EDIT: owing to some people getting confused I would like to point out that this review is to be found on the IGN UK website. The USA and AUS versions awarded it 9.5 and 9.0 respectively.
http://uk.xbox360.ign.com/articles/111/1119630p1.html
Halo Reach: 10/10 according to IGN, but one line caught my eye. I've included the surrounding paragraphs to give some ccontext:
The new features are well woven into a campaign that stands as one of Halo's best. Taking place near exclusively on the surface of Reach, it plays its action straighter than its predecessors. There's a fatalistic air handing over the story of Noble team, something that's told through to the muted palette of the planet itself. It's a more human place than Halo has been before, with artefacts of its civilisation strewn throughout the game, and it's host to a more human story as well.
Not that it's a particularly great one. While it's certainly more direct than the incoherent tangle of lore that was Halo 3 it's no more engaging. Noble 6, the campaign's lead, is a blank slate ? no doubt to accommodate the customisable armour that can be kitted out in exchange for credits earned across the game ? but the rest of Noble team are little better than a grab-bag of clichés, and while the inevitable tragedy that awaits Reach threatens to be affecting, it's ultimately sci-fi pulp that takes itself too seriously. The real concern is that some of the colourful vistas of Halos past have been sacrificed to serve this more po-faced tale as the skyboxes are darkened by the thrum of war, but it's still a more vibrant world than many of its peers.
But if you're playing Halo for a well-told story you're frankly in the wrong place, and there's much more to enjoy here besides. Through the nine or so hours that it'll take to crack the campaign on Heroic (a number that won't be dented by playing with partners, as the difficulty now scales up in co-op) there's an amazing array of set-pieces, and if Bungie is perhaps a little too keen on aping the highlights of its last nine years it does at least seem determined to bring its experience to make them shine like never before.
So... what have we learnt?
1. That Halo Reach is basically the most polished version of a well respected series
2. The plot is little more that "sci-fi pulp"
BUT most importantly
3. That point 2 is irrelevant because its Halo. Uhuh...
So what IGN is saying by giving a perfect 10 is that mediocrity can be celebrated; That the below par and the slightly cr@ppy are fine, so long as the gameplay is frenetic and fun and made by Bungie.
Now, without having played the game I can't comment on either gameplay or story but what really irked me was the disregard for the complete package. In a sense we have admitted defeat in gameplay writing if it can be relegated as inconsequential. We don't look at films and say "Gee, that film was great! Made no sense but there was explosions and a funny man, and more explosions!" Now I know that films and games are different media forms and that they can't be directly compared. But when will consumers grow some balls and demand more for their money? As far as I can tell, in artistic terms reviewers like IGN create the impression that Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen is better than the Godfather.
