A Crosseyed View of Halo: Reach

Halo: Reach is easily the biggest release for Xbox this year. With millions of unique players signing in each day and millions of games being won and lost there is little doubt that the game is a success. It has garnered universal acclaim as well as financial success and should continue to dominate Xbox live online activity for months to come.

For me there is always something special about a new Halo game. The original allowed for the Xbox to be a success and showed that FPS could be successful on the console. Halo 2 showed what live could be and Halo 3 brought in the magic of forge. Halo: Reach is yet another special event as Bungie wanted to leave the Halo series behind as their crowning achievement. An awesome midnight release and a few all nighters later, I have to say that this is in fact their best game.

What I noticed right away was the shear amount of gaming there was packaged into this game. The game has is standard campaign and multiplayer, but what I really enjoy is the co-op portion of the game. Co-op campaign, firefight, forge…it’s almost overwhelming. When you add in the daily and weekly challenges and the role the credits play in “pimping” out your Spartan there seems to be more then enough to keep people coming back for some time.

This game is not free from its share of problems. I have noticed some issue with loading new areas and significant lag in campaign and firefight. As for multiplayer my only issue is with the maps themselves. Game play is smooth, the weapons are balanced, but the maps seem uninspired. A majority of the maps are remakes of previous maps or forge creations. Even with that in mind I can’t complain about the number of maps that shipped, considering Halo 3 only shipped with eleven, thirteen seems like a fair number especially if the game is heavily supported by its strong forge community. The only thing I ask is that when map packs are released the developers give us Maps with original art and not forge creations.

What really struck me and what is going to keep me on this game is the Forge. I never forged in Halo 3, but with the vast amount of options that are available I had to give it a go. I struggled, but then Sl4yer showed me one little trick and everything fell into place. I love forge and there is a feeling of accomplishment when you are creating your map and you watch it come together and it actually works from a gaming perspective. It makes you want to make more and see what you can come up with. Thank you Bungie, for making Forge accessible for us less talented people.

In the end it’s Halo which is something I can always lose a significant amount of my free time to. Multiplayer is still unmatched by any other console game and the sheer volume of options is bound to add to is replayability.

Here is what others in the Crosseyedgamer community had to say about Reach..

MonroeMisfit

So far, I love everything that Reach has to offer. There are so many new features that the game has, I'm positive I still have more to see.



The first thing that jumped out to me though was the new options that the multiplayer game has. When I first tried the Jet Pack and I could hover over people and shoot them down, or pummel someone in the air, it pretty much made my whole day. Took me a little bit to get over the death of duel welding because you could always find me with duel machine guns, but I got to say it makes the game more challenging because I have to fight to get better weapons and choose my weapons more accurately, which makes the game more fun.

The improved weapons and completely new weapons have my stamp of approval. They went ahead and put the old battle ax to rest, the beloved Battle Rifle. In it's place is the DMR, or Designated Marksmen Rifle if you want to drag it out. The DMR is pretty awesome because basically it's more about accuracy then firepower. I can shoot you four times and you can still be alive and kicking but if I shoot you in the face at medium to close range, you're done.

Another thing I noticed is the change in the shotgun. "It's about time" is all I have to say! In Halo 3 you had to be almost in someone face to take them out with the shot gun, which if it was real life and I had a shot gun...That wouldn't be the case. Reach has given the shot gun the power to live up to its full potential, and I couldn't be happier about it.

Bungie has also delivered on new Covenant weapons. The plasma launcher...What can I say I'm in love. I fell in love when I was playing a Team Slayer game and I picked it up for the first time and all four members of the other team came charging at me, lets just say it ended badly for me but I enjoyed watching from my grave as they all ran around in circles with plasmas stuck to them.

The concussion rifle is pretty cool too. The big balls of energy or whatever it is that it fires can cause quite a bit of damage so its pretty rad.

The Gravity Hammer is another one of my new favorite tools. I don't know for sure if it does have more power, but all I know is in Halo 3 I wouldn't even bother half the time picking it up because I could get more done with my default weapon, but in Reach I definitely get more kills using it.

The new vehicle I have had a chance use is the Covenant Revenant which I like. It's fast, and the blasts that it shoots are pretty powerful so it's a handy vehicle. I have not had the privilege of using it yet, but the Rocket Hog looks so incredible I'm dying to get my hands on it.

The Daily and Weekly challenges rock. Being the gamer geek that I am, when I finish a challenge I feel so accomplished and proud when that long bar at the bottom of the screen moves up a tiny bit. Its like, "Ok, I can go to sleep happy now because I finished my Halo Reach challenges!"
All this and more are things that I love about Reach. Firefight, and Headhunter are all so fun too. When Halo 3 came out I thought "Wow this couldn't be any more fun." But Reach has proved me wrong.

Ohgeez nemesis!!

I thoroughly enjoy the game and I believe that it is the most complete Halo that Bungie has made. I love the credit system and the thousands of different armor combinations. I also think that the campaign is top notch and highly enjoyable and re-playable. Forge is absolutely amazing and so easy to use while still having tons of custom options to make the best map and game experience. The same goes for all of the custom options for custom games though I would like to see an option to customize specific weapon damage. Firefight is really cool but I don't see myself playing non-matchmaking firefight much as I've already gotten the achievements for it. I love matchmaking but I would like to see some changes.

The first change would be the bloom. I love the idea of bloom and contrary to popular belief, bloom is not new to halo. Halo CE had bloom but the difference is that the reticule didn't show it. What I would like to see with bloom is that they make it twice as large, but reset twice as fast. This only goes for the DMR and pistol. Doing this would decrease the randomness of the bloom and greatly decrease the amount of people "spamming" the trigger and getting lucky kills. There's not much in this game more frustrating than placing your shots correctly just to have someone quickly pull off 5 shots all bloomed out and getting a lucky kill. The second change I'd like is moving where the text pops up on-screen. Sometimes two people with really long names will kill one another and the text goes right into the reticule. The last change is a broad category and consists of game types, maps, and armor abilities. There is no reason to have team swat on hemorrhage. It is just ridiculous. Classic slayer also has to go because the Spartans move too slow to have a fun, challenging game of any kind without sprint or evade. Lastly, armor lock and drop shield, I believe, should only be available in slayer games; oddball with drop shields is the least fun and most frustrating thing I've ever played in any Halo. CTF with drop shields and armor lock isn't fun either unless you're the defending team. I love the armor abilities but I think there should be some discretion into what armor abilities are available in a specific game type in order to promote fun and balance.

Balance is something that a few maps don't really have. Starting as the red team on Paradiso sucks because you've got a giant cliff in front of your base that the blue team camps on top of and The Cage always has people camping high elbow. I love Reflection but I think jet-packs severely hurt that map because that map is about smart movement and using the various ramps and lifts wisely, not flying all over the inside.

The melee system will take a while to get used to, as with the assist system and how you chuck grenades now.

Even though I may bash on several aspects of matchmaking, I still find it to me a wonderful and time-stealing experience. These aspects aren't enough to make me quit playing or eve play less. But if they were fixed then I'd play more.

Crosseyed Bunny

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.... it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair....in big team battle.



Halo: Reach is an awesome game. Since we played the beta some things have been tweaked and adjusted. The guy who says "Gained the lead...lost the lead" was suppose to be less annoying, well he's still a bit annoying.

There are a couple issues with the game that I hear people complaining about. One is the vehicles. The tank is a fierce weapon and in the right hands can get your team 20 -30 kills. More times than not one hit and the cannon blows off, leaving it a large hard to park shopping cart. The new Reverent is pretty sweet for picking up the objective carrier. The gun is good at taking out runners but not that great at stopping the tank.

The other issue is the maps. Some gamers, myself included, find some of the new maps one sided. If you get the base by the cliff on Boneyard your a sitting duck. The video below starts out at the good spawn and takes you to the suckie side.

Crosseyeed Arty

Halo :Reach was everything I expected. As I stood in line at Gamestop during the midnight release, I was so antsy to get it in my hands and drive home quick. Once I popped it in the box, I was singing to the angels. I played the campaign first, I have to admit it was too short. Playing as Noble Six was pretty good. Kat is hot by the way. If you didn't pick the game up, she walks kind of funny. Thank you Bungie! I won't spoil the ending, but well worth it to play the campaign.

Ok, now the multiplayer. The multiplayer of Halo: Reach is easily understandable. You can be in a party and join other friends by clicking on their names. You can customize your own Spartan that way that you like. You can earn credits by winning matches, completing challenges, and completing missions. Some of the maps in Reach need improvement, but at least /Blood Gultch is back. Overall, I would give this game a 9.5 out 10.

No iTs Stealth

My thoughts on Halo Reach are just as good as anybody else because it is just an opinion. I personally think that it is the best game I have ever played. Yes I have played some really good games, but I'm a Halo person and that's why it's my favorite game. I think there are ups and downs for the game but there is that in every game. Some of the ups are; Matchmaking has improved with the cheaters and lag so far from the Halo 3 matchmaking also the power ups are good besides the invis .

Forge is becoming better and better each time I use it. For example I am happy that you don't have to use other boxes to put stuff in the air. Campaign gave me more of a challenge, and I believe the game takes more skill.

A few downs:

• the theater can only have one person in it
• the invis SUCKS because of the radar jam and your not really invisible if you walk, Firefight needs to fix the lag, needs more maps. I know they want us to make maps, but you play the same ones over and over again.
• You play to much Swat and Snipers in team slayer (I like this but other people don't).
• The number one thing that I don't like is that there is no BR (battle rifle).