Halo: Reach Reviews Trickling In

[StriderShinryu]

Uh, these are what the forums are gonna be like for the next week aren't they? xD

I don't see why everyone's saying, "these reviews are affirming my decision to buy it." It's Halo, dare I say it doesn't get the scores it does for actually being the best of the bunch.

Hey, it can't be worse than it was during StarCraft 2 week hehe For that one Kotaku actually set up a special link you could use to access their site without having to see any of the SC2 posts.

Personally, I already knew I was going to be getting the game at some point but it's always nice to see what you want in the game confirmed by reviewers you trust.

 

[Cynical skeptic]

Also, refined =/= derivative. Similar? Yes. The same? No.

I was thinking more along the lines of "refined vs dumbed down." Though, "derive" does fit pretty well too.

Also, I was mentioning half-life more to reflect halo's pretty threadbare narrative. "Aliens bad, you shoot. Bang bang." Its clear bungie wanted symbolism and reference biblical name-drops to passively tell most of the story for them (passive story telling being half-life's bread and butter, half-life being a pretty big milestone in game design, something bungie primarily considered in choosing which games to rip off), but the fact bungie needed to commission books (story sold separately) before most of their target demographic (people who thought the xbox looked cool) had any real idea of what was going on means they failed magnificently. Then the fact the second and third games relied mostly upon exposition dumps to tell story... yea. Total failure on that front.

Before halo, the FPS genre was essentially PC exclusive. Bungie, rather than make a great PC game, decided to go for money, and figure out out how to force the large square peg that was FPS gameplay through the small circle hole of console limitations (if you were positive to the point of delusion, you'd call this 'refining'). The problem is the absence of everything deemed "sharp edges" were actually missed by those not trapped in LIVE's walled garden, while halo's completely insulated demographics never knew what they lost.

Halo was multiple steps backward in game design. Nine years later, gaming's legs have completely atrophied and its just wallowing around in mud, shitting itself.

 

[repeating integers]

I personally like my FPS games on consoles. Why? Hard to say, really. It just feels more hands-on, I guess - I like the feel of the controller in my hand as I shoot. I don't want to have to keep glancing down at my keyboard for hotkeys to press in order to change weapons, I don't want to have my fingers poised over the arrow keys to move. The console controller is simple and effective to use, it's easy to memorise where all the buttons are. To be honest, when looking at the Xbox 360 controller, it looks designed for shooters.

As for my PC? I only use it for RTS games. The complexity of the keyboard and the way the mouse moves recommend it for the genre. I can't really see how a console RTS would work, though I know it's been done.

 

[Onyx Oblivion]

Destructoid review. By Hamza.

http://www.destructoid.com/review-halo-reach-181587.phtml

10/10

GamesRadar was posted, but here are the scores for it.

8/10
Campaign 7/10
MP 9/10

 

[GeneticallyModifiedDucks]

Reach is best of the Halo series.
That means its even better then the first Halo, the one that supposedly invented FPS.

Excuse me? Invented FPS? Introduced a good control scheme for console first-person-shooters, yes. But invented? Not by a longshot.

 

[Apocalypse Tank]

Reach is best of the Halo series.
That means its even better then the first Halo, the one that supposedly invented FPS.

Excuse me? Invented FPS? Introduced a good control scheme for console first-person-shooters, yes. But invented? Not by a longshot.

Its a widely known phenomenon in the Bungie forums that Halo invented FPS.
Hence "supposedly" invented FPS

 

[AlmostLikeLife]

I'll probably just end up giving this game a rent. I don't like Halo, but my room mate has played every Halo game.

 

[IBlackKiteI]

Halo pretty much invented online matchmaking on the consoles. It also has forge and theater mode, both of which were very new to consoles. So...yeah, I would say it's innovative. Maybe not so much in the gameplay, but definitely in the software.

I meant moreso things that were in the original and have been in Halo since its creation, but yes Halo 3 did add things consoles had never before had, while I like the idea of matchmaking I find it very flawed in operation.
How exactly can you match someone up with someone at the same level?
There are just too many varibles, they could just camp out the rocket spawn or use tanks the entire match, it may not even be them be playing.
I wish games would do away with all this competitive nonsense and just let us jump into a decent game or choose one out of a list, I mean as long as its not some guys on Battlefield MC2 spawn camping with helicopters your all set.
Some of the best multiplayer games ive ever had have been on CoD 1 servers, (yes CoD 1) what made some of these games so fun was a thing that consoles lack, mods.

 

[demoman_chaos]

Give it a year and people will start looking past the hype and see the game for what it is, samey. Halo is quite samey, same few enemies usually in the same sorts of groups just in different areas.

Reach looks like it is trying hard to be more like Star Wars BattleFront with the jetpacks, rolling, and the space combat (which from what I've seen, seems to play similar to SW:BF2's space battles).

My guess is it will get great reviews be pushed as the best thing ever, then later the people will start looking at it for what it really is. Just like GTA4, super-hyped and got super reviews but turned out that it wasn't that super really.