood Gulch. And the return of Ascension puts the ‘king’ back in King of the Hill. The possibilities are endless.

But what if you’re not in the mood for competitive multiplayer or campaign co-op?

Say you want to kill endless waves of enemies. Firefight is for you. The options this time are mind boggling. Nearly everything can be changed from your health level to how high you jump. Players can slow down movement and lower the Covenant’s accuracy as they see fit making it simply the most accessible Halo game mode ever.

There is also another mode in Firefight, which casts Spartans vs. player controlled Elites. It’s sort of a “defend the perimeter” for a certain amount of time while the Covenant tries to kill you. Spartans only have a certain amount of lives but can regain lost ones by killing human controlled Elites. The Elites meanwhile have unlimited respawns. It’s just one of many Firefight variants that come with Reach.

Overall, Halo Reach is looking like a semi-accessible game, much like Halo: ODST. While Forge and Firefight broaden their respective scopes, it is still lacking in some ways; gameplay is fast paced and a colorblind option is absent. And why not allow gamers to use those same Firefight options in Campaign mode?

On the mobility side, the controls require the use of all the buttons, but based on Halo 3 there should be a ‘bumper jumper’ and ‘southpaw’ layout. The former switches the bumpers with the ‘A’ and ‘B’ buttons allowing you to bash without taking your hands off the thumb-sticks.

A different issue that popped up, however, is that rage quitters will be penalized. Bungie didn’t specify the penalty or greatly define “rage quitting.” This has led some gamers to wonder what will happen if they need to leave in the middle of a match, will they be put into the same category?

The specifics are unknown, but it will probably be for those who quit a certain percentage of their games or who go on a quitting spree. Rest assured, if you don’t quit regularly you should be fine.  Halo Reach is shaping up to be hands down the best Halo game in every sense. Bungie certainly knows how to go out with a bang. With that I say, once more unto the breach my friends.

Comments (1)

aodao

October 08, 2010

Votes: +0

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i really want to play this game!!!!

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