Halo: Reach

Holy crap. I just sat down Friday after work to play a little more of the campaign. I guess I started around 6-6:30 PM, and when I finished the game on Legendary the clock said 8:00 AM! I totally lost track of time and played all night. LOL!

I guess it's fair to say I like the game. :D

I've been trying to force myself to finish Singularity, but I can't seem to make myself play it. Man, what a difference between these two games!
 
Amazing campaign. Stopped at level 8 of 9 on Heroic. The amount of location changes is really something. Constant battle and even the scope of battles keep changing. Often multiples times per level for both. Now that I'm in the flow of the game, I think Legendary might be ok. The Elites are more than a challenge. Seeing the Brutes was a relief and I actually felt like I had the upper hand for once.
 
I just finished the game on legendary solo, now is it just me or the ai is completely screw up, there are a few area where the friendly ai is standing right next to the enemies and they don't react, and some friendly would stay behind cover forever. Not sure if its intentional, but I think the legendary mode is not fun and challenging like some other games.
 
Waiting for a performance patch before starting a legendary run solo.
Or if i cave in because if the achievements i will start doing a level a week or so.
I think Reach will be my first game where i will try to go 1000/1000 i mostly get 300+/1000 on my games in achievements.
 
FireFight can be very laggy :( We did some Versus, which is fun, but it was nearly unplayable using the DMR when we were doing 3v1. Hint: I think you can make ANY mode versus, just use the bumper to switch team. Brit, Xarthna, and Extropy were playing some Snipers last night and we accidently were all Covenant and all the Grunts were attacking us because we were betraying them. We killed hundreds of covey, but had 0 points :p
 
I played few solo missions on Legendary today & coming from 4 player co-op on Legendary it felt considerably easier....though this doesn't changes the fact that the enemies are cheap with their perfect accuracy & awareness, I also find it funny how the AI dodges your attacks....after close observation it becomes pretty clear that it follows a fixed pattern, so much so that I was able to make an elite do exactly what I wanted multiple times.
 
I'm thinking about Forging a BTB-style Firefight map. Something with vehicles and total chaos.

Edit:
As it turns out, this doesn't seem to be possible. :(
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I finished the game solo on Normal. Originally tried on Heroic, but couldn't get very far. Never tried a Halo game by myself on anything but Normal. So that should tell you I'm not that great. ;) But I've always had fun with it. Just playing for the story anyway. Anyway, it seemed real short to me. I finished it in 3 sittings of about 9hrs just looking at the length of the Forge films. Is there a better way to find out?
I think the lack of fighting the Flood made it seem easier & quicker because I always had difficulties on those missions.

The question I keep asking myself was it a better game than past Halo's? Technically? It goes without saying that it's better, but I'm not sure that it's leaps & bounds better. Halo 3 & ODST were great. So Reach didn't really need to pull off more than that for me. However, I think some of the frame rate drops in the cut scenes was a little jarring at first. But I think it was motion blur in the some of the gameplay that I had more of an issue with. Would be nice to have a toggle to turn it off.

As for the story? It's a prequel. You basically knew what had to happen. Plus, you weren't playing as the Chief. That in itself wasn't a bad thing since they did the same with ODST. I just think that maybe ODST pulled it off a little better. It was a mystery story that had a film noir feel to it. I believe it is seriously underrated. Even with that said it was a great story. But better than previous Halo's? I'm not sure about that. I'm still slightly confused about parts of it.
Especially the part of the Forerunner artifact and what Cortana had to do with it?

What was surprising or cool?
The space mission was lots of fun but was too simple & too easy. It really needed a radar system. It was somewhat confusing not knowing where the enemy was. Yes, a arrow/waypoint indicator would eventually show up but it is ill suited for the task.

Another surprising feature was the final mission.
There was no race to the finish using a warthog. I guess considering the fate of the planet there was no need for a triumphant ending level? So I guess it was fitting to have that last stand just before you die. I would have at least preferred them showing the Covenant glassing the planet.
As it was, it just didn't feel like a Halo ending.

Even with my gripes I think it is a great game. Maybe not 10/10 or 5/5 but at least 8.5 or 9 out of 10. The non-campaign parts necessitate at least that. There is so much you can do with the multiplayer, firefight & forge that I think it will be very hard for any game to ever beat the replay value. I can see people playing this twice as long as Halo 3. Though it does make me wonder how Microsoft will ever be able to continue the story or build a great game without Bungie. Bungie set the bar insanely high. But I'll still continue to keep up with the Halo universe just for the fact that I love Master Chief & Cortana and want to see what happens to them. Thanks for the ride Bungie!

Tommy McClain
 
On the credits, I noticed that Eric Nylund was credited.
He is probably my favorite author of the Halo Novels and should put to rest any inconsistency issues where Halo Reach fits into the Halo-verse.

I'm doing a run through on Legendary solo now that NRP has set the bar before I try it co-op.
Is it just me or your Spartan buddies extremely helpful at times and at the same time incredibly lame regarding assistance in the same mission.
 
NRP said:
So, use a plasma pistol against those elites! Overcharged plasma pistol + DMR/Magnum/Needle Rifle shot to the head takes them down pretty quickly, even on Legendary. Sounds like you charge in to the fight, which is reckless. Move from cover to cover methodically.
Click to expand...

Yea, the plasma pistol works well.

I do charge into the fight, but usually only at the end when i've taken out most of the enemies and am just mopping up. In previous Halo games you could take out a single Elite/Brute with no problem - not so easy in Reach, you have to keep your range unless you have a power weapon.

Also I played some 4 player splitscreen yesterday and noticed something quite alarming.
I was playing the cage and the LOD is extremely agressive - entire sections of map geometry would pop in as you ran around the map - and not far off sections either, I would see ramps, walls etc pop in a few metres away - which is something that no Halo game before has done in splitscreen.

Furthermore, player characters at a few metres away would turn into undetailed, grey blobs, much like characters in Gears at the start of matches when the world is still streaming in - except this would happen all the time in Reach.

I didn't notice this in Powerhouse and Reflection so maybe this is just limited to Forge World? If so I hope what I experienced was a glitch or something as it'd make custom Forge World maps problematic to play on.
 
Finished the campagin on Heroic. That was really fun.
the post credit part was a bit sad seeing how far you traveled with Noble 6 and knowng there is nothing you can do to escape.
The few complaints I have

- Not being able to play as Master Chief. For me, Master Chief and Cortana are Halo. Noble 6 is certainly better than the Rookie in ODST but MC is just a cool character and his interaction with Cortana keeps things interesting.

- The darker parts towards the end. Not story wise but actual dark part. One thing I really enjoy about Halo is the colors and outdoors with bright lights and such. Having to use the night vision is a bit meh for me.

- Checkpoints. Seemed quite random during extended battles.

- Friendly AI. The enemy AI is a thing of beauty. Absoutely fantastic. The friendly AI is quite the opposite.

For me, this was a great campagin and one I can't wait to revisit often. My first playthrough almost seems like a blur. So many different settings and battles, I can't even recall the sequences for them. Bungie really went out with a bang. Nice work guys.

I briefly read on Neogaf that Master Chief can be seen. Anyone know how and where?
 
RobertR1 said:
Finished the campagin on Heroic. That was really fun.
the post credit part was a bit sad seeing how far you traveled with Noble 6 and knowng there is nothing you can do to escape.
The few complaints I have

- Not being able to play as Master Chief. For me, Master Chief and Cortana are Halo. Noble 6 is certainly better than the Rookie in ODST but MC is just a cool character and his interaction with Cortana keeps things interesting.

- The darker parts towards the end. Not story wise but actual dark part. One thing I really enjoy about Halo is the colors and outdoors with bright lights and such. Having to use the night vision is a bit meh for me.

- Checkpoints. Seemed quite random during extended battles.

- Friendly AI. The enemy AI is a thing of beauty. Absoutely fantastic. The friendly AI is quite the opposite.

For me, this was a great campagin and one I can't wait to revisit often. My first playthrough almost seems like a blur. So many different settings and battles, I can't even recall the sequences for them. Bungie really went out with a bang. Nice work guys.

I briefly read on Neogaf that Master Chief can be seen. Anyone know how and where?
Click to expand...

You can see masterchief in the cutscene where keyes pelican is flying back into the pillar of autum but you have to hold your stick to right or the left not sure anymore.
 
Blast, am I the only one here that hasn't finished it yet? :p Haven't had enough darn time this weekend.

I think I'm only 1 or 2 missions from the end though. I'm on Pillar of Autumn,
it's fantastic seeing it in the distance in atmosphere.
Brings back memories of playing past Halos.

Graphics are fantastic. Especially when I compare them directly to Halo 3. And certainly holds it's own against the Gears series. Some of the larger battle set pieces are just fantastic.

Regards,
SB
 
joker454 said:
Ditto. Takes me forever to finish games nowadays.
Click to expand...

I am also many days...weeks...from being finished. Heroic Solo for me. I'm not fool enough (read: I have no skills) to even think about Legendary solo. Wife and I are playing Lara Croft co-op so that takes precedence over Reach.
 
I'm not much for single player Halo skills, but I'm going to attempt to do the Legendary Solo run when I'm not gaming with others. I'm already 1/10th of the way there. I finished the very last mission on Legendary Solo. :runaway:
 
Finished solo campaign on heroic. Difficulty just about right for my skill level. There were a few places where I felt somewhat overwhelmed because of the number of enemies, their aggression level, and not knowing attack direction or fall back points; but overall very satisfying. Sense of scale is much better than previous Halo's. Definitely felt part of a larger conflict which is something I never got in the previous ones even though you basically save all mankind. Graphics ranged from awesome to ok.

There definitely seemed to be a bigger learning curve for this than there was between the other games. Or at least that's my impression. Audio cues are different, as is the enemy pacing, weapon cadence, damage levels, etc. Once you get used to it though, it is hands down the most polished, best playing version yet. The sound absolutely rocks. It seemed like every weapon was actually useful, every enemy a potential threat, and every mission interesting. Compared to other games like Modern Warefare 2, it definitely doesn't have as nice of graphics or story telling, even though those are much improved, but the gameplay is spot on and the lack of entirely scripted set pieces and great AI yields more varied and interesting encounters. Anyway, my 2 cents.

Has anyone finished the game in Legendary with all skulls on? Is it possible?
 
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