Having just finished Reach today, I felt the need to vent my frustrations to the only thing that can survive listening- the internet. I warn you ahead of time, this probably will dissolve into a rant occasionally, this review will have spoilers. That being said...
I was decidedly disappointed with Reach, so much so, I can honestly say that after playing it, I wanted to go over to a friends to play ODST, but of course, I couldn't just leave a game unfinished, so I had to play through Reach, wading through the lame and rushed plot, kill hordes of the same stuff as usual, and realizing time and again how happy I was to be just borrowing it from a friend rather than having bought it for the ridiculous $60 price tag.
My biggest issue, by far, was just how bad all the story elements were. Because I have a fair amount of qualms I'll divide this review into gameplay and story elements:
Gameplay:
Same old, same old. Its the usual Halo gameplay. Not that there is anything wrong with that, really. Halo's gameplay was always really fun, and nothing beat slashing through foes with an energy sword or sticking an elite with a grenade. The little armor suit upgrades where a great touch, cause being able to sprint was all that really kept me alive, and the jet pack just kicked ass (soaring in from above with a grav hammer into a brute pack? fun...). But other then those two, the others I never bothered to use because they just weren't all that useful. Bubble shield, armor lock, heal... these all seemed far less useful and easy to use then the variety of Equipment you had in halo 3. Why did they swap that out? Finally, and this is what just bugged the hell out of me, the combat is really unbalanced! I usually play on heroic because normal is piss easy and Legendary make me want to murder babies its so frustrating. But even so, the amount of damage enemies can take in Reach is reminiscent of Gears of War. Grunts are still weak as ever thank to head shots, and jackals (and those stupid skirmisher things...) are still present with shields and snipers, but the damn things can survive missiles and grenades going of right next to them! The grenades are now so under powered, that grunts can take a blast and keep it up. The plasma grenade's only chance of killing something is if you actually stick a guy. And it will kill just him among his group. There's also a level with a "Rocket Hog" (cause every human vehicle is a jeep with a gun on the back), and I first thought, "Holy shit! This will kick ass cruising through blasting everything!" But guess what? The rockets don't do jack. Neither do scorpion tank rounds. They barely can kill a single jackal unless you actually hit the damn thing dead on, and accuracy with a tank or rocket launcher pad is just so easy while everything for the next 2 miles is out to murder you in your big 'ol vehicle. They were so underpowered...
But the real issue, is the elites. These bastards are awful. It takes clip after clip after clip to so much as break there shields, which in this game, are ridiculously powerful, and recharge 2 seconds after you stop shooting them to reload while they trot around.
In one level, where you board a covenant frigate to capture and use it to destroy another ship, the final wave of enemies are about 6-8 high ranking elites, and god damn, the things could take hits from a few grenades from the new covenant grenade launcher and shake it off! It takes about 4 melees to kill them, if they haven't punched your face clean off! (I take this moment to say the assassination melees are just too cool) the AI is super intelligent, which is a good thing, but because he elites can just take so much damage, 2-3 of them are nearly invincible facing them! And they have fucking armor lock?! Why does the covenant have the Spartan exclusive ability of armor lock, which involves a SPARTANS armor going rigid?! Even brutes that DONT HAVE ARMOR had armor lock. Wtf? Couple that with the other little guys, who can also take entire clips unless its a headshot, and it just feels like the aliens are unnaturally tough!
This might sound like I'm just complaining the game is too hard; I'm not. Its really only so challenging, not THAT hard. It just feels a little unbalanced. Its not as fun compared to previous games, where you could role through hordes pistol whipping and gunning the suckers down, feeling that satisfying omnipotence, and then fairly being shot with a sniper or taking a few to many rounds. Rather then making the enemies tough and more ammo resistant, why not make me easier to kill? That way, I still have to be extra skillful and tactical, but don't have to struggle to kill one enemy among the horde shooting me.
The new weapons (that mysteriously are lost in the later Halo's, or at least devolve significantly) are sorta cool, but feel unnecessary. The grenade launchers are just too annoying to use, and really, the original weapons where just more effective. The assault rifle still sucks though...
Overall, average game play. Fun, engaging, but just not THAT great or satisfying in the end. It gets the job done. (The space combat I'll save for later)
Story:
Ok, now heres the real review. The story was unbelievably half-assed. I include everything that isn't gameplay as story, so...
Firstly, the god damn cutscenes. These pissed me off to no end. The camera angle must have been controlled by a schizophrenic 5 year old with ADHD it was skipping around so much. Sometimes its behind you, sometimes above in 3rd person, other times its first person, only to skip away back to a video recording like in ODST, and then back to some random third person. When your taking off into space on a fighter ship, they attach a damn camera view to the falling section of your ejected thruster rocket so you can see the hind end of your ship blast off. Pick a camera view. Stick with it. It made no fucking sense what exactly I, the Player, was in relation to the story, in which the cutscenes made me the main character, and occasionally random bits of scenery that happen to have eyes. But I digress. On to flaming the horrible plot.
Ok, the idea of basing the game around the fall of Reach, I thought, was really cool. As a Halo Fan (I bought the books even, including 'Fall of Reach'), this sounded like a neat way to wrap up and end the series in the most epic of ways; the huge battle that focused on the conquering of an entire planet. I thought that there would be epic battles of desperation on Reach, with my character nobly fighting to the last. But no... I was wrong.
A quick synopsis. You are Noble Six, newest member of a Spartan Squad on Reach, a fortress world for the military. Your discover covenant there. More covenant show up. You run around trying to stop them. You go into space to destroy a super carrier flagship. More covenant show up. You fight more. You get called in to deliver an AI to the Pillar of Autumn (Its Cortana, and I though this was a neat twist). Along they way, all your teammates have died. You're next.
All and all, the game felt just so rushed. You're randomly are assigned to Noble Team, and really, the need to have so many spartans just seemed like an excess of bland forgettable characters. Heres what happened: Bungie spent so much time trying to make lots of characters for you to interact with, that none of them had any depth beyond what gun they favored. They were so forgettable. All through the game, each dies, and I honestly felt nothing when this happened, not like when SGT. Johnson died at the end of 3... I nearly baled then. There is zero character development. In fact, the main character, you, get the least development of all, and unlike ODST, you aren't even a silent protagonist. You have little one-liners that are irrelevant to the plot. Too few to make you a 3rd person character, and too many to be able to project yourself as the character. I miss master chief.
To further express each fault of the games lame story, I'll bullet point it.
-The game was too short. I finished it in a day. Because it was so short, it made the Fall of Reach seem so anti-climactic, and they rushed to fit all the missions in. It just didn't feel like i was playing through a story like Half-life or Jak and Daxter. I was just playing a game. The story barely mattered. Then I beat the game. Wooh!... That was forgettable...
-Most of the missions seemed to have no point. It seemed like the plot was only there to get you from one covenant horde to the next. All the exposition usually happened in game over radio transmissions, and it all happened so fast, I repeated ask my friend who I was co-oping with why we were even fighting at this particular generic Halo location, because the plot tried to squeeze so much in in so little a space, it felt random and unplanned.
-The game starts with you discovering covenant of Reach. This, I would assume, would be huge news, warranting a dramatic cutscene where relevant characters go *gasp* and express the severity of how bad this is. But no, instead, at the end of the level, you just casually are like, "uh oh, covenant, thats rather not good. Oh well, on with the day", and then you just adapt to you new covenant buddies.
- Ridiculous amount of plot holes. Ridiculous. In one level, your thrown from a space ship in high orbit. You presumably fall back to Reach... and survive re-entry? What? Bullshit! And why does the covenant have armor lock? And what happened to all the orbital defense towers that every game and book said Reach had? the ones like in Halo 2? What was this apparently "huge" discovery that Doctor Hasley found under Reach (this really crumby sub-plot bullshit. apparently Cortana found some forerunner secret that will change the course of the war. Random bullshit)? What is it that Cortana knew that I died fighting for, that is never brought up? Ever. Why am I the "choosen one" (Of Cortana)? she picked Master Chief.
Ok look, bottom line. The story blows. Its was poorly thought out, anti-climactic, and the final battle sucked as well. everything was just frivolous and either over or under done. Case in point, the really fun space combat mission. That was some of the best space battle I've ever had, and it was fun and worked well and then it just suddenly stopped. This game could have been so amazing. All the elements where there (if they had just killed off the rest of Noble Team before the game started, then it may have been passable).
SO! Don't buy Reach. Rent it, borrow it like I did, but don't spend $60 bucks on something like this. Its given me 2 days of entertainment, and thats all. It wasn't worth the hype.
Think differently. Tell me. I'd love to hear. (man that is a wall...)
-
I was decidedly disappointed with Reach, so much so, I can honestly say that after playing it, I wanted to go over to a friends to play ODST, but of course, I couldn't just leave a game unfinished, so I had to play through Reach, wading through the lame and rushed plot, kill hordes of the same stuff as usual, and realizing time and again how happy I was to be just borrowing it from a friend rather than having bought it for the ridiculous $60 price tag.
My biggest issue, by far, was just how bad all the story elements were. Because I have a fair amount of qualms I'll divide this review into gameplay and story elements:
Gameplay:
Same old, same old. Its the usual Halo gameplay. Not that there is anything wrong with that, really. Halo's gameplay was always really fun, and nothing beat slashing through foes with an energy sword or sticking an elite with a grenade. The little armor suit upgrades where a great touch, cause being able to sprint was all that really kept me alive, and the jet pack just kicked ass (soaring in from above with a grav hammer into a brute pack? fun...). But other then those two, the others I never bothered to use because they just weren't all that useful. Bubble shield, armor lock, heal... these all seemed far less useful and easy to use then the variety of Equipment you had in halo 3. Why did they swap that out? Finally, and this is what just bugged the hell out of me, the combat is really unbalanced! I usually play on heroic because normal is piss easy and Legendary make me want to murder babies its so frustrating. But even so, the amount of damage enemies can take in Reach is reminiscent of Gears of War. Grunts are still weak as ever thank to head shots, and jackals (and those stupid skirmisher things...) are still present with shields and snipers, but the damn things can survive missiles and grenades going of right next to them! The grenades are now so under powered, that grunts can take a blast and keep it up. The plasma grenade's only chance of killing something is if you actually stick a guy. And it will kill just him among his group. There's also a level with a "Rocket Hog" (cause every human vehicle is a jeep with a gun on the back), and I first thought, "Holy shit! This will kick ass cruising through blasting everything!" But guess what? The rockets don't do jack. Neither do scorpion tank rounds. They barely can kill a single jackal unless you actually hit the damn thing dead on, and accuracy with a tank or rocket launcher pad is just so easy while everything for the next 2 miles is out to murder you in your big 'ol vehicle. They were so underpowered...
But the real issue, is the elites. These bastards are awful. It takes clip after clip after clip to so much as break there shields, which in this game, are ridiculously powerful, and recharge 2 seconds after you stop shooting them to reload while they trot around.
In one level, where you board a covenant frigate to capture and use it to destroy another ship, the final wave of enemies are about 6-8 high ranking elites, and god damn, the things could take hits from a few grenades from the new covenant grenade launcher and shake it off! It takes about 4 melees to kill them, if they haven't punched your face clean off! (I take this moment to say the assassination melees are just too cool) the AI is super intelligent, which is a good thing, but because he elites can just take so much damage, 2-3 of them are nearly invincible facing them! And they have fucking armor lock?! Why does the covenant have the Spartan exclusive ability of armor lock, which involves a SPARTANS armor going rigid?! Even brutes that DONT HAVE ARMOR had armor lock. Wtf? Couple that with the other little guys, who can also take entire clips unless its a headshot, and it just feels like the aliens are unnaturally tough!
This might sound like I'm just complaining the game is too hard; I'm not. Its really only so challenging, not THAT hard. It just feels a little unbalanced. Its not as fun compared to previous games, where you could role through hordes pistol whipping and gunning the suckers down, feeling that satisfying omnipotence, and then fairly being shot with a sniper or taking a few to many rounds. Rather then making the enemies tough and more ammo resistant, why not make me easier to kill? That way, I still have to be extra skillful and tactical, but don't have to struggle to kill one enemy among the horde shooting me.
The new weapons (that mysteriously are lost in the later Halo's, or at least devolve significantly) are sorta cool, but feel unnecessary. The grenade launchers are just too annoying to use, and really, the original weapons where just more effective. The assault rifle still sucks though...
Overall, average game play. Fun, engaging, but just not THAT great or satisfying in the end. It gets the job done. (The space combat I'll save for later)
Story:
Ok, now heres the real review. The story was unbelievably half-assed. I include everything that isn't gameplay as story, so...
Firstly, the god damn cutscenes. These pissed me off to no end. The camera angle must have been controlled by a schizophrenic 5 year old with ADHD it was skipping around so much. Sometimes its behind you, sometimes above in 3rd person, other times its first person, only to skip away back to a video recording like in ODST, and then back to some random third person. When your taking off into space on a fighter ship, they attach a damn camera view to the falling section of your ejected thruster rocket so you can see the hind end of your ship blast off. Pick a camera view. Stick with it. It made no fucking sense what exactly I, the Player, was in relation to the story, in which the cutscenes made me the main character, and occasionally random bits of scenery that happen to have eyes. But I digress. On to flaming the horrible plot.
Ok, the idea of basing the game around the fall of Reach, I thought, was really cool. As a Halo Fan (I bought the books even, including 'Fall of Reach'), this sounded like a neat way to wrap up and end the series in the most epic of ways; the huge battle that focused on the conquering of an entire planet. I thought that there would be epic battles of desperation on Reach, with my character nobly fighting to the last. But no... I was wrong.
A quick synopsis. You are Noble Six, newest member of a Spartan Squad on Reach, a fortress world for the military. Your discover covenant there. More covenant show up. You run around trying to stop them. You go into space to destroy a super carrier flagship. More covenant show up. You fight more. You get called in to deliver an AI to the Pillar of Autumn (Its Cortana, and I though this was a neat twist). Along they way, all your teammates have died. You're next.
All and all, the game felt just so rushed. You're randomly are assigned to Noble Team, and really, the need to have so many spartans just seemed like an excess of bland forgettable characters. Heres what happened: Bungie spent so much time trying to make lots of characters for you to interact with, that none of them had any depth beyond what gun they favored. They were so forgettable. All through the game, each dies, and I honestly felt nothing when this happened, not like when SGT. Johnson died at the end of 3... I nearly baled then. There is zero character development. In fact, the main character, you, get the least development of all, and unlike ODST, you aren't even a silent protagonist. You have little one-liners that are irrelevant to the plot. Too few to make you a 3rd person character, and too many to be able to project yourself as the character. I miss master chief.
To further express each fault of the games lame story, I'll bullet point it.
-The game was too short. I finished it in a day. Because it was so short, it made the Fall of Reach seem so anti-climactic, and they rushed to fit all the missions in. It just didn't feel like i was playing through a story like Half-life or Jak and Daxter. I was just playing a game. The story barely mattered. Then I beat the game. Wooh!... That was forgettable...
-Most of the missions seemed to have no point. It seemed like the plot was only there to get you from one covenant horde to the next. All the exposition usually happened in game over radio transmissions, and it all happened so fast, I repeated ask my friend who I was co-oping with why we were even fighting at this particular generic Halo location, because the plot tried to squeeze so much in in so little a space, it felt random and unplanned.
-The game starts with you discovering covenant of Reach. This, I would assume, would be huge news, warranting a dramatic cutscene where relevant characters go *gasp* and express the severity of how bad this is. But no, instead, at the end of the level, you just casually are like, "uh oh, covenant, thats rather not good. Oh well, on with the day", and then you just adapt to you new covenant buddies.
- Ridiculous amount of plot holes. Ridiculous. In one level, your thrown from a space ship in high orbit. You presumably fall back to Reach... and survive re-entry? What? Bullshit! And why does the covenant have armor lock? And what happened to all the orbital defense towers that every game and book said Reach had? the ones like in Halo 2? What was this apparently "huge" discovery that Doctor Hasley found under Reach (this really crumby sub-plot bullshit. apparently Cortana found some forerunner secret that will change the course of the war. Random bullshit)? What is it that Cortana knew that I died fighting for, that is never brought up? Ever. Why am I the "choosen one" (Of Cortana)? she picked Master Chief.
Ok look, bottom line. The story blows. Its was poorly thought out, anti-climactic, and the final battle sucked as well. everything was just frivolous and either over or under done. Case in point, the really fun space combat mission. That was some of the best space battle I've ever had, and it was fun and worked well and then it just suddenly stopped. This game could have been so amazing. All the elements where there (if they had just killed off the rest of Noble Team before the game started, then it may have been passable).
SO! Don't buy Reach. Rent it, borrow it like I did, but don't spend $60 bucks on something like this. Its given me 2 days of entertainment, and thats all. It wasn't worth the hype.
Think differently. Tell me. I'd love to hear. (man that is a wall...)
-
but it was still pretty good. they made you like noble team which is more then i can say for alot of the other halo chacters.